The message of ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ remains poignant 35 years later
Recently, on a flight from New York to Seattle, I decided to rewatch Kiki’s Delivery Service for the first time since I was a kid. Growing up it was one of my favorite Ghibli films (after Spirited Away).
I remember my dad renting the VHS (I know) from Blockbuster (I know) and making a copy of it for me. I then proceeded to watch that copy over and over throughout my childhood. It was my gateway to Studio Ghibli and, unbeknownst to me at the time, what would ultimately become a staple in my psyche well into adulthood.
Kiki’s Delivery Service follows Kiki, a newly-thirteen-year-old witch who sets off on her own. It’s something all young witches need to do, and Kiki has been looking forward to it. However, once she moves out and finds a job at a bakery, she’s hit with reality, and the veneer of her idealized adolescence rubs away.
It never really hit me hard until I got older. At its core, Kiki is a movie about growing up. She moves away and learns to live on her own. She deals with the tedious mundanity of real life and how to find joy in it even when it appears like there is none. Like most of us, she didn’t realize just how much freedom you lose once you obtain freedom.
Magic (creativity) as identity
I’ve been a creative person my whole life. It has ebbed and flowed in various ways throughout the years. When I was younger, I saw Kiki as a sort of coming-of-age movie, which it is, but I was missing out on a key aspect of it. When she begins to lose her magic, the idea of it frightened me, but I could never quite put my finger on why. Now I know: It is the idea of losing something so incredibly integral to your identity and not knowing what to do in order to get it back.
Like Kiki, I’ve been there. I’ve moved far away from my family, become bogged down with simply the ordeal of staying alive, and ultimately have succumbed to an artist’s block similar to hers. When you’re a kid, it’s so easy to believe that you’ll be able to follow your passions in life. I’ve been writing since I was in kindergarten; I have genuinely never known myself as anything other than a writer. But it’s once you start losing that fun that your creativity suffers.
Kiki begins to lose her magic, and with it her ability to fly and understand her cat, Jiji. According to Miyazaki, Jiji represents Kiki’s immature side, and the maturity she is able to find once she loses her ability to communicate to him. Without her ability to communicate she becomes lonely and depressed.
As I rewatched the film on that flight, I was reminded, like a punch in the chest, of just why I loved it so dearly as a kid, and why the joy of this film has never left me. In a lot of ways, I feel like the themes of it shaped me into who I am today. There are certain scenes that have stuck with me. There are moments that I still think about. I found myself tearing up during scenes I never had before because I now had context to place them in. Like all Ghibli films, it has a lot of heart, the kind you appreciate more as life goes on.
Utilizing your creativity
When Kiki loses the stuffed cat she was supposed to be delivering, she meets Ursula in the woods. They become friends, and, as Kiki continues to struggle, Ursula is the one to tell her that her artist’s block is why she is having issues using her magic. Back at Ursula’s cabin, she shows Kiki the painting she made that was inspired by Kiki’s flying.
That painting still fascinates me. The visual of it, combined with the score, touched something in me that is still resonating to this day. It’s ethereal and beautiful. All artists have struggled with a block at some point. It’s inevitable. Being told you inspired somebody, and seeing the result of it? Nothing compares to that feeling.
Later, when they’re talking, Kiki tells Ursula that she’s worried she’ll never fly again. Ursula tells her “Then stop trying. Take long walks. Look at the scenery. Doze off at noon. Don’t even think about flying. And then, pretty soon, you’ll be flying again.” It made me pause as a kid, and it makes me take a big breath now.
It is advice that any creative has been given. When you start to worry about your craft, when you start to overthink it and stop enjoying it, is when you lose your magic. Kiki began worrying about not being appreciated for what she does, and I began worrying I’d never be good enough. As I grew up, inevitably I lost some of my magic when it came to writing. And, like Kiki, I’ve had to find my way back to it again and again.
Kiki had begun to care less about having fun and more about how she was perceived and if her contributions mattered enough. That is one of the hardest things to struggle with. We all want to mean something, and that’s okay, but once you lose sight of why you loved it to begin with, you need to reevaluate. It took time, but Kiki figured out where she needed to be. She also realized that it’s okay to lean on friends when you need help, even when it’s scary. Nobody is ever alone, and nobody needs to be alone.
I still have my struggles, but I like to think that I’ve made it this far. I’m writing about things that I love. But I’m also still finding ways to keep the joy alive in it, because, to me, that’s what living your passion is about. Kiki learned to break away from tradition and be her own witch, and it’s taught me that I have the ability to do the same.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
