Kiki's Delivery Service (G, 1998)

Kiki (voiced by Kirsten Dunst) follows family tradition and settles for a year in a foreign city to serve as resident witch. She makes friends, finds room and board, and uses her broom-flying ability to launch a delivery service. A boy her age, the aviation buff Tombo (Matthew Laurence), develops a crush on her. As she approaches puberty, Kiki begins to lose her powers. She strikes up a chance friendship with an older girl, the artist Ursula (Janeane Garofalo), who helps Kiki weather her loss of confidence. When a dirigible accident puts Tombo in danger, Kiki must summon up all of her powers to save her friend.

A huge box office hit in Japan, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE is the first film by celebrated animator Hayao Miyazaki to become available in the U.S.; it's part of a deal struck between Disney and Miyazaki's studio. Kiki is set in a large European metropolis (an amalgam of Stockholm and other cities) in a time period suggesting the 1950s. The attention to detail, particularly in the scenes of Kiki flying over the city streets, rivals that of many a bigger-budgeted Disney feature. Such detail provides important background as small-town girl Kiki gradually acclimates herself to this new, bewildering environment. The film also realistically treats Kiki's growing pains, as she copes with the twin problems of independence and peer group relations. This accounts, in part, for the film's enthusiastic reception by so many young viewers.

This English-dubbed version, released straight-to-video, benefits from well-cast celebrity voices, including Phil Hartman (as Kiki's wisecracking black cat Jiji) and Debbie Reynolds. The Disney version's only serious flaw is the replacement of the Japanese original's delightful opening and closing songs with new, less catchy English-language ones.