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Kiki’s Delivery Service
One of the most unique, enchanting, and surreal animated films Vera and I have seen is Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. We were both blown away by this movie, and decided we should quickly work to acquaint ourselves with Miyazaki's other movies. Fortunately, most of them have gotten a decent treatment recently and have been released here in the U.S. on DVD over the last couple of years.
Princess Mononoke is an obvious next choice (I have seen it, Vera hasn't), but Kiki's Delivery Service showed up first, so this was our second shared taste of Miyazaki.
Going into the movie, we had little idea of what it was about. Certainly, even though the main character is a witch, it was a far more straightforward and less surreal experience than his more recent films. As a general coming-of-age story, it definitely succeeded, but I came away with a feeling like it was all just a bit too light and inconsequential.
As usual, the animation and the world it describes are extremely well done and rich in texture. At the risk of horrifying purists, I will admit that we watched the recently dubbed English version rather than dealing with subtitles (animation and Jackie Chan films are two cases where dubbing doesn't bother me :-) Overall, I have to give Disney credit (or is it Pixar who's really responsible?) for doing a decent job with voice talent and dubbing of the Miyazaki films I've seen so far.
In the end, the story was light, but the world was rich in detail and the animation top notch. Not a bad film by any means, but certainly not as impressive as his later movies. 3/4 stars.