Video Mondays: Kiki’s Delivery Service: What’s Your Gift

For whatever reason I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Kiki’s Delivery Service before, even though I apparently have it in my physical media collection. I’m not sure why I haven’t seen the film before. My best guess is that the others like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro are so iconic, that this one never attracted my attention (though as some point I must have planned to watch it, having bought the DVD). All that said, it’s a wonderful tale about a 13-year-old leaving home, as part of her family’s traditions, to spend a year away from home in order to grow up and become her own person.

Whereas those other films mentioned, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro, are set in Japan. This film, like Castle in the Sky or Howl’s Moving Castle, are decidedly European in their setting. It’s also interesting to try to place the period of fictional European history when this might take place. There’s a transistor radio, landline telephones, and tube TV sets. The cars seem to be from the 1940s, there are airplanes but they look like 1930s biplanes and a big deal is made about a huge helium filled dirigible, called the Spirit of Freedom. Oh yeah, and in this world there are witches who fly on brooms and have black cat familiars. So, there’s that.

I can’t imagine sending a 13-year-old girl out into the world on her own with no real support and things not going horribly wrong. But then I remember going to college as a completely naive 18-year-old, moving into the dorms, making friends and figuring stuff out and this story feels a little bit like that experience (Also, lord knows, any given 13-year-old girl is easily more mature than any given 18-year-old boy… just sayin’). I wouldn’t trade anything for the adventures and lessons learned during those first years away from home. This that story, only with a talking cat and not-evil witches flying on brooms. Enjoy.

[Movie viewed on 2025-05-18 at Cinemark Orleans]