Kiki - Entregas a Domicilio (Kiki's Delivery Service) [NTSC/Region 1 and 4 dvd. Import - Latin America] by Hayao Miyazaki (Spanish subtitles)

As a fan of animation, "Kiki's Delivery Service" came highly recommended. In general, I have come to appreciate and love many Studio Ghibli films and so giving this one a go was not a difficult decision. Because of what many reviewers wrote on Amazon and elsewhere, I was expecting (at it's base) another "believe in your heart" kind of tales. However, what actually transpires in the film is completely not that. What I got was a magical adventure about courageous entrepreneurship, kindness, and the artist's journey.CONTENT ISSUES:As with most (if not all) Ghibli films, there's nothing to worry about. No expletives, no sexual content...totally family friendly.ABOUT THE FILM:Plot =The film's plot is rather basic...and true to fashion of a lot of Ghibli films, it is the journey and not the destination that matters. Basically, the young witch in training, Kiki, has finally hit the age of 13. As is custom and tradition for witches, they have to leave their homes and depart for various cities for the duration of a year to train in their craft. The whole film proceeds to capture Kiki's day to day activities in her new life as she makes friends, find ways to survive, and discover what it is she is good at. You see, unlike other witches, she has interests, but no specific plan. The film sounds pretty boring, but the character interactions are gold and what makes an otherwise boring premise work. You see her ups and downs and variations in emotions as she tries to make sense of the world.Themes:Many themes are explored in the film, this is what struck me most. Though many reviewers have said it is a "believe in your heart" film...I found that to be rather inaccurate. Besides the one line where her Mom gives her parting advice to listen to her heart, this theme makes no other direct appearances. Rather, what I witnessed was what I call "The Artist's Journey". You see, an artist, whether they be a musician, craftsman, engineer...or witch, often start in their particular craft simply because they find great joy and expression in what they do. In striving to improve, many start to try to turn these artistic machinations into a job...after all, what's more enjoyable than being able to live off of what you love to do? However, many artists will eventually fall in to a rut...and then this is the fork in the road: will you let your art drop to the wayside...or will you dig deeper and find an enduring reason/purpose for your art. You see, doing something purely for enjoyment in of itself doesn't last a lifetime since enjoyment can easily fade. And it is these theme and idea that is largely explored through the experience of Kiki. One that I, as a musician, can appreciate and captivated me.EXTRAS:This is a 2 DVD set. The first DVD houses the movie as well as an introduction by John Lasseter. However, the 2nd DVD is the one stocked with tons of informative mini documentaries and interviews. It is divided into 2 basic sets of extras: the "Behind Studio Ghibli" set of mini-docs and the "Enter the Ghibli World" interactive activities extras. Personally, I loved the Studio Ghibli Mini-docs which covered a wide range of topics from the film scoring, to Miyazaki's planning, to even the English voice actor interviews. The "Ghibli World" set is cute, but I did not find them as valuable though it does have a wide variety of activities. Oh, and in addition to those two main sets, there's also the original Japanese storyboard which is displayed alongside the movie audio (in realtime) so you can witness the movie through another perspective.All in All:This is a solid film with a very valuable theme worth contemplating...particularly for the artistic folks. The character interactions make the film...but it can feel slow and not as captivating for some. Still, it's a masterwork and any animation enthusiast needs to see this film at least once in their lifetime.

I read the reviews before purchasing. My sister gifted me a Studio Ghibli set as an adult. Some of these movies would play at times, but they were always touchy. I don’t think they were formatted for US dvd/blue-ray system. When it wouldn’t play Kiki’s Delivery Service anymore, I knew I would have to purchase another format I could rely on.I didn’t realize there were two versions. I read the reviews. I knew the music in the set I had was not in English, so I assume it is the newer version.. However, I was interested in the older version because they stated characters were missing in the newer version, the ending was different, and Gigi’s lines were different.I watched both versions close together to compare.-Both movies had the same characters and endings. In the older version (on the left in the picture), Gigi’s meow sounded sarcastic, like he was pretending to talk like a cat still, but he never said actual words again in either movie. I wish he had said something at the end of both movies.-Some of Gigi’s lines were missing in the newer version (on the right in the picture), but this did not change the plot or his character at all. In fact, I kind of thought he talked a lot in the older version. When watching the newer version, I did miss his commentary when he was hitting on the white cat, but then again, I wouldn’t want my little boy to think this was an appropriate way to talk to someone.-When Kiki went with her artist friend, they hitch hiked. I like the scene in the older version better. In the older version, the driver of the first car yells at them to get out of the road. I felt like this made it clearer that the driver was being rude, and made the artist’s comment more necessary. The driver did not say anything in the newer version.-I really enjoyed the music in English. I agree with the other reviews on that, which is why I am keeping the older version. I don’t think you will want to keep both versions. They are practically the same in my opinion.

This is one of my daughter’s (and my wife’s and mine also if I’m honest) favourite Ghibli movies. It’s classic Ghibli at their very best and follows a young witch’s rite of passage as she tries to find a place for herself in a bustling city all alone. Along the way she meets a host of people, touching each of their lives with a magic that has nothing to do with cauldrons and broomsticks. We’re so happy our daughter loves the movie as it portrays women in such a strong and positive light and has a real wonder and magic about it. Unusually it is also relatively low stakes with no fate-of-the-kingdom on the line here - just a young witch making her way. The animation is beautiful in the very best Miyazaki style with detailed and gorgeous hand-painted backgrounds through which the characters move.So, why only 2 stars? Well, I’m not just reviewing the film but also the product and this blu-ray was a massive let-down. As with other Ghibli films purchased, the re-mastered HD visuals do not disappoint with a crisp picture showing the art in all it’s detail - our initial response, after so long with the DVD was a chorus of ‘wow’s. But then we noticed the audio issues. These are two-fold: first, the voice acting (Kirsten Dunst as Kiki is amazing) is ruined in this production with a constant distortion of the voices making them sound muffled and tinny - apparently this is something to do with speeding up the audio to fit with the remastered video (which is nonsense as there are guides online for people to pair up these amazing visuals with audio from the old DVD version). Also some questionable stylistic choices have been made to remove key dialogue from the original dub and swap out some of the songs. Honestly, we just went back to watching the old DVD - the audio is so badly mangled it became painful to watch and I worry this will stop many people from enjoying this film as they should.Hopefully this will get fixed one day. Until then - please buy the DVD on my recommendation, it’s rather sadly the better format in this case.

A young witch,who has to learn to live on herself after becoming of a certain age,twelve,i guess,decides to start a flying delivery service,with wich she becomes quite popular,that is until for some unkown reason her magic abilities wich allow her to fly on a broomstick seem suddenly to fade away.She luckily regains them in what you might call a happy ending,like we are mostly used from movies from Miyazaki[Exept the very sad,realistic story "Grave of theFireflies,in wich a very young,cute girl, sister of a boy,both Japanese War-orphans,struggling to survive during WWII ,abandoned by everyone they knew eventually dies of food insuffiency,wich is quite a sad ending.]

I had this film in a collection, lent it out and never got it back. Eventually I ordered this Blu-ray version as a replacement. It's a little on the pricey side, but I'm glad I got it. It will be watched time and time again.

Wonderful, what is not too like? Bought this for my four year old daughter who absolutely loves it, more so even than Frozen :) A lovely tale of a young witch (Kiki) who embarks in some training away from home and decides to set up a delivery service with a local bakery. Touching on the issues of starting a new life, making new friends and starting out in life, something we have all been through. I especially love her little black cat Jiji who is full of sarcasm and humour. There is no spirit world, dragons or waring armies in this film, but is just a warm story, spot on family entertainment

I agree with those who say the version with Phil Hartman is the best, after recently watching the 2010 version on TV, was very happy to obtain this recent purchase of the original Disney version I remember so fondly, I know this is suppose to be a child's film but I love it all the same - as for the 2010 film - a pale version of this original!