Toon Zone Talkback - "Kiki's Delivery Service": It Must Be Witchcraft

[beckyf09]

Man, I'm not sure how I feel about the Japanese songs coming back. That sounRAB great, but I remeraber the movie with the English songs in it. I vividly remeraber the one at the end. I'm rather worried I'll miss it; it's too bad they didn't stay as extras or something.

Anyhow, Kiki is like a ray of sunshine. It's simple but not mundane, it's a warm, comforting thing that you'll want to soak in. It's a nearly perfect slice-of-life title. It reigns as all-ages family entertainment, certainly.

It's been too long since I've seen it, I just remeraber being wowed by it on TV way back (this is waaaay back, before I had really discovered anime). I'm pretty much with Larry on this one, though Ponyo is admittedly better if you want a visual spectacle.

Gah. I need to hurry and watch Totoro.

[Pooja P]

I'm a bit surprised that Disney made these changes to the dub for the new release. The dialog edit of Jiji was a good decision, IMO.

Kind of strange that they would just drop the Sidney Forest songs completely. Maybe it had something to do with rights? I can't complain though. The Japanese songs are just as good.

[chopper]

Kiki was actually the first Ghibli property I ever saw. Yes, even before Mononoke or Spirited Away, which seems to be most people's gateways.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. The laid-back, slice-of-life, almost episodic nature was different than I had seen from most animated movies, yet it didn't feel boring because of this. And the European-style towns and music really pulls you into its world. I also liked the themes of growing up and confidence in one's abilities, and what that meant to Kiki as a witch.

Oh and speaking of witches, what a refreshing change of pace that it actually looked at witches in a positive light. Probably why I took to Karin's positive look at vampires, too.

[webhush]

I first heard of the movie during the previews at the beginning of the videotape for "The Spirit of Mickey", which was released on my birthday in 1998 and was given to me as a gift. I never saw either version of the entire movie until 2007, when WGN-TV's national feed had the English-language version on an early Sunday morning. I thought the movie had nice artwork and decided to stay tuned. After the move ended, the word "nice" would always come to mind when thinking about this movie.

Later in the day, WGN-TV re-aired the movie on the national feed and I had my VHS tape ready to record. I got to see the entire movie this time, but unfortunately the credits were squeezed for program promotions. I later recorded the movie again one early Sunday morning on the same VHS tape and on the same TV channel. I wouldn't mind recording it once more if Turner Classic Movies airs it free of TV ratings, logos on the picture, and commercial breaks.

I found nothing wrong about the movie and I don't want to compare it to any other movie associated with its director. I did not mind the choice of music or lines added to the English version, even after learning no such things existed in the original version. For folks who first knew and loved the movie after seeing the English version from 1998 on VHS tape, the DVD released in 2003, or on TV, it would have been great to keep that version on the newer DVD in addition to the original version, which I'm interested in seeing someday.

If someone were to ask what my favorite movies are, my answer would include this one along with "The Sword in the Stone" and "Paulie", as I always feel positive after seeing these movies. It's interesting that all three movies feature intelligent talking non-anthropomorphic animals and I'm not one who speaks very much and two of the movies ("Paulie" and "Kiki's Delivery Service", the version from 1998) have endings that are encouraging to quiet folks like me.

[try to be]

Watched Kiki yesterday...have to say, I still think its one of the funnest myazaki movies, is it the best, well no...but its a really good film IMPO, the artwork & backgrounRAB are amazing and the voices in both English & Japanese are spot on IMPO.

I will ask this though...did anyone else have problems, with the audio on the Kiki DVD...there were spots in the english dub Where Kiki's voice sounded a little to digitized. but then again, that may just have been a problem with my TV or DVD player, not the DVD itself. but yea, just wondering.

but yea, its a fun movie, great art & an overall enjoyable experience.

[te quiero woo woo]

I may just pick up this new release, because it seems that unlike the older DVD you can switch languages and subs on the fly. My player often had problems getting the "literal subtitles" to come on with the older disc when selecting it from the menu, due to the weird authoring on that release.

Wish that Disney could have done a new subtitle translation though. Kiki isn't drinking hot cocoa in the Japanese version.

[daisy3]

Kiki was the first Miyazaki film. It must have been on either Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel, but I can't remeraber which one or when. I kind of agree with the review. Compared to his other movies, Kiki would be mediocre, but it's still a good movie at the same time. It's more along the lines of being a slice-of-life/family movie, instead of something like Mononoke.

Even though I haven't watched it in ages, I remeraber feeling that it was an enjoyable film. The artwork, especially for the background, was great and most of the characters were interesting to me. In all honesty, I thought that Kiki did a better job with making average day kind of events more interesting than the majority of Totoro did.

I didn't know that they gave Jiji that line at the end of the movie though. While I understand that it does show that Kiki was growing up and thus lost some of the magic of being a kid, I would have been sad if she couldn't talk to Jiji after getting her powers back. It probably also helps that I thought that not hearing Jiji was also connected to her powers or that was just never explained to me clearly enough. Still, it's a nice movie to just relax to.

[susy_04_u]

I don't remeraber the Cartoon Network ever airing the movie, but it once appeared on Toon Disney.

[Jeff N]

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I just got the Ponyo DVD and I can't switch audio on the fly. I would not be surprised if this is true of this new edition of Kiki too.

[thetazeta610]

Kiki's Delivery Service wasn't my first exposure to Miyazaki, an honor which belongs to Totoro's dub. Kiki may not have even been the second, a spot that I believe goes to Princess Mononoke. Whether Kiki was the second or third Miyazaki film I encountered, it became the standard I've judged everything else against. I think of it as Miyazaki distilled.

As much as anyone might appreciate complex entertainment, there's something to be said for well-crafted simplicity. If you compare Miyazaki's other works to grand, innovative orchestrations, then Kiki is something like a lullaby. It is refined down to a brief melody which is then repeated with subtle, intuitive variation. That's all it neeRAB to be.

--Romey