Last time, Kiki made the terrible discovery that her waning self-confidence was causing her to lose her powers. Not only does this leave her unable to do her job, it puts the success of her year of training in jeopardy. The remainder of the film covers how Kiki regains her powers and her ability to believe in herself.
Kiki has found a place to live in her new town and figured out how she will use her witch’s powers to support herself. Now she has accepted her first job: delivering a toy cat to a young boy for his birthday. It’s her first chance to prove herself as a reliable resident witch, so she is eager to do a good job.
It doesn’t take long for Kiki to run into trouble. She once again finds herself at nature’s mercy when a strong wind blows her off course and into a tree where some very territorial crows have made their nests. Kiki and Jiji escape unscathed, but soon discover that they toy cat fell out of the birdcage during the scuffle. The crows are still far too upset for Kiki to fly down and search for the missing toy. But Kiki promised that the toy would be delivered by tonight. It is her first job and doesn’t want to disappoint her customer. So Kiki comes up with a plan that will by her some time to search the forest on foot without being late with her delivery.
Kiki’s Delivery Service is the movie that made me fall in love with the films of Hayao Miyazaki. I had seen My Neighbor Totoro before and appreciated its beauty and creativity, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t click with me. It wasn’t until I sat down with a VHS copy of Kiki, a birthday present from my friend Jon, that I realized that Miyazaki’s movies were something I wanted to keep an eye on. By the time Princess Mononoke came out in U.S. theaters, I was completely hooked.
Like all the best fantasies, Miyazaki’s movies show audiences wonders unlike anything they have seen before, but ground their stories in the universal human experience. On its surface, Kiki is the story of a thirteen-year-old witch who journeys to a new town to train for a year. But at its core, Kiki is about a girl leaving home for the first time and learning to rely on herself.
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