Synopsis
Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便, 1989) is a Studio Ghibli animated fantasy directed by Hayao Miyazaki — watch it online on iFILM. By tradition, a young witch must spend a year living alone in a strange town. Thirteen-year-old Kiki arrives by broomstick with only her talking cat Jiji, lands in a coastal city she's never seen, and has to figure out the rest herself.
A kind baker named Osono gives her a room and a phone. Kiki starts an air delivery service — she can fly, so why not use it? Some jobs go smoothly; others end badly over the ocean. She meets a painter named Ursula who lives alone in the forest, gets tangled up with an aviation-obsessed boy called Tombo, and then one morning finds she can no longer hear Jiji speak. Miyazaki is less interested in magical spectacle than in the specific weight of being on your own for the first time.
The film is based on Eiko Kadono's 1985 novel. Minami Takayama voiced both Kiki and Ursula; Rei Sakuma gave Jiji his wry, cautious tone. Released on 29 July 1989, it became the highest-grossing Japanese film of that year. A 4K remaster came out in 2026, introducing it to another generation. Stream Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) online on iFILM.
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