Majo no Takkyūbin (1989)

: Hayao Miyazaki : Hayao Miyazaki, Toru Hara : Minami Takayama (Kiki & Ursula), Rei Sakuma (Jiji), Kappei Yamaguchi (Tombo)... (魔女の宅急便, translated "Witch's Delivery Service") is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and the fifth Studio Ghibli anime film. It was the fourth theatrically released film from the studio, and was also the second feature film that Miyazaki directed but did not originally write himself. The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989. is based on Eiko Kadono's novel of the same name, which is the first in a series originally published by Fukuinkan Shoten in 1985. The film adaptation includes only some of the episodes in the book; it ends at the end of summer while the book covers an entire calendar year. The movie depicts the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in the hopes and spirit of ordinary Japanese teenage girls. Kiki - a 13-year-old girl, meets the world head on as she spends her first year soloing as an apprentice witch. Kiki is still a little green and plenty headstrong, but also resourceful, imaginative, and determined. With her trusty wisp of a cat Jiji by her side she's ready to take on the world, or at least the quaintly European seaside village she's chosen as her new home. Miyazaki's gentle rhythm and meandering narrative capture the easy pulse of real life (even if his subject is a girl flying high upon a broomstick) and charts the everyday struggles and growing pains of his plucky heroine with sensitivity and understanding. Beautifully detailed animation and the rich designs of the picture-postcard seaside town of red-tiled roofs and cobblestone streets only add to the sense of wonder. This charming animated fantasy is a wholesome, life-affirming picture that doesn't speak down to kids or up to adults.