In the August entry of GME! Anime Fun Time, Tom and I take an impromptu look at Kiki’s Delivery Service, a 1989 theatrical anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli. CLICK HERE or on the Bluray cover about to download our review of the film. Discussion includes topics such as depression, adolescence, and sentimentality. There’s also some bonus talk about Flying Witch, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, and why Yamcha is the worst character in Dragon Ball Z.
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To me, Kiki’s is an excelent slice-of-life/coming-of-age tale that all of us have gone through in our lives at one point or another. This is less about Kiki being a witch and more of her becoming a woman, being independent and paving her own road.
The non-antagonist angle in this film certainly helped to not have a finger to point at in times of depression in Kiki’s life. I rememeber Helen McCarthy once mentioned having showed Totoro to some school kids and asked who was the bad guy in the story, only to be impressed by one viewer’s comment that there wasn’t a need for one since the mother is going to die. In some way, it’s the atmosphere and settings that make a film like those of Miyazaki’s work more than the characters contained.