Kiki's Delivery Service Book vs. Movie

 

Well, did you know this movie is based off a book by Eiko Kadono?

Or have you ever read the book after watching the movie version?

The book follows the similar premise of a 13 year old witch named Kiki who comes from a long line of witches. She also leaves on a full moon night with her talking black cat Jiji to a city by the sea, stays with a baker named Osono and her husband, and also runs a delivery service. 

Other similarities include Kiki meeting an aviation-loving boy named Tombo, becoming friends with an artist lady who lives in the woods, making a delivery for an elderly woman, and becoming popular in her community. 

The similarities end there. There are many things the book has that were not in the movie, or were changed for the movie. 

For one, book Kiki has waaay more deliveries. There is one delivery at least every chapter after she arrives in the city. Some smaller ones are not even explained in great detail. In the movie, I think she only had 3 or 4 deliveries? Sometimes in the book people ask her to do tasks other than delivering items. Due to this, Kiki meets way more characters in the book than in the movie. 

There are also other changes they make with characters in both versions. Osono gives birth to her baby girl a little after she meets Kiki. Tombo and Kiki meet differently, and Kiki initially gets annoyed with him for a different reason. However, they do become friends pretty quickly, compared to the movie. Ursula (the artist lady, she goes unnamed in the book but the movie named her Ursula) has a much smaller role in the story. 

Kiki also experiences different events that she didn't do in the movie. In the book, she goes to the beach, she goes to an art museum, she gets on a boat, she celebrates New Years Day, and she even goes back home briefly before returning just a day later. 

The book also had this in-universe commentary that witches aren't as popular as they once were, and some people are starting to become afraid of them. I know that was never present in the movie. The witchy stuff was treated more like normal in the movie, or at least there wasn't a big deal made out of it compared to the book. 

The book was pretty good, but I like the movie a lot more. I gave this book 4 stars.