Animated by Studio Ghibli, the film stars Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi, and Keiko Toda.

The story follows Kiki (Takayama), a young witch who moves to the port city of Koriko with her cat Jiji (Sakuma) and starts a flying courier service.

In 1987, Group Fudosha asked Kadono's publishers for the rights to the novel to be made into a film by either Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata.

As the novel is based on a fictional northern European country, Miyazaki and his team traveled to locations such as Visby, Sweden, to research its landscape.

Kiki apologizes for missing the party, and Tombo takes her for a test ride on the flying machine he is working on, fashioned from a bicycle.

Ursula determines that Kiki's crisis is a form of artist's block, and then suggests to her to find a new purpose, so that she can regain her powers.

[6] After leaving her parents who are supportive of her independence, Kiki has to face problems common to adolescence such as finding a job, seeking acceptance, and taking care of herself.

Fukuo, however, steps outside simply to stretch his arms, and Kiki's bizarrely shy behavior "expresses [her] youth, vulnerability, and isolation.

For instance, Kiki observes the tradition of witches wearing dark-colored clothes, but adorns her hair with a bright red bow.

[10][page needed] Kiki also engages in other traditional methods, such as baking with a wood-burning stove and flying her mother's old broom.

[11][13] This hardship causes Kiki to realize that being vulnerable does not always lead to failure and can help her learn valuable lessons to better understand herself.

[14] Jiji had served as the wiser voice (imaginary companion) to Kiki, and she stopped being able to understand him the moment she struggles with self-doubt.

[23] Near the end of Totoro's production, members of Studio Ghibli were being recruited as senior staff for Kiki's Delivery Service.

Studio Ghibli hired Nobuyuki Isshiki as script writer, but Miyazaki was dissatisfied by the first draft, finding it dry and too divergent from his own vision of the film.

Instead, he had previously visited locations such as Visby and Stockholm while attempting to secure the rights for an animated adaptation of Pippi Longstocking.

[29] Majo no Takkyūbin, the original children's book by Kadono that the movie was based on, is very different from Miyazaki's finished film.

[30] Many of the more dramatic elements, such as Kiki getting attacked by many crows, losing her powers or the airship incident at the film's climax, are not present in the original story.

In order to more clearly illustrate the themes of struggling with independence and growing up in the film, Miyazaki intended to have Kiki face tougher challenges and create a more potent sense of loneliness.

[8] Miyazaki remarked, "As movies always create a more realistic feeling, Kiki will suffer stronger setbacks and loneliness than in the original".

[8] Kadono was unhappy with the changes made between the book and film, to the point that the project was in danger of being shelved at the screenplay stage.

[29] Kiki's Delivery Service was originally intended to be a 60-minute special, but expanded into a feature film running 102 minutes after Miyazaki completed storyboarding and scripting it.

[32] The word takkyūbin (宅急便, literally "home-fast-mail") in the Japanese title is a trademark of Yamato Transport (which stylized it in non-Japanese languages as TA-Q-BIN), though it is used today as a synonym for takuhaibin (宅配便, "home-delivery-mail").

Three months before the theatrical release of the movie, the image album for the film was published by Tokuma Shoten on Compact disc.

[35] For the 1997 Disney English dub, much of the soundtrack was retained except for "Message of Rouge" and "Wrapped in Kindness", which were the opening and ending themes of the original Japanese version.

[44] Streamline Pictures produced the first official English dub of Kiki's Delivery Service in November 1989 for Japan Airlines international flights.

[39] It premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 23, 1998, and was released on both VHS and LaserDisc by Buena Vista Home Video in September 1998.

The critics consensus reads, "Kiki's Delivery Service is a heartwarming, gorgeously-rendered tale of a young witch discovering her place in the world.

Mark Schilling of The Japan Times gave a positive review, praising the realism of Kiki's character, as well as citing various scenes that emphasized it,[9] and Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa also showed admiration for the film.

[63] A four-volume ani-manga book series using stills from the film was published in Japan by Tokuma Shoten between August and September 1989.

The first ran in Tokyo and Osaka from June 2017 to September 2017, and starred Moka Kamishirasi as Kiki and Aran Abe as Tombo.