Earlier this week, the director of Pixar's Hoppers, Daniel Chong, posted an animation test from the film to social media. Hoppers, by most metrics, is a big hit and has ended something of a cold streak for Pixar's original offerings. But the response to the test, which is notably in 2D, and very reminiscent of Studio Ghibli's distinctive style, was unanimous: instead of Pixar's 3D house style, which has been industry standard for over three decades, why couldn't Hoppers look like that?
It's a thought that I couldn't get out of my head while re-watching Studio Ghibli's 1989 classic Kiki's Delivery Service, which is back on the big screen this week in glorious IMAX. It should be news to no one that Ghibli makes beautiful movies. Their nostalgic, painterly, soulful art style and whimsical worlds have enchanted generations. But in the cold light of 2026, where the animated landscape is almost completely dominated by hyperactive, saucer-eyed characters in vibrant, but vaguely rubber-looking worlds, watching Kiki's Delivery Service is like sailing on a sea of tranquility.
Kiki's re-release is also an urgent reminder that we're losing something vital – artists with the skills to create hand-drawn feature films, particularly in the West. While Ghibli still operates, its output has slowed to a crawl, and seems primarily driven by Hayao Miyazaki's continued refusal to retire. There are many filmmakers who could be considered successors to Miyazaki – Makoto Shinkai, Mamoru Hosoda and Tomm Moore, amongst them – but whether for practical, financial or creative reasons, purely hand-drawn animated movies are an endangered species. Kiki's Delivery Service, as a result, is a movie to be savoured.
Flying high
Written and directed by Ghibli's enigmatic co-founder Miyazaki – only his third official film for the studio, following 1986's Castle in the Sky and 1988's My Neighbor Totoro (The Castle of Cagliostro and Nausicaä were both released before Ghibli's inception) – Kiki's Delivery Service might be the studio's defining coming-of-age story. Shorn of the horrors of its immediate predecessor, Grave of the Fireflies, Kiki's Delivery Service is a tonic that finds meaning and warmth in everyday relationships, despite its eponymous character being a witch.
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As the movie begins, 13-year-old Kiki (Kirsten Dunst, in Disney's English-language dub) sets out on her traditional (for witches) year away from home, alongside her sardonic feline familiar Jiji (Phil Hartman). Still in the process of finding herself and not even sure what her "skill" as a witch will be, Kiki settles in the coastal town of Koriko. After a young boy called Tombo (Matthew Lawrence) helps her escape the clutches of the law, Kiki finds a home away from home in a family-run bakery. There, she sets up a delivery service, the logic being that a broomstick beats any mail van.
By modern standards, Kiki's Delivery Service could be considered uneventful. Kiki may be a witch, but other than flying her broom from place to place and the ability to talk to her cat, magic hardly figures into the story. After setting up her business, Kiki makes a couple of inefficient deliveries, and there's a smidge of action in the final act, but really the film is about her connections in the community – to Tombo and the figures who pop by the shop for freshly baked goods. Uneventful does not equal boring in this case, then, as the film's gentle rhythms and its deceptively deep depiction of a 13-year-old girl's struggle with self-doubt on the way to discovering herself captivates in a way that no spell-casting battle ever could.
Picture purr-fect
And it bears repeating that Kiki's Delivery Service is gorgeous. Of course, it wasn't made for IMAX, but it's a fine way to see it, even if it's readily accessible on streaming nowadays; rarely, even in Ghibli's work, has a world felt quite so detailed and alive as Koriko. Kiki is one of Ghibli's great protagonists – it's easy to see her influence on the likes of Princess Mononoke's San, or Spirited Away's Chihiro, while the idea of a character on an adventure with a cat would live on through Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns.
With Disney having moved away from hand-drawn animation completely (though the success of the Spider-Verse movies has at least led to a realization from Hollywood at large that audiences crave variation from the norm), and Miyazaki not getting any younger, there's a very real chance we might never see a movie as visually splendid as Kiki's Delivery Service on the big screen again, and almost certainly not one that is as intentionally understated. Is that an overly dramatic statement? Perhaps. But for all their continued successes, modern animated movies feel worlds apart.
The good news is, the Ghibli IMAX re-releases aren't stopping here: over the next couple of months, both Whisper of the Heart and The Secret World of Arrietty are heading back to the big screen – the perfect opportunity to see two lesser-celebrated Ghibli works in a format that does them justice. And let's hope that when Hoppers 2 rolls around, that gorgeous 2D animation is more than a test.
Kiki's Delivery Service is playing now on IMAX screens in the US. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series, or for more Ghibli, check out our list of the best Studio Ghibli movies, ranked from worst to best.
