Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo No Takkyubin) (1989)

Hayao Miyazaki is a wonder. His movie Spirited Away is a magical journey with brilliantly animated touchstones to the real world (even down to the way the little girl angles her feet into her shoes). Kiki's Delivery Service evinces much of that same magic in animation and storytelling. Our story begins as young Kiki (voiced by Kirsten Dunst) prepares to leave home and find her own fortune in another town. (Phil Hartman voices her black cat.) As a young witch-in-training in a world where magic and healing are matter-of-fact (though becoming rare in bigger cities), Kiki still has to learn to fly her broom better than clumsily and to discover her unique gift and destiny. She faces many choices and consequences as she seeks to find or establish her new life in her chosen city and for a while she seems to have lost her way. Ultimately, Kiki's story is about learning to trust in oneself -- to make whatever contribution one can and then to believe that it will be a blessing (as it were). Here is a fascinatingly animated story told as engagingly as only Miyazaki can tell it. My youngest son and I so far have become big fans of Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and now Ponyo. We plan to own them all as we work our way through Miyazaki's corpus. Enjoy! 5 stars.