It is so strange to see Kiki in more colorful clothes at the start of the movie. I completely forgot this was in the film.
Kiki meets another witch who seems like a snob but nevertheless takes time to answer her questions; she might be showing off and acting fancy, but she isn’t mean or rude. Jiji says the cat is stuck-up, but later he says the same thing about a different cat and learns otherwise.
I notice this other witch’s dress isn’t actually black.
With all the other times characters act like snobs, is Kiki guilty of this too, in her early treatment of Tombo?
Osono: the warmth and comfort of being welcomed by a stranger into her kitchen to share a hot drink—not as a daughter but also not quite as a friend, seen as still a child but able to make your own decisions, given extra kindness and understanding but not indulgence. Later Ursula the painter does much the same, though as less of a stranger by then.
A silent baker shamelessly showing off—for the cat.
An artist in the woods, independent and following her own path; and, we learn, she has previously had to break from her old practice of copying other painters.
This aged dog is an artistic ancestor of Heen in Howl’s Moving Castle.
Kiki, you need to say thank you to that dog.
Kiki tells Osono she can’t make deliveries now, and seems genuinely afraid she’ll be asked to leave the bakery attic. She ought to know Osono wouldn’t throw her out, but she is still thirteen years old, not as grown-up internally as she often seems.
Someone you care for is in mortal danger, and there is no hope for him but you, and yet the one special thing that makes you able to help is the thing that isn’t working at that moment.
A dirigible captain who knows his priorities: speak to the boy to give him instructions and reassurance, not to the crew, who know their jobs and signed on for this task knowing the risks.
“There are still times I feel sad . . .”
By the end of the movie, Kiki still doesn’t have a special skill or focus. She flies . . . which is the basic thing that all witches do. This always leaves me dissatisfied; but perhaps the point is her acceptance that right now, being able to fly on a broom (and talk to a cat) is enough.
Miyazaki elements: of course the flying machines, and flight in general; the need to find a balance between the old ways and the new ways; expressive faces as always; and a girl with grim determination as invisible power courses around her, making her hair rise up.
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There is no single trigger for Kiki’s crisis of confidence. We see her repeatedly regret the way she must dress while other girls get to look nice. She encounters the other witch who has a speciality, while she does not. She’s learned that the town has rules and habits that don’t make allowances for witches. Staring in boredom out a window, she looks up with interest at the sight of a young man, only to watch him leave with a cheerful young woman in a light-colored dress. We can imagine, though it’s never hinted at in anything she says, that Kiki second-guesses her decision to leave home before preparing herself better and maybe learning some of those potions her mother wanted to teach her. Possibly she asks herself if she gets along better with adults than people her own age because she’s old-fashioned and behind the times. She admits that she doesn’t find flying fun. She ends up wet and bedraggled face-to-face with a well-to-do birthday girl in her party dress, who treats Kiki like an unimportant laborer—treatment in keeping with being a deliveryperson. Then she gets upset that Tombo is friends with this girl.
It isn’t as simple as Kiki wanting to be like the birthday girl, though, because it seems clear Kiki considers her rude and ungrateful, someone who speaks dismissively of a good and thoughtful grandmother. Kiki may want what the richer girl has, but she wouldn’t want to be her. Is it possible to have it both ways, being fashionable and glamorous but at the same time pure in heart and respectful and kind? Does being the second mean she’ll never be the first?
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I imagine this conversation as Kiki returns the broom at the end of the movie:
Kiki (bowing): Thank you so much for letting me borrow this! Street sweeper: Oh, not at all! I’m glad it was useful! Kiki: It’s a good broom. Please continue to take good care of it. Street sweeper: Oh! Well, if you like it so much—you could have it! Kiki: Oh, no! I couldn’t! It belongs with you. It wouldn’t like to be given away. Street sweeper (looking with puzzlement at broom-head): Is that so . . . ?