Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Intro

As many of you know, mentioning Disney and Anime together in the same sentence is usually one of the quickest ways to make me grumble in annoyance, especially if you are about to say something nice about Disney and the way they handle anime.

So when I placed this anime into my DVD player tonight, you can imagine that I wasn't exactly placing high hopes on being incredibly entertained‚ but here I am two hours later saying that I was dead wrong.

The Story

KiKi is a young witch of only 13, she's excited‚ she's bubbly‚ she's ready to take on the world and that's exactly what she's going to do! The tradition among witches is that on midnight of the night they turn 13, they are to leave their family and become entirely independent for one year so that they can start their training as a witch and that's exactly what she does.

Flying off into the unknown with only her black cat Jiji at her side, she finds a new home in a new city and opens up her own delivery business learning important life lessons along the way, the most important of which is to always believe in yourself.

The Good And The Bad

As I said earlier, I can't stand it when Disney releases anime because thus far none of the releases have been anything better than mediocre and it’s almost entirely Disney's fault (I will cut them some slack on Spirited Away which just wasn't a very good film). They are constantly changing lines, casting actors who know nothing about anime into roles that they shouldn't be in and just generally making a mockery of what would otherwise be a fantastic film by trying to cash in on it as much as they can without doing their homework.

Breaking from tradition in this film, Disney decided to not only leave the script mostly as is (I did notice some changes that were minor but nothing that is unforgivable) and cast some excellent (and some not so excellent) actors to play the roles.

The film itself was wonderful and there really isn't much that one could do it to it to take away from its magical story and beautiful animation work though. The story is a great one for both children and adults to share in and discuss afterwards. The themes are very clear throughout the entire movie, which I'm sure many parents will be pleased about.

I think the main thing that I would be concerned with is that this film is much more subdued than most things that are released in the United States. The humor in this film is much more subtle and there aren't too many obvious jokes which might make it hard for children who are used to having humor shoved down their throats and big flashy animation shined into their eyes but I think that if a child can be sucked into the story within the first couple of minutes, they'll love it all the way through.

Music

The music in this movie is wonderful but I have to say that the big winner for me was the English version of the closing theme sung by the incredibly talented (and yet someone I've never heard of before until now), Sydney Forest. If this woman ever decided to get a job singing anime songs for a living, she could definitely make it and I personally would love to see that happen as I can think of more than a couple of theme songs off the top of my head that her voice would be absolutely perfect for.

As with all Miyazaki films, most of the soundtrack is strong instrumental pieces that are heavy on the strings, which is always a welcome treat for me. I love to hear full orchestras and when a composer takes the time to focus on the beautiful string parts, I'm sold on the spot.

Dub vs. Sub

Both the dub and sub parts were excellent but just because it's Disney I have to say that adults will get the fullest effect from this film by watching it in it's subtitled format. If you are watching it with family, non-anime fans or young children however you'll want to stick with the dub format.

The dub track on this film was not terrible however and I have to say that there were two performances that stood out from minute one, all the way to the ending. First off would be the incredibly warm performance by the late great Phil Hartman as Jiji. Phil does a great job with this role and it's good to know that one of his last roles was one of such high quality.

The second performance that really stood out to me would be Janeane Garofolo as the painter Ursula who appears late in the film to help drive home the points that KiKi has been trying to learn from the beginning. Great job by two incredible talents that I have loved for years and to hear them in an anime of this caliber‚ practically orgasmic.

Extras

Surprisingly enough, Disney decided to skimp on the extras this time around which is shocking to me since they are usually very good about including lots of extras with their movies, especially their animated movies.

In this case though, Disney decided to just go with the ‘less is more’ idea and just give a couple of extras including another cut and paste introduction by John Lasseter, a behind the scenes interview with a couple of the voice actors, original trailers and a full storyboard showing of the film.

Overall

As if you couldn't tell by now, I really enjoyed this film but it wasn't perfect. It's a great film for children and a great film for adults but the less than perfect dub cast and lack of major extras were disappointing to me dropping the score down to a simple 85%, still worthy of four stars but it could've been more with just a bit more effort.

Related Reviews

Castle In The Sky
Spirited Away
Grave Of The Fireflies
The Cat Returns
Nausicaa Of The Valley of The Wind


©L.B. Bryant 2004


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8