What Kiki’s Delivery Service taught me about isolation and burnout

Image credit: Studio Ghibli

Two momentous things happened to me days apart in October. One, I was laid off from a job that wore me down; two, my parents visited me in Taipei.

I had been living alone in Taipei for a year. And I had already seen, done, and eaten most of the city. But Jiufen, a small village in the mountains beyond Taipei, never made it onto my to-do list. Out of a job and with more time to spend with my parents, I booked a day tour to Jiufen to fill a gap in our now half-empty itinerary.

Getting to Jiufen involves taking an early morning bus out of the city onto roads that quickly grow quiet of cars and where high-rises give way to dark green mountains. Soon, you’ll see the village’s cliffside teahouses, lantern-lit streets, the steep stairways connecting them, and the surrounding fog.

If that sounds ethereal, you’ll discover inside the village that people are as present as the mist on any given day. Jiufen’s popularity as a tourist spot blew up in the early 00s when visitors saw the resemblance between the village and the world-building of Studio Ghibli’s landmark film Spirited Away (2001). Although the film’s director, Hayao Miyazaki, denies that Jiufen was an inspiration, it nevertheless became a pilgrimage site for Ghibli fans.

Today, Jiufen feels even more like a Miyazaki film, given how it now reflects a common theme in his storytelling: the clash between magic and reality. The otherworldly charm of Jiufen is drowned out by the reality of tourists crowding its narrow streets (I, too, stand accused). It’s not unlike the homes of the supernatural beings in Princess Mononoke (1997) and Pom Poko (1994), facing the threat of human encroachment.

But of all of Miyazaki’s films, the mundane and the magical come into conflict most intimately in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), a film that examines what it takes to maintain the magic when facing the pressures of everyday life.

Kiki’s Delivery Service, which Miyazaki directed, produced, and wrote the screenplay for, starts at a familiar point in his canon. There is a girl at the precipice of childhood who is taken from one world and placed into an unfamiliar one. In Spirited Away, Chihiro is separated from her parents and forced to work in a spa house that welcomes spirits. Sophie, the protagonist of Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), leaves home after being turned into an old woman by a witch. Kiki, however, is not drawn into a world of magic but out of one. She is a teenage witch-in-training who leaves everything she has ever known for a town without magical residents. Her only companion from home is Jiji, a talking black cat with a knack for sarcasm.

Kiki settles for a seaside town called Koriko. The residents show initial amazement at the sight of the young witch arriving on her flying broomstick, but this feeling fades when she clumsily flies into traffic. After landing and apologetically introducing herself, the townspeople look on coldly, and a police officer reprimands her for reckless flying.

The scene sets the film’s two main themes into motion: first, the tension between Kiki’s magic and the realities of daily life in Koriko, the residents of which have little patience for her magical mishaps. And second, Kiki’s sense of isolation in her new surroundings. Miyazaki understands this form of loneliness as a two-way street — Kiki’s isolation is self-imposed and external. Not long after her run-in with the law, Kiki meets Tombo, a dorky local boy who also shares her interest in flying. Tombo’s attempts at friendship are brash but well-intentioned. He is one of the few characters who sees Kiki for who she is, a witch finding her place in a non-magical world. But she rebuffs his attempts at friendship, unwilling to let anyone in.

Image credit: Studio Ghibli

Kiki eventually finds a room above a bakery. Given her flying skills, she naturally starts a delivery service and sets off on a series of errands for her customers in Koriko. Were this a more whimsical movie, these challenging deliveries would propel the protagonist forward through wins and losses. But there is no such tidy binary. Instead, these errands gradually wear down Kiki, and her character is shaped by growing isolation and disillusionment.

In one such delivery, a grandmother tasks Kiki with sending over a pie for her granddaughter’s birthday. The pie is yet to be baked when the young witch arrives to collect it for delivery. Undeterred and refusing any compensation until she’s completed the delivery, Kiki helps the grandmother bake in a race against time. After flying through the rain with the freshly baked gift, she finally arrives at the granddaughter’s door, and we’re set up for a hard-won victory. Until the granddaughter opens the door, she laments having received “another one of grandma’s crummy pies.”

It is a stark reminder of how we naively expect appreciation for our efforts—even in an animated movie—only to be let down. And it is one of Miyazaki’s greatest tricks: finding a mundane but relatable disappointment of life and spinning it into a quietly devastating drama. Dejected, drenched and burnt out, Kiki flies home. She isolates herself further, passing on attending a party with Tombo and mustering little more than a few words for Jiji.

What’s worse, Kiki’s burnout is not just emotional but magical, too — she begins to lose her powers. Her flying ability is gone; she can no longer talk to Jiji. To Kiki, who had balanced her magical abilities with the practicalities of running a one-witch business, it becomes clear her powers are tied to her mental state. During the film’s opening scenes, she is confident in her powers, even if she struggles to adapt to her new life. Now, she struggles with the magic that once came naturally to her. Kiki becomes depressed. Her skills as a witch are her means to make a living and the essence of her identity. “If I lose my magic, that means I’ve lost absolutely everything,” she says.

The conflict between magic and reality peaks at this moment of personal crisis. But this conflict is also an allegory for the challenge of staying positive in the unforgiving realities of everyday life. How can you hold onto the magic in a world that doesn’t care for it?

Image credit: Studio Ghibli

Kiki’s Delivery Service answers this question through the character Ursula, a solitary painter who is introduced during an earlier delivery. Ursula explains to Kiki that being a witch, much like being an artist, is “an energy bestowed by the gods.” She accepts, however, that this gift means having to suffer at times. But Ursula doesn’t romanticise the hardships that come with the pursuit of self-expression. Instead, she explains that you can overcome whatever life throws at you when you follow your own path.

Ursula builds on the symmetry between her artistry and Kiki’s powers when she confides that she often feels like she can’t paint. She determines that Kiki, too, is going through her own artist’s block. When Ursula is at a loss for inspiration, “all one can do is struggle through it. I draw and draw, and keep drawing.” If that fails, she reminds Kiki (and the audience) to take breaks from our passions and regain perspective. Go on walks and look at the scenery. Eventually, inspiration will find you.

Kiki’s restored confidence faces a crucial test at the story’s climax. Back at the grandmother’s house, she watches a live broadcast of an airshow disrupted by strong winds. She catches sight of Tombo among the crowd, struggling to tie down a dirigible balloon. Then, a gust of wind tears the aircraft away, and Tombo is left desperately clinging to the rope. Kiki arrives at the scene and reaches an (upward) turning point. She rediscovers how to fly and propels herself into the air to rescue Tombo. It’s a big spectacle that follows the resolution of Kiki’s emotional journey. In that moment, she proves she has the courage to overcome her doubts.

Kiki finally feels settled in the town. She has her friends, Tombo, Ursula and the grandmother. She gets back to work. Where there was once a clash, Kiki finds a balance between her magical identity and the hardships of independence.

Image credit: Studio Ghibli

The film’s last line resonates with me the most: “There are still times when I feel sad, but all in all, I sure love this town.” Like Kiki, I, too, struggled with loneliness since moving to Taipei. I know how isolation feels imposed, but it is primarily a result of one’s own doing, especially when burnt out. And I know that sadness is to be accepted, not avoided in life. Kiki’s story is about acknowledging these personal struggles and knowing when to allow ourselves grace. It’s okay to feel lost, discouraged, and even sad — these feelings guide us toward our true selves.