Production
In 1987, Group Fudosha asked Kadono's publishers for the rights to adapt Kadono's novel into a feature film directed by either Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata of Studio Ghibli. However, both of the chosen directors were busy, working on My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies respectively.[6] Miyazaki accepted the role of producer while the studio continued to search for a director.[7] Near the end of Totoro's production, members of Studio Ghibli were being recruited as senior staff for Kiki's Delivery Service. The character design position was given to Katsuya Kondo, who was working with Miyazaki on Totoro. Hiroshi Ohno, who would later work on projects such as Jin-Roh, was hired as art director at the request of Kazuo Oga.
Miyazaki chose Sunao Katabuchi as director. Katabuchi had worked with Miyazaki on Sherlock Hound; Kiki's Delivery Service was to have been his directorial debut. 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. Although the novel is set in a fictional northern European country, Miyazaki did not originally travel to Sweden for research. Instead, he had previously visited locations such as Visby and Stockholm while attempting to secure the rights for an animated adaptation of Pippi Longstocking. After being denied a meeting with Astrid Lindgren, he later used reference photos from that trip as inspiration for the film's setting.[8][9][10] The architecture of Koriko is also based on the design of buildings from other cities such as Amsterdam, Paris, and San Francisco.
Upon their return to Japan, Miyazaki and the creative team worked on conceptual art and character designs. Miyazaki began significantly modifying the story, creating new ideas and changing existing ones. Kiki's Delivery Service, the original children's book by Kadono that the movie was based on, is very different from Miyazaki's finished film. Kadono's novel is more episodic, consisting of small stories about various people and incidents Kiki encounters while making deliveries. Kiki overcomes many challenges in the novel based on "her good heart" and consequently expands her circle of friends. She faces no particular traumas or crises. 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. Miyazaki remarked, "As movies always create a more realistic feeling, Kiki will suffer stronger setbacks and loneliness than in the original". 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. Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki, the producer of Ghibli, went to the author's home and invited her to the film's studio. After her visit to the studio, Kadono decided to let the project continue.[7]
Miyazaki finished the rough draft of the screenplay in June 1988 and presented it in July 1988. It was at this time that Miyazaki revealed that he had decided to direct the film, because he had influenced the project so much. 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.
The word literally "home-fast-mail" (宅急便) 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 "home-delivery-mail" (宅配便). While Yamato Transport sponsored the film, it initially did not approve of the usage of its trademark, since it was used by Kadono without permission. However, the success of the film restored relations between both her and Yamato Transport.[7]
The film had a production budget of ¥800 million, making it one of the most expensive anime films up until then, along with Akira (1988)[11] and Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987).[12]
