Japanese Anime - Wed 10 September 2008

From 10:05 pm this Wednesday, 10 September 2008, SBS is screening Miyazaki Hayao’s anime Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Kiki, a young witch, has turned 13, and according to the ancient tradition she must leave home to find her own place in the world. She flies her broom to a coastal town where she finds a room above a local bakery, run by Mrs Osono, and sets up a delivery service. Despite a few misadventures, Kiki is doing fine until one day she discovers that her powers have disappeared – she cannot fly her broomstick and she can no longer communicate with her cat Jiji. Ursula, a painter Kiki has met on one of her delivery runs, explains artist’s block and how something similar may have affected Kiki.

This is the fifth Studio Ghibli anime film, produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 1989. 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 movie won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989. The movie 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.

Dubbed in English. Several towns in Australia are said to have provided the inspiration for the setting!