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Kiki's Delivery Service is an allegorical tale of the joys and sadness of puberty told via a young witch's coming of age. Just the idea alone is intriguing: young witches have to learn about human existence by spending time with humans and living under their conditions. Its execution in the film is multi-faceted, soulful, and never melodramatic.
Miyazaki's penchant for flight and levitation are here symbolically fused with the character of Kiki as she rises above depressing situations and thereby learns as much about her own verve as she does of human foibles. Another Miyazaki trait surfaces in Kiki: fused settings and polyglottic production design. The town she arrives at is a meld of Napoli, Lisbon, Paris, San Francisco and Stockholm. Japanese pop culture consistently privileges the imagined over the authenticated, and Kiki will certainly confound those who seek clear references to where and when the story is set.
Of course, the setting is ultimately fantastic - but the characterisation of Kiki and the people she meets is grounded, rich and believable. Clearly Miyazaki believes in the totality of Kiki without passing judgement, making Kiki a children's film devoid of the neurotic, moralising tone that has smothered Anglo children's fiction since the 70s.