Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service(Studio Ghibli Official) is a 1989 animated feature.
Here, I look back at the characters and voice actors of Kiki’s Delivery Service, considering their appeal and their stories. What kind of people inhabit Kiki’s world?
The following discussion contains plot spoilers, sometimes without further warning.
*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.
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Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) Main Characters & Voice Actors List
The table below brings together the main characters and the voice performances covered in this guide.
| Name | Age | Voice Actor (English Dub) |
|---|---|---|
 Kiki | 13 | Kirsten Dunst |
 Jiji | 13 | Phil Hartman |
 Kokiri | 37 | Kath Soucie |
 Okino | 40 | Jeff Bennett |
 Tombo/Kopori | 13 | Matthew Lawrence |
 Senior Witch | ?[1] | Debi Derryberry |
 Osono | 26 | Tress MacNeille |
 Fukuo (Osono’s Husband) | 40 | John Hostetter |
 Ursula | 18 | Janeane Garofalo |
 Madame | 70 | Debbie Reynolds |
 Madame’s Granddaughter | Unknown | Sherry Lynn |
 Maki | Unknown | Julia Fletcher |
 Man with Push Broom | Unknown | Jeff Bennett |
- [1]
- Based on the senior witch’s boast that her “training will be over soon,” we can safely deduce she is at least 14 years old. Additionally, many critics argue that the core female characters in Kiki’s Delivery Service collectively represent the different life stages of “one woman.” Since Ursula is 18, it logically places the senior witch somewhere between 14 and 17 years old.
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) Character Map
The map outlines the relationships discussed in this guide and provides a reference for the character profiles below.
Following the witches’ custom, thirteen-year-old Kiki leaves home to find a town of her own. She starts a delivery service while lodging at the bakery of Osono, a woman she meets there.
▼ Discover the lines that define these characters
Kiki, Jiji, Tombo, Osono, Ursula, and Madame’s granddaughter reveal much of their personalities through a handful of memorable lines. Compare their original Japanese dialogue with the English subtitles, literal translations, and dub wording in our guide to 15 memorable Kiki’s Delivery Service quotes.
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) Deep Character Profiles and Analysis
The following profiles consider the characters’ motives, relationships, and roles in the story.
Kiki | Voiced by: Kirsten Dunst
Kiki’s Basic Information
The story’s protagonist is thirteen. Following the witches’ custom, she leaves her parents to find a town of her own.
With the broom her mother gave her, she arrives in a town by the sea. The welcome she had imagined is nowhere to be found; after losing control of her broom, she nearly gets into trouble with the police.
Then Osono, a baker, appears before her—a lifeline, or perhaps a goddess of fate.
The Miracle of Finding a Base
Osono takes a liking to Kiki, giving her a base in the town. This is where Kiki’s journey begins, rather than ends. Finding shelter from the wind and rain so quickly is nevertheless an enormously important step.
Does every thirteen-year-old witch in that world meet someone like Osono? Can they all find a place to stay straight away?
Perhaps they can. The possibility is never zero. But wouldn’t struggling to find a base be more usual? They are only thirteen, after all.
How, then, do most witches get through this customary year away from home? I explore that question in another article:
Read the full analysis: Why Is the Senior Witch So Unpleasant?
I think there is a reason the senior witch first appears to Kiki as such an unpleasant person.
Why Kiki Can No Longer Fly
The biggest incident in Kiki’s Delivery Service is perhaps Kiki’s loss of her ability to fly. For someone whose one special skill is flying, it is a serious problem.
To my mind, two incidents bring this about:
- The unwelcome delivery of the herring pie.
- Her uncomfortable encounter with Tombo’s friends.
Why would those incidents weaken her power?
My answer is that the question itself is mistaken: her power was not particularly strong to begin with.
At home, Kiki had been something of an unbeatable local champion, buoyed by a baseless sense of invincibility. There, she could remain a gifted witch who could fly. But as soon as she left, that ability lost its value—though it might still have meaning.
She had to show people a new kind of value, beyond being the local prodigy. That was not going to be easy.
Meeting Osono, her miraculous benefactor, allowed Kiki to devise a delivery service. It did not guarantee success. In my reading, this is as far as the film lays a track for her to follow.
Through those two incidents, Kiki finally recognizes her own powerlessness. Here, that means facing a situation in which everything she has accumulated so far is of no use.
That is why, I think, she can no longer fly as before. She realizes that the altitude she once thought so high was not very high at all. Now she must learn, build on that learning, put it into practice, fail, and learn again.
Perhaps witches leave home at thirteen to discover precisely this reality: what looks like remarkable talent may not amount to very much.
Seen this way, Kiki’s Delivery Service might be an expression of Hayao Miyazaki’s ideas about talent—those of a director with exceptional gifts who has made full use of them.
Ursula’s conversation with Kiki is especially memorable in this light.
Kiki is learning how to handle the painful moment when what she already has is no longer enough. To me, this unmistakably reflects Miyazaki’s own thinking.
In short, I read Kiki’s inability to fly as the result of confronting something she has never experienced and realizing the limits of her strength. She has finally begun to see herself in relation to a wider world.
Jiji | Voiced by: Phil Hartman
Jiji’s Basic Information
Kiki’s companion is a mysterious cat who understands human language. He is a fine partner, but when she can no longer fly, she can no longer understand his speech either. In the original Japanese ending, that does not change: he seems to enjoy an ordinary cat’s life with a family of his own. The discussion here concerns that ending; English-dub versions differ.
The Final Mystery: Why Did Jiji Stay Silent?
One explanation is that Jiji never spoke human language: Kiki understood his feline language through magic. Her remark that she can no longer understand him fits that reading. But I find two difficulties with it:
- It conflicts with Kiki’s understanding that her only special skill is flying.
- Why can she still not understand him after she regains her ability to fly?
That would suggest Jiji himself had been speaking human language. A cat, of all creatures.
Why, then, does he stop? I think the film offers a few clues:
- No one in the story sees Kiki and Jiji having a conversation.
- Jiji, supposedly a living cat, manages to pass himself off as a stuffed toy.
For all his eloquence, Jiji speaks with Kiki only when they are alone. They do not converse in front of other people, or when others are aware of them.
And how could a living cat successfully pretend to be a stuffed toy? Surely he couldn’t! What might that strange event mean? I offer my own interpretation in the article below:
Read the full analysis: Why Does Jiji Stop Speaking?
Kokiri | Voiced by: Kath Soucie
Kokiri’s Basic Information
Kiki’s mother appears only briefly, but she does something essential to the story: she gives Kiki her own broom.
Why Kokiri Gives Kiki Her Broom
As often happens in Miyazaki’s films, a scene that seems perfectly ordinary begins to look puzzling when we think about it.
Kokiri giving Kiki her broom is one such scene.
We readily accept it as just the way things are. Looking more closely, though, brings the film’s underlying structure into view.
Kiki’s wish to leave on a broom she has made herself suggests that she does not yet understand her own limits or the world’s scale. It is youthful, unfounded invincibility. The custom presumably exists to help her outgrow that pride, and she may understand this in theory. Yet making her own broom is, I think, an effort directed at the wrong thing.
She seems to think that relying on the help available to her would defeat the point of the custom. There is a certain logic to that, but she has fallen into the familiar trap of putting the means before the end, without realizing it. The point is to get through the experience, not to get through it with a homemade broom. She is giving herself unnecessary handicaps: nobody asked her to play on Hard Mode.
Kokiri, by contrast, knows how demanding the custom can be. Leaving home at thirteen and finding a town of one’s own is difficult—I certainly don’t think I could have done it.
You cannot know what kind of town you will find. It may not be a peaceful town by the sea. There may be no Osono, and even if there is, you may never meet her.
Kiki wants to take her own broom because she does not understand those difficulties. Kokiri does, which is why she hands over her tried-and-tested broom: at least let the girl start with maximum acceleration!
In other words, Kokiri’s broom can be read as a symbol of the wisdom of those who came before us.
Youth can make us believe there is value in refusing such help. But if something is useful, why not use it? There is nothing wrong with that. Not that I have much wisdom of my own to pass on.
Okino | Voiced by: Jeff Bennett
Okino’s Basic Information
Kiki’s father resembles the father in My Neighbor Totoro with all the sting taken out of him. Having little more to say about him may itself be his defining feature.
And yet his marriage tells us something fundamental about him: he is the husband of Kokiri, a witch.
Kiki’s experiences give us a glimpse of how witches are treated in that world. People recognize their existence—remarkable in itself—but do not regard them with reverence. They may even find them a nuisance. Witches fly wherever they please, and the more talented they are, the more power they might have to bewilder people.
What sort of man becomes interested in such a woman and marries her?
I imagine he was rather like Tombo.
At their best, I would describe them as people who can stand just a little outside convention and see the person in front of them as they are.
Less generously: a couple of weirdos.
Perhaps someone who can live alongside exceptional talent needs to be a little odd. For all his apparent plainness, I think Okino is as interesting a man as Tombo.
Tombo | Voiced by: Matthew Lawrence
Tombo’s Basic Information
A boy Kiki meets in town. His shout of ‘Thief!’ rescues her—or something like it—from a policeman’s questioning.
Cheerful, positive, and widely acquainted, he becomes Kiki’s first friend in her new surroundings.
An Unexpected Circle of Friends
Tombo’s curiosity and personality make him a connection with someone her own age. That does not mean he is a completely safe haven for Kiki.
Unlike her friends at home, he knows people whose relationships she cannot grasp. This is perfectly ordinary for him, but to Kiki, who knows no other peers in town, discovering it only deepens her isolation and loneliness.
She also recognizes her own pettiness. She must face a problem that everything she has accumulated so far cannot help her overcome.
She eventually gets through it and regains her ability to fly. In the closing animation, we can see her using Tombo as a hub through which to widen her circle of friends.
Nice work, Tombo.
Senior Witch | Voiced by: Debi Derryberry
Senior Witch’s Basic Information
The senior witch Kiki meets in the sky is finishing her customary period of training. She drives the first wedge into a story that began with Kiki’s youthful resolve and overflowing warmth.
She comes across as unpleasant, but I think there are several reasons for that.
Those reasons are largely about how the story is told. I explore my own thoughts on why she appears at that particular moment below:
Read the full analysis: Why Is the Senior Witch So Unpleasant?
Osono | Voiced by: Tress MacNeille
Osono’s Basic Information
The proprietor of the Guchokipanya bakery gives Kiki a place to stay—a miraculous stroke of luck for the girl.
She is plainly kind and helpful. The terms are astonishingly generous: no rent or phone charges, and breakfast included, in exchange for looking after the phone and shop.
We could leave it at kindness. But I suspect Osono has a little more in mind.
The important detail is that she is pregnant and nearly due. She has kept working in the bakery until very late in her pregnancy, but may now be reaching her limit.
One option would be to reduce bread production and have her husband serve customers too.
But could that man handle the customers?
Perhaps he could. He would surely try. Still, the shop’s reputation might suffer.
Another option would be to close temporarily. But for how long? There would be no income during that time, even though her husband was perfectly able to bake.
Osono may have been in a difficult position when a girl with nowhere to go happened to arrive. In that sense, Kiki could have been a lifeline for Osono too.
To put it rather unkindly, Osono had found the cheapest possible labor.
Taking the cynical reading further, perhaps she had not known what to do with that room. Was Kiki a test case for its use? Once Kiki cleaned it and proved she could live there, it had another possible purpose. When she eventually left, Osono might rent it out. We could say that Osono had secured a new source of income.
Even if every bit of that speculation were correct, though, Osono would still be a caring person. Whatever her private motives, she gave Kiki’s life a push forward.
Osono gave a girl with nowhere to go a place to belong. That is a clear fact—and, to me, the only one that really matters.
Fukuo | Voiced by: Brad Garrett
Fukuo’s Basic Information
Osono’s husband is a baker. Quiet and something of a craftsman, he reveals his good nature in the few scenes in which he appears.
He is an unobtrusive presence, but I find it significant that he acknowledges Jiji.
Ursula | Voiced by: Janeane Garofalo
Ursula’s Basic Information
An eighteen-year-old painter living in a forest cabin, where Kiki finds the stuffed cat she has dropped.
She agrees to repair the damaged toy in exchange for Kiki cleaning the room.
Tombo may become an acquaintance of Kiki’s own age, but she has no one to consult about her troubles. Ursula seems to be the first older-sister figure she meets after leaving home.
Still, Ursula is only eighteen herself: a young woman with many difficulties ahead. Perhaps Kiki, in turn, became someone she could talk to.
Madame | Voiced by: Debbie Reynolds
Madame’s Basic Information
The elderly woman who hires Kiki to deliver a herring pie for her granddaughter’s birthday.
In a sense, she is the mastermind behind that unforgettable childhood experience: the Herring Pie Incident.
It could be a tragedy born of a gap in understanding between a grandmother and a granddaughter who live apart. But I think a more cynical reading is possible too.
The Herring Pie as a Bomb
Even the actions of someone who seems wonderfully kind may have another side to them.
Did the grandmother not know that her granddaughter disliked herring pie? Perhaps the girl had once said, as a small child, ‘Grandma, your pie is delicious!’ and the grandmother had treasured that memory ever since.
But perhaps she knew perfectly well. If we start from that possibility, her actions take on a different meaning.
She does not live with her granddaughter—or, presumably, with the girl’s parents, her own child and their spouse.
Perhaps she kept sending the pie, ostensibly for her granddaughter, to keep that household from forgetting her existence.
That is an excessively suspicious reading, of course. Still, people’s motives are not always apparent on the surface.
I do think she sent it because she genuinely believed her granddaughter liked it, though.
Madame’s Granddaughter | Voiced by: Sherry Lynn
Basic Information
The granddaughter to whom Kiki delivers the pie at the elderly woman’s request.
Kiki has not merely carried a parcel. She has helped bake the pie and struggled through heavy rain to deliver it. The granddaughter’s cold, almost hostile response must have been painful.
Surely I am not the only one who watched this and resolved to greet delivery workers with a smile.
Kiki certainly deserves our sympathy. Yet the experience may also have taught her something valuable: effort does not always earn the reward we want, and our good intentions are not always welcomed.
Earning a living really is hard work.
Maki | Voiced by: Julia Fletcher
Maki’s Basic Information
Kiki’s first delivery customer, whose stylish appearance seems to inspire a certain admiration in her.
She owns a haughty-looking white cat, with whom Jiji eventually starts a family.
Jeff
The dog owned by Maki’s nephew.
After Jiji’s unlikely success in posing as a stuffed toy, Jeff not only lets him out of the house but brings the replacement toy inside.
Kiki’s first job had effectively failed. Ursula, Jiji, and Jeff helped turn it into a success. It may look rather clumsy, but needing other people is important too.
Refusing to get hung up on doing everything by ourselves is, I think, an important part of life.
Man with Push Broom | Voiced by: Jeff Bennett
Basic Information
The man whose broom Kiki borrows when she needs to fly to rescue Tombo at the end of the story.
He barely appears, but had Kiki found the broom a little later, Tombo’s fate might have been different. He does good work simply by being there.
Perhaps we should all try walking around with a broom now and then.
Other Characters
- Policeman | Matt K. Miller
- Announcer | Corey Burton
- Ket | Pamela Adlon
- Ket’s Mother | Julia Fletcher
- Ket’s Father | John DeMita
- Ket’s Grandmother | Julia Fletcher
- Miss Dora (Old woman who received medicine from Kokiri) | Fay Dewitt
- Clock Tower Caretaker | Lewis Arquette
- Truck Driver |Corey Burton
- Hotel Receptionist | Matt K. Miller
- Dirigible Captain | John Hostetter
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