There isn’t a whole lot to say about Kiki’s Delivery Service because there isn’t much to the movie. I seriously thought about skipping the write-up this time, but I feel sort of obligated when the DVD was loaned to me by one of my gentle readers. So here goes.

The premise focuses on Kiki, a young witch who sets out into the world to seek her fortune. After finding a place to stay in some suspiciously unnamed town, she uses her flying broomstick to start up a delivery service. That’s basically it. No, really. A few things happen here and there, but the plot would be non-existent if it was any lighter.

It’s obvious early on that this movie was designed for a very, very young audience. Not only is the film cutesy to an overwhelmingly kawaii degree, but any conflicts or crises are very superficial and easily solved. As an example, there’s a point in the film when Kiki misplaces a toy that she was working to deliver. This would be an extraordinary problem to solve, and it would mean that Kiki would have to take a great deal of responsibility for the mistake if it was found out. Luckily, the toy just happens to look exactly like Kiki’s pet cat, so the cat grudgingly agrees to act as a substitute. Meanwhile, there’s a character on hand to help retrieve the toy for absolutely no reason, and a dog that helps make the switch for reasons that are every bit as unknown.

The whole movie is like that. She misses an appointment to meet a friend, but everyone forgives her for it. She gets a cold, and gets better almost immediately. Even when Kiki loses her powers, the solution is a very quick and simple matter. But then the film climaxes with a gigantic blimp crashing into the town. And by that point, it was far too late.

Putting such a monumental catastrophe at the end of such a harmless little movie was writing a check that the filmmakers couldn’t possibly hope to cash. Yes, Kiki ends up saving her friend, but what about the casualties? What about the property damage? What about the dangerous and time-intensive process of clearing out the blimp’s wreckage? Well, of course the film isn’t going to address all of that. Kiki saves the boy, everyone cheers for her, and the burning dirigible wreck is immediately forgotten. Yay.

Anyway, at least the film offers all the great things that we’ve come to expect from Hayao Miyazaki. The artwork and animation are gorgeous, the characters are all very lovable, and of course the environmental theme is… nonexistent?! Really? Well, there’s a twist. Yes, even though there are some beautiful shots of nature and a lot of care taken into depicting animals, Miyazaki’s standard environmental theme is so subtle that you’d need a microscope and a lot of impressive mental gymnastics to see it.

Instead, the movie’s theme is one of self-esteem, optimism, believing in one’s self, etc. Totally cliched stuff that I’ve heard in a million kids’ movies and TV shows, but at least it’s harmless enough. It also helps that Kiki herself isn’t really a bad protagonist.

Even though the screenwriters make things far too easy for our heroine, it’s obvious that Kiki has a very hard work ethic. She’s constantly trying to prove herself and to work her way up in the world entirely through honest means. I imagine that at least part of her drive to succeed comes from the constant feeling like she’s an oddball. And she is. She’s the only witch in a town full of humans, totally separated from her old friends and family (except of course for Jiji, her black cat sidekick). Though of course, Kiki also worries constantly about what she’s wearing and what other people will think of it. *facepalm*

The movie’s approach to witches is something that bugged me through the entire movie. It seems that the existence of witches is a proven and accepted fact in this movie’s world, yet the film’s approach to this is often very inconsistent. Some characters are afraid of her, and some aren’t. Some recognize her immediately as a witch, others take a while, and others don’t seem to ever catch on.

Then again, the delayed reaction might be understandable due to the fact that Kiki isn’t much of a witch at all. She can talk with her cat and she can fly, but those are really the only powers she has. In fact, her parents don’t show much in the way of magical ability either, except for the ability to make color-changing potions. It’s tempting to ask just how the movie’s world got to this point and how magic works in this movie, but I suppose that would be putting in more effort than the filmmakers did.

The voice cast is serviceable throughout (I’m referring to the English dub, natch), though the highlights are definitely a young Kirsten Dunst as Kiki and Phil Hartman as Jiji. I wouldn’t have thought that Hartman’s voice would have worked coming out of a cat, but rest his soul, he made it work. My only complaint about the character is that the scale on him was way off. Next to the other characters, he looks way too small, barely much larger than a kitten.

All told, Kiki’s Delivery Service is kid-oriented to an extreme degree. The animation looks pretty and the characters are all cute, but the plot is extremely simple. Miyazaki even went so far as to sacrifice his environmental agenda, just to make the story that much simpler. Still, the movie isn’t really bad so much as it’s just cliched and made for a less demanding audience. It’s definitely not the best kids’ movie I’ve seen, but it’s still much better than the pointless what-the-fuckery of Ponyo.