Kiki's Delivery Service

魔女の宅急便 (1989)

Timing: 1:43 (103 min)

7.8/10
4516

8.144/10
151663

7.8/10
186000

All about film

Video 15

Photo 163

Actors and characters

Release date

1989-07-29

Country

Japan

Production

Studio Ghibli, Nippon Television Network Corporation, Nibariki, Tokuma Shoten, Studio Fuga

Genre

Animation, Family, Fantasy, Adventure, Drama

Budget

$6 900 000

Revenue

$4 493 017

Website

https://gkids.com/films/kikis-delivery-service

Director

Hayao Miyazaki

Actors

Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi, Keiko Toda, Mieko Nobusawa, Koichi Miura, Haruko Katō, Hiroko Seki, Yuriko Fuchizaki, Koichi Yamadera
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, Eiko Tanaka, Yasuyoshi Tokuma, Morihisa Takagi, Mikihiko Tsuzuki, Tooru Hara

Operator

Juro Sugimura

Composer

Joe Hisaishi

Artist

Audition

Editing

Takeshi Seyama
All team (80)

• Eiko Kadono's book is a collection of separate stories about Kiki's adventures. When Hayao Miyazaki made significant changes to the plot to create a cohesive and consistent screenplay, Kadono became angry and refused to allow a film adaptation. She had to be persuaded for a long time.
• Initially, the film was planned to be 60 minutes long.
• The name of Osono's bakery, “Guchokipanya,” is a play on words consisting of two parts: “guchokipa,” the famous rock-paper-scissors game, and “pan’ya,” meaning bakery.
• While working on the film, Hayao Miyazaki and his artists traveled to Sweden to thoroughly research the landscapes for the film. The photographs they took in Stockholm and Visby form the main background of the fictional city of Koriko. The city also contains elements of Lisbon, Paris, San Francisco, and Milan.
• When Kiki first arrives in the city, she crashes into a bus with the inscription Studio Ghibli.
• Ursula's painting is called “The Ship Sailing Over the Rainbow” and was mostly drawn by students from a school for children with intellectual disabilities.
• This cartoon used 462 colors.
• In the Spanish version of the cartoon, Kiki was renamed Niki, and accordingly, the cartoon was titled: “Nicky la aprendiz de bruja,” which means “Niki – the young witch apprentice.” This was justified by the fact that the word “kiki” in the local slang means “quick sex.”
• The creation of this film used 67,317 hand-drawn frames.
• The idea for the book was inspired by an epiphany of the founder of the Yamato Transport transport company, who once created a corporate logo with a cat and black kitten, and the advertising slogan “Yamato’s Black Cat Witch Delivery Service.” Yamato Transport sponsored the production of the film.
• In the Japanese version, after a series of events, Jiji permanently loses the ability to communicate with Kiki, while in one of the English dubs at the very end of the film, it can be understood that the cat and Kiki have begun to understand each other again.
• The bakery 'Guchokipanya's' name is a play on words consisting of two parts: 'guchokipa' – the famous rock-paper-scissors game, and 'pan’ya' – bakery.
• In the Spanish version of the cartoon, Kiki was renamed Niki, and accordingly, the cartoon was titled: 'Nicky la aprendiz de bruja,' which means 'Niki – the young witch apprentice.' This was justified by the fact that the word 'kiki' in the local slang means 'quick sex.'
• The idea for the book was inspired by the insight of Yamato Unyu, the founder of the Yamato Transport company, who created a corporate logo with a cat and black kitten and the advertising slogan 'The Witch's Black Cat Delivery Service.' Yamato Transport sponsored the film's production.