Kiki's Delivery Service

During the production phase, Hayao Miyazaki and his artists travelled to Sweden to research for the film. The photographs they took of Stockholm and Visby, formed the basis of the fictional city of Koriko. The city also contains elements of Lisbon, Paris, San Francisco, and Milan.

The four-engined biplane (more precisely, sesquiplane) that Kiki sees during the opening credits is a real aircraft, the Handley-Page HP42. Eight of these planes - the first four-engined aircraft ever built - were commissioned during the 1930s; later they were converted to military use, and all were destroyed by 1941. But since this movie - according to director Hayao Miyazaki - takes place in a world where World War II never happened, it's plausible that the HP42 would still be in civilian service.

The denouement scenes of the film play out with the credits rolling ending with Kiki's parents reading a letter from her after the credits finish.

A new English dub of this film was released in 1998 by the Walt Disney Company. This version featured the vocal talents of Kirsten Dunst as Kiki, Janeane Garofalo as Ursala and Debbie Reynolds. Phil Hartman provided the voice of Jiji in one of his final roles.

Edited into Miyazaki Dreams of Flying (2017)