Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef
Speaker 1: invest start changing it with the bec Del cast. Hey,
Speaker 1: Mr Rante, Yes, Miss Loftus, we had one very very
Speaker 1: brief encounter. Now you have to be my best friend
Speaker 1: forever until I die. Well, I think you're rude because
Speaker 1: you didn't properly introduce yourself. All right, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: just keep showing up until you change your mind. And oh,
Speaker 1: look at that. It worked. We're best friends and now
Speaker 1: I'm going to save your life. It's because I was
Speaker 1: falling off of a plane, you know. It's it's complicated.
Speaker 1: It's complicated. Well that was sure at intro. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the back Tell Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My
Speaker 1: name is Caitlin Darante. I hesitated because I was like,
Speaker 1: am I gonna like call myself miss witch or something?
Speaker 1: But then I did, I didn't, and then it just
Speaker 1: made it sound like I didn't know what my name was. Look,
Speaker 1: it's good, everything's going great, everything's going great. It's fine.
Speaker 1: You can call yourself miss which why not. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: this is the Bechtel Cast, where we examine movies through
Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel Test as a
Speaker 1: jumping off point. The Bechtel Test being a media metric
Speaker 1: created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Wallace Test. There are many versions of the test, but
Speaker 1: the one that we use currently requires that two characters
Speaker 1: of a marginalized gender must have names, they must speak
Speaker 1: to each other, and their conversation has to be about
Speaker 1: something other than a man, and ideally it is a
Speaker 1: narratively meaningful conversation and spoiler alert today is gonna have
Speaker 1: no problems the first seen passes. I think. I don't
Speaker 1: think two male characters speak to each other at all
Speaker 1: in the entire movie. No, I know that they make
Speaker 1: eye contact. But also I was really interested in Um,
Speaker 1: usually we're having the reverse discussion, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: until because I'm a big fan of this movie, but
Speaker 1: I'd never really researched the adaptation changes before. It's the
Speaker 1: Kiki delivery service episode, by the way, but I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that the gender swapped. Guh gig in the Japanese
Speaker 1: dub is a lady cat. Uh, and I guess that
Speaker 1: cats in UM Japanese fiction are traditionally presented feminine. UM.
Speaker 1: And they switched it to Phil Hartman, which I don't
Speaker 1: hate it all. Like, I think if the Phil Hartman
Speaker 1: UM gig performances a delight, you know, it brings us
Speaker 1: certain newsies, genesee whatever to to the part. But originally, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that the only a tent they could find
Speaker 1: men interacting is when a Sona's husband looks at Gig.
Speaker 1: But I guess in the original movie that wouldn't have
Speaker 1: even applied because g is in the original movie. How
Speaker 1: about that? Things I learned today, I do like that
Speaker 1: They're like, let's make this cat sound like he's from
Speaker 1: Long Island for some reason. You're like, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: okay with it. Does that mean the romance between the
Speaker 1: two cats, because the other cat seems to be coded
Speaker 1: quite feminine, does that mean it's a queer cat relationship.
Speaker 1: Let's say yes, Yes, Let's say yes. Let's say that. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: I love that. Anyways, welcome to the factel cast. This
Speaker 1: movie is about women. Uh, and we have an amazing
Speaker 1: returning guest today. Let's get her in the mix. Yes,
Speaker 1: she is a pop culture critic. She's an executive producer
Speaker 1: at I Heart Podcast. She's an executive producer and co
Speaker 1: host of a new show, comic con Metapod. And you
Speaker 1: remember her from our Little Princess episode. It's Joel Monique.
Speaker 1: I love that I could just talk about all my
Speaker 1: girlhood favorites with you. I just get to come in
Speaker 1: here and talk about the women that shaped me. Last time,
Speaker 1: we're really embracing all of my virgo libra aspects. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's girls doing princess e things with pinkies up, and
Speaker 1: today we're going to embrace my power of no girl
Speaker 1: who I really love I'm obsessed with. Kiki were the
Speaker 1: same age she came out in eighty nine, as did I. Um,
Speaker 1: and my cat relationship is absolutely clear in my head now.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. In the Japanese prison it was
Speaker 1: two lady cats, but now lesbians and one is just
Speaker 1: very mask and I think that's okay, and I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. Joel. What is your history with this
Speaker 1: movie other than you and Kiki both dropped the same year. Yes, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So aroundabout I would like to say a mid to
Speaker 1: late nineties. Early two thousand's Cartoon Network introduced me to
Speaker 1: the world of anime and Kicks Delivery Services, a movie
Speaker 1: they would play on Sundays, sometimes Saturdays. Maybe we'd come
Speaker 1: on a late Friday night, usually not usually it was
Speaker 1: like a mid afternoon thing. And that's Swindwell was at
Speaker 1: home watching TV. And wow, did I fall in love
Speaker 1: really fast? Um? You know, Spirited Away came out when
Speaker 1: I was older, and it came out in theaters and
Speaker 1: I have like a much longer in depth interaction with
Speaker 1: that film, just because it was advertised to me at
Speaker 1: the right age. This movie was like, here's an old film,
Speaker 1: you might like children, and I really did. And it
Speaker 1: was so cool because it really took I like to
Speaker 1: call it a reverse fairy tale where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of magical elements, but it's completely grounded as opposed to
Speaker 1: a lot of the other things I was consuming, which
Speaker 1: is super high fantasy. And you know, very like almost
Speaker 1: all of the stories are Romeo and Juliet inspired, but
Speaker 1: they get together at the end, they don't die. It's
Speaker 1: totally fine, kids risk at all the rebellious no consequences
Speaker 1: or is this you know? It was very much about
Speaker 1: a young girl just trying to figure it out, and
Speaker 1: especially because I was the type of thirteen year old
Speaker 1: who was like, I'm pretty sure I could move to
Speaker 1: New York and pay rent and do it. I think
Speaker 1: I could live by myself. I don't need these other people.
Speaker 1: And Ki really spoke to me on that she was
Speaker 1: like just out there doing it for herself. Um. I
Speaker 1: feel like it was my working girls before I became
Speaker 1: of age to watch that movie. And I feel like
Speaker 1: so Ya supposed to my history of Saw on Cartoon
Speaker 1: Network a lot. And then I got into college and
Speaker 1: I was able to stream it a lot. Shout out
Speaker 1: to lime Wire. Oh my gosh, I forgot about lime Wire.
Speaker 1: Never forgot a class I heard for Classic definitely destroyed
Speaker 1: my first dell with Wire does. Yeah. I ended up
Speaker 1: with some real disgusting things on my family's computer as
Speaker 1: a result of Um, but you know it was all
Speaker 1: in the interest of bringing music to the people or something.
Speaker 1: Or Oh that's beautiful though, Jamie. What's your relationship in
Speaker 1: history with kikiS Delivery Service? Uh? This is the Miyazaki
Speaker 1: movie that I have the longest and closest history with.
Speaker 1: I think I saw this movie. I remember my friend
Speaker 1: Samantha Honeywell shout out because I was always like, that's
Speaker 1: the coolest name I've ever heard. Um. The Honeywells had
Speaker 1: this on vhas the English dub um sometime when I
Speaker 1: was in elementary school. My whole family was very into
Speaker 1: U witchy stuff. My aunt and uncle practiced witchcraft, and
Speaker 1: so I was always really into witchy movies, especially when
Speaker 1: they were young girls. I had a black cat, so
Speaker 1: it was just it was very easy to play get
Speaker 1: to the Kiki fantasy and also like just I mean,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen this movie, and I want to say
Speaker 1: at least five years, but probably longer because there was
Speaker 1: a time where it's in the US unless you owned
Speaker 1: mi Azaki movies. They weren't like the most streamable stuff.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal when they were put on HBO,
Speaker 1: and so I hadn't seen it in a long time.
Speaker 1: And it's just like watching it back as in my
Speaker 1: at my advanced age. I just it holds up so
Speaker 1: well Kiki experiences burnout. I was just like, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: like this is they really get into it. Um. I
Speaker 1: adore this movie and I can't wait to talk about it. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's your history with Kiki Delivery Service not a long one.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen it until about a year ago, not
Speaker 1: long after they became all the Muzaki movies became available
Speaker 1: on HBO, and this one was at the top of
Speaker 1: my list to watch, so I did, and I really
Speaker 1: loved it. And there are elements about it that are
Speaker 1: so relatable to me as a full adult, such as
Speaker 1: the burnout. I'm choking, such as the burnout, such as
Speaker 1: there's a line of dialogue where Kiki says something like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I used to think flying was fun until I started
Speaker 1: doing it for a living, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that is a thing that I can relate to. But
Speaker 1: also my job is still fun, still fun. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I I really I think this movie has
Speaker 1: so much to offer. And I know I sound like
Speaker 1: I'm crying right now, but it's just because I'm choking
Speaker 1: on my own saliva. I'm having a I'm having a day,
Speaker 1: I don't know what my name is, choking, crying, so tired,
Speaker 1: you need Ursula to kind of intervene and be like, look,
Speaker 1: we're going to go to a cabin for a couple
Speaker 1: of days. We're just gonna talk out, like use my bed.
Speaker 1: Cottage core elements. Oh my gosh, yeah, it is just
Speaker 1: a full cottage core sequence. The sweet like friendship intimacy
Speaker 1: of Ursula letting Kiki use her bed. I feel like
Speaker 1: that was always my, like my favorite moment in the
Speaker 1: movie ever since I was really little, because you're like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: a cool girl let you sleep in her bed? And
Speaker 1: I still feel the same way. The cool girl vibes
Speaker 1: throughout this movie are off the chart. The first which
Speaker 1: she runs into you on the way over. I terrified
Speaker 1: of her to this day. Her accessory game alone crushes me.
Speaker 1: And then to just be so cool as to say,
Speaker 1: I can't even listen to music. I'm flying. She's a
Speaker 1: light because she's sweet. I just can't with this movie,
Speaker 1: she said. And then she's like, I can tell like
Speaker 1: love fortunes and we never find out really what that
Speaker 1: means or what that entails. And then she's like goodbye forever,
Speaker 1: and you're like, yes, yes, What it tells us is
Speaker 1: that she knows everything and she's too busy to deal
Speaker 1: with us because she's cool. She's cool, she is snooty.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of snooty characters. I feel like
Speaker 1: snootiness is a motif in this movie. But she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that town seems really big to you, but
Speaker 1: to me, it's just whatever. And then she goes down
Speaker 1: and then you get like a classic Phil Hartman reaction shot. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's just like, well she sucked. Yes, if side I
Speaker 1: were a voice like perfection, it is very funny to
Speaker 1: be how like like, I don't know, I did a
Speaker 1: little bit. I just was like, I'm very fascinated with
Speaker 1: how Miyazaki movies were adapted by Disney for distribution and
Speaker 1: how there's like there's always like these little changes that
Speaker 1: are made. And the Gig character also like they sort
Speaker 1: of disneyfied his role in the story as like he
Speaker 1: appears as an animal familiar in the way that like
Speaker 1: a Disney princess is animal familiar, would appear in like
Speaker 1: the dialogue Cadence, Like obviously Gigi was always there for Kiki,
Speaker 1: but was like not as sarcastic, not as like like
Speaker 1: a lot of the dialogue lines for Gigi changed where
Speaker 1: the spirit of the line is the same, but they
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, rewrite it for an American comedian,
Speaker 1: is it coded more so? Okay, so coded a little
Speaker 1: Salts here, you're getting a little bit of your Iago
Speaker 1: from uh, you know, pre in this pre days Iago.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is this is the foundation the build.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, man, I really love Gigi, and
Speaker 1: now I'm trying to imagine I would still I still
Speaker 1: want the comedian aspects. I still want like assaulting late
Speaker 1: even if they decided to gender flip it back, I
Speaker 1: think I would still be looking for a Wanda Psykes
Speaker 1: esque like Saltic. And this would have been post yago too,
Speaker 1: because this the dub, at least the dub that's on
Speaker 1: HBO wasn't made until mind Blown. Yeah. Yeah, so then
Speaker 1: it had to be like early two thousands that was
Speaker 1: seeing it. It's really wild. Sorry, I'm figuring out the timeline.
Speaker 1: Um wait there I found a little passage on gig
Speaker 1: just because I I love learning about adaptation. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Um okay, so this is from Scarlett Journal Wikipedia. Of course,
Speaker 1: the depiction of the cat Gigi has changed significantly. In
Speaker 1: the Disney version and the Japanese version, Gigi is voiced
Speaker 1: by Ray Sakuma, a female actor, while in the English version,
Speaker 1: Gigi's voice by Phil Hartman. In Japanese culture, cats are
Speaker 1: usually depicted with feminine voices, whereas in American culture their
Speaker 1: voices are more gender specific. A number of Hartman's lines
Speaker 1: exist where Gig simply says nothing. In the original gis
Speaker 1: personality is notably different between the two versions, showing a
Speaker 1: more cynical and sarcastic attitude and the Disney English version
Speaker 1: as opposed to cautious and conscientious in the original Japanese.
Speaker 1: In the original Japanese script, Kiki loses her ability to
Speaker 1: communicate with Gigi permanently. I guess the original cut of
Speaker 1: this involved the Phil Hartman voice coming back at the end,
Speaker 1: oh boo boom, but then they took that out the
Speaker 1: original Japanese version, and like I guess, it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a sign of Kiki's maturity that she could
Speaker 1: no longer talk to her cat. Excuse me, I think
Speaker 1: that it's a mark of maturity for you to talk
Speaker 1: to your cat, and your talk your cat to talk back.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what that's all about. But I
Speaker 1: literally watched this movie with Lee your black cat dead
Speaker 1: ringer for Gigi. Not a lot of movies called his attention,
Speaker 1: but he was. He was with me the whole time.
Speaker 1: It was great. I marked it more as like if
Speaker 1: you can. This movie is so grounded in reality. It's
Speaker 1: the idea of like magical loss of childhood and this
Speaker 1: idea that there's something else to be gained, especially if
Speaker 1: it's considered under. This movie very much from the beginning
Speaker 1: starts with a thesis statement of like, if you're going
Speaker 1: to be a witch, she better be a good witch
Speaker 1: and have a good heart. And I think she does
Speaker 1: that so much throughout the movie, and eventually it sort
Speaker 1: of becomes a it's hard. It's hard to be a
Speaker 1: good friend. It it's hard to live up to like
Speaker 1: your own ideals and standards, and she struggles with it
Speaker 1: a lot. But she also loses part of her childhood
Speaker 1: in gaining these responsibilities and these new friends and you know,
Speaker 1: this new opportunity in this business. Some part of her
Speaker 1: does go away in exchange for that, and I always
Speaker 1: sort of view the cat's voice being gone as that exchange.
Speaker 1: I think to leave it in is just what a
Speaker 1: disservice to the story overall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: guess that, Um, I don't. I I couldn't find like
Speaker 1: if this was just like an organic decision or fair
Speaker 1: or war complaints, but they re released the American dub
Speaker 1: like a redux of it um with the same voices,
Speaker 1: but they took out the last Phil Hartman line so
Speaker 1: that the spirit stayed the same as it dead in
Speaker 1: the original. And yeah, I agree, I think it's like
Speaker 1: it's it makes me a little bit sad, but it's
Speaker 1: supposed to. Maturing is sad, like so hard. Yeah, being
Speaker 1: a kid is awesome. Also, I'm seeing that there was
Speaker 1: another English dub I think released in from Streamline Pictures
Speaker 1: Slash to Kuma, but I don't I don't think it
Speaker 1: had the same kind of like mainstream availability as the
Speaker 1: Disney dub. So it is possible that you heard that one, Joel.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that one ever hit the air, because
Speaker 1: if I think about it, the first Zaki film I
Speaker 1: remember watching was um, a rip of what's the one
Speaker 1: with the PI one? And okay, and I watched it
Speaker 1: on a PC at my mother's office. Um, and so
Speaker 1: that's two thousand. Yes, yes, it was fifth grade. I
Speaker 1: was ready to go home and it was amazing. And
Speaker 1: then I'm pretty sure not too long after that, Spirited
Speaker 1: Away comes out, and then somewhere immediately after that, I
Speaker 1: find Hell's Moving Castle and kikiS delivery service. It's all
Speaker 1: sort of very jumbled up in those early junior high,
Speaker 1: you know, late elementary years, but I definitely remember thinking
Speaker 1: like where are the American cartoons with girls like this?
Speaker 1: The fact that there were like young girls just being
Speaker 1: girls interested in maturing but not being grown ups, you know,
Speaker 1: actually addressing the PG thirteam like element of life that
Speaker 1: that time period, and being like this, these are people
Speaker 1: I can actually relate to, and being sort of blown
Speaker 1: away first by them and then obviously by the art.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's like gorgeous. It's uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think it's like it is wild to like I
Speaker 1: don't know, it wasn't until I was like halfway through
Speaker 1: the movie. They'm like, oh yeah, this movie came out
Speaker 1: the same year as The Little Mermaid, and the differences
Speaker 1: are quite clear. And I love The Little Mermaid, but
Speaker 1: you know, like, yeah, I mean you love it because
Speaker 1: you get to be dramatical with it. But I love
Speaker 1: him Daddy, And it's like a lot of like throwing
Speaker 1: your shoe and running, um, which is fun. It's fun
Speaker 1: to sort of embrace that, but as a story that
Speaker 1: actually speaks to the conditions you're living under. I think
Speaker 1: there's there's just no comparison. But I mean, at the
Speaker 1: same time, though, the premise of the little like Disney's
Speaker 1: a Little Mermaid and Kiki's delivery surface is like pretty
Speaker 1: similar in the sense that they're both fish out of water,
Speaker 1: striking out, you know, trying to figure a little more
Speaker 1: literal than the other. Yeah, right, right, But the execution
Speaker 1: is like so different and in like very fascinating ways.
Speaker 1: Before we get too deep into the discussion, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we'll come back and recap
Speaker 1: the story. And we are back. So here is the
Speaker 1: recap of Kiki's delivery service. We meet Kiki, voiced by
Speaker 1: Kirsten Dunce in the Disney dub. She is a young
Speaker 1: witch I believe years old, who, as per which tradition,
Speaker 1: must leave home for a year to begin her training.
Speaker 1: And that night is the perfect night for her to
Speaker 1: leave because it's both a full moon and there are
Speaker 1: clear skies. So Kiki says goodbye to her mom and dad,
Speaker 1: she packs up her belongings, she takes her mom's broom,
Speaker 1: and she sets off with her talking cat. Gig Again
Speaker 1: Boy by Phil Hartman in the Disney dub, very sadly
Speaker 1: Phil Hartman's last voice for all before he has no
Speaker 1: which we don't have to go there today. This is
Speaker 1: a happy episode. I did think it was funny even
Speaker 1: when it was little how abrupt, Like the movie just
Speaker 1: like starts and Kiki is like, oh, I'm leaving home today.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like in a I'm used to in movies,
Speaker 1: like when you know kids and parents are separated, there's
Speaker 1: this like long like I love you so much bo
Speaker 1: and they do, like the family obviously loves each other,
Speaker 1: but it's just like k He's like, I'm leaving and
Speaker 1: then they're like, I don't know, should it be today?
Speaker 1: And she's like yes, And then two hours later they're
Speaker 1: like all right, like they respect her decision, and they
Speaker 1: are like, well, best of all. Like, I just thought
Speaker 1: it was really funny. It was really interesting about the
Speaker 1: way that this entire film is that first of all,
Speaker 1: kudas to me is Zachie for just being like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna set this up like story time, because I
Speaker 1: feel like if you got like Looney Tunes beginning or
Speaker 1: even a Disney it's like a lot of loud, crashing
Speaker 1: music to let you know, funds about to happen, like
Speaker 1: strapping kids, like we're about to sling some jokes at you,
Speaker 1: and you start completely in silence. And a Miyazaki film,
Speaker 1: it's like, here's some bright colors there, Pastel's it's going
Speaker 1: to be peaceful and calm, and uh, you're gonna learn
Speaker 1: some stuff. And then it's underscored pretty quickly by just wind,
Speaker 1: which we know Miyazaki is ossessed with, and you get
Speaker 1: this sort of like natural orchestra going, and then it's
Speaker 1: just radio waves. And I think so much about being
Speaker 1: that age is about being alone and trying to figure
Speaker 1: out who you are. You know, you have friends, you
Speaker 1: have family, but it's a I mean, at least for me,
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time in my room being like,
Speaker 1: who the hell I'm reading a book, I'm watching TV,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at magazines, like someone please tell me who
Speaker 1: I am? So I start doing this thing um and
Speaker 1: for her to be listening to a radio and it
Speaker 1: starts off like the spirit of freedom right, which sort
Speaker 1: of becomes this banner for the entire higher film of
Speaker 1: what does that mean, especially as you mature, If a
Speaker 1: child for freedom is just like running around the block
Speaker 1: and screaming your head off. But ideally when you're going
Speaker 1: out and staking your claim and deciding who you are,
Speaker 1: what does that look like? And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: it's a clear night, and she's like, oh, I have
Speaker 1: a perfect night to leave. And I love the idea
Speaker 1: early of bringing superstition into a witch movie in a
Speaker 1: casual way that I think a lot of girls do
Speaker 1: origin at least I did very much like, oh no,
Speaker 1: then we have to act. Now, conditions are perfect, like go,
Speaker 1: and it's completely her decision to to start her life.
Speaker 1: And I love the way it sort of bowls over
Speaker 1: her parents, you know, her father is like how you're
Speaker 1: growing up so fast? And then the duality of how
Speaker 1: she treats her parents, like with her mother, very strict boundaries,
Speaker 1: very much like I'm doing it and you need to
Speaker 1: listen to me, and I'm setting the rules. And with
Speaker 1: her dad, you know, the first thing she asked is like,
Speaker 1: can you pick me up and spin me around? And
Speaker 1: I was little, And I think it's such a beautiful
Speaker 1: personification of like how she's divided as like to quote
Speaker 1: the Great Britney Spears, I'm not a girl, not yet
Speaker 1: a woman. She's in between. We're just quoting that the
Speaker 1: other day. It is like they set up everything so
Speaker 1: effectively and so quickly, and like, I like that you
Speaker 1: find out that the mom is like president of Witches
Speaker 1: or you like whatever whatever that means. I support it.
Speaker 1: That's great, and that yeah, like it seems like her
Speaker 1: mom is kind of like the breadwinner, you know. It
Speaker 1: seems like a very matriarchal system they've got over there,
Speaker 1: and that you see her relationship, like you see three
Speaker 1: generations of Witches. And then it's I think Debbie Reynolds
Speaker 1: is Grandma Witch, which Debbie Reynolds is canonicallylds the Madame.
Speaker 1: Think like, here's a herring pie. She should have been Grandma,
Speaker 1: which because then she could have been Grandma, which across
Speaker 1: so many different Disney projects. Was that her grandma? Or
Speaker 1: was that? I thought it was just like a neighbor
Speaker 1: lady who was like, there was a neighbor lady. But
Speaker 1: then her dad is like, hey, Mom, I just want
Speaker 1: to let you know Kiki's leaving tonight, and there's a
Speaker 1: second old lady in the lawn chairs outside right before
Speaker 1: I know, we're only one paragraph into the recap. But
Speaker 1: I also want to shout out, just like the world building,
Speaker 1: and how just like seamless and subtle it is. Where again,
Speaker 1: if you're comparing this to like a Disney Renaissance movie,
Speaker 1: it would be like once upon a time there was
Speaker 1: a family of witches and they started the tradition of
Speaker 1: leaving home when you're thirteen years old to go, and
Speaker 1: it would just be like this whole story, similar to
Speaker 1: how Shrek opens like a storybook, like here's an exposition dump.
Speaker 1: But this she's being Shrek critical interesting. So this is
Speaker 1: not shreky In in the sense that it just like
Speaker 1: drops you in this world and you just like go
Speaker 1: along with the world building. But it's very easy to follow,
Speaker 1: Like it's just I thought it was handled very in
Speaker 1: like a very cool and interesting way. But it is
Speaker 1: shreki In in that we love it and it's perfect obviously, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, Okay, So she sets off on the broom
Speaker 1: with her talking cat Gigi also talking cat shreky In
Speaker 1: in the talking donkey talking cat. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of parallels between Kiki and Shrek. Thank you both have whiches.
Speaker 1: Now I see where we're going both which is yes,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Yeah, it's it's a fantasy paradise that
Speaker 1: it's above approach. Both are set in a like very
Speaker 1: nondescript European place. There is baking and Shrek, what would
Speaker 1: the gingerbread man? And so forth? So yeah, deliveries have
Speaker 1: to be made. Delivery deliveries do have to be made.
Speaker 1: A rescue takes place, you know, like we could we
Speaker 1: could keep going. This is extremely shreky. Movie is actually
Speaker 1: very shreky. In yes um okay, So, Kiki is not
Speaker 1: very good at flying on a broom, but she heads
Speaker 1: south towards the ocean to hopefully settle in a city there.
Speaker 1: On the way, she meets another young witch we already
Speaker 1: talked about her. She's the very cool, snooty which who
Speaker 1: has been developing her fortune telling skills. Kiki, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, has not decided what her skill is going
Speaker 1: to be yet. It starts raining, so Kiki and Gigi
Speaker 1: take cover in a train, which starts moving and takes
Speaker 1: her to a coastal city where Kiki decides to settle.
Speaker 1: She hopes that witches don't already live in this city,
Speaker 1: because it seems like there isn't a need for maybe
Speaker 1: more than one or two witches. In each city, but
Speaker 1: she learns that no witches live there yet. So Kiki
Speaker 1: tries to make a good impression, but she almost causes
Speaker 1: a traffic accident when she's flying around on her broom
Speaker 1: and the locals are mostly ambivalent toward which is there's
Speaker 1: also this cop who's who wants to reprimand her for
Speaker 1: this near traffic accident from kiki delivery service. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this cop gets distracted when someone in the distance is like, thief,
Speaker 1: stop this thief, and the person who created this diversion
Speaker 1: turns out to be this boy, Tombo. Tombo thinks Kiki
Speaker 1: and her ability to fly are really really cool, but
Speaker 1: Kiki thinks Tombo is annoying and rude. I love her
Speaker 1: attitude towards time. It's very special. You don't see that
Speaker 1: a lot in kids media in a way that's just
Speaker 1: very straightforward. Yeah. So, while Kiki is trying to figure
Speaker 1: out a place to stay, she encounters a son No,
Speaker 1: a bakery owner who needs to return something that a
Speaker 1: customer left behind, and Kiki offers to return it for
Speaker 1: her on her broom, which she does, and a Sona
Speaker 1: is grateful for Kiki's help and she lets Kiki stay
Speaker 1: in a spare room in her attic. Another great line
Speaker 1: where she brings Kiki to this room that is objectively
Speaker 1: quite dirty, and she's like, well, i'd help you clean
Speaker 1: it up, but as you can see, i'm greg nant.
Speaker 1: So I'm so gregnt. Can have you with greg can't
Speaker 1: really do much to help, Gotta go, and then this
Speaker 1: place is disgusting yep. Uh. So she moves into the
Speaker 1: attic room, and based on her ability to quickly trans
Speaker 1: support things to people on her broom, Kiki decides to
Speaker 1: start a delivery business. Um she gets settled into her
Speaker 1: new place, she bumps into Tombo again, and then Kiki
Speaker 1: gets her first customer. A woman wants her to deliver
Speaker 1: a birthday gift for her nephew. The gift is a
Speaker 1: toy cat that looks a lot like Gigi, and while
Speaker 1: making the delivery on her broom, a strong gust of
Speaker 1: wind blows Kiki off course and she loses the toy cat.
Speaker 1: Did not listen to Geese and felt, para, I know
Speaker 1: the right. The Viyazaki wind step is always so fascinating
Speaker 1: because you're just like, wow, we're really these are very
Speaker 1: specific natural rules that she's ignoring. Uh, that I don't
Speaker 1: think completely scanned for me when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And then Phil Hartman cat gig, thinking it phil Harmon cat,
Speaker 1: phil Harmon cats, like you should have listened to those geese.
Speaker 1: I was like, who, I guess if you were a
Speaker 1: witch and you're flying all the time, maybe you would
Speaker 1: know to listen to he's I thought that these were
Speaker 1: just you know, vibing up there. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they were trying to tell her. He translated it perfectly.
Speaker 1: He said, there's a big gust of wind coming, and
Speaker 1: then they made a shield of themselves to protect her.
Speaker 1: And then they were like that wind's gonna blow us,
Speaker 1: and She's like what right in the face. I love
Speaker 1: that Um is bilingual. He speaks goose, he speaks the
Speaker 1: language of all birds. It seems like legend. So she
Speaker 1: loses the gift and she has pretend to be the
Speaker 1: toy cat until she can find the real one. So
Speaker 1: she searches for the toy and finds it in a
Speaker 1: house that belongs to an artist, and that's Ursela right.
Speaker 1: Also to Ursela's that's a little mermaid synergy taking place.
Speaker 1: Whoa yes, true, true, Yeah. The only reason I knew
Speaker 1: it was her is because it's hello there we go
Speaker 1: get over ginger offalo and she is the cool artist
Speaker 1: lady you would want to spend long night talking to
Speaker 1: you about what does the meaning of your life mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was cool casting. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that that just like fits. That's like her character that
Speaker 1: she plays. It's just her cool girl energy. So the
Speaker 1: toys damaged its head is starting to fall off, so
Speaker 1: Ursula offers to fix it for Kiki if Kiki helps
Speaker 1: clean Ursula's house, so she does. Meanwhile, Gig is struggling
Speaker 1: to pretend to be a toy, especially because there's a
Speaker 1: very big dog in the house. His name is Jeff.
Speaker 1: I love Jeff the dog. But Jeff ends up helping
Speaker 1: Gigi escape, and he helps Kiki when she returns with
Speaker 1: the toy cat. So Jeff is an ally and we
Speaker 1: love Jeff. GE's pure astonishment and Jeff, he's a good boy,
Speaker 1: totally took me. He'll do it. So it was amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were so many moments in this movie where you
Speaker 1: expect things to go south, and I kind of wonder.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, maybe that's just like how American movies
Speaker 1: were conditioning our brains to think things were going to
Speaker 1: go because I remember very clearly watching this movie for
Speaker 1: the first time, thinking that the older woman, who I
Speaker 1: guess is voiced by Debbie Reynolds, was going to shove
Speaker 1: Kiki in the oven like I just remember, like a
Speaker 1: handsel and Gretel. I didn't think she was a witch
Speaker 1: at first, because she's coated in such acting accidentally, because
Speaker 1: you don't see her at first, like somebody comes to
Speaker 1: the door and greets you, and then she's chilling them
Speaker 1: back to the old voice you mean, her lesbian lover,
Speaker 1: because those two obviously obviously very death on the nile
Speaker 1: of them u um. But then she has that old
Speaker 1: school stove where listen, if Handling Girl weren't getting shoved
Speaker 1: into like a stove that's set on the floor and
Speaker 1: made of like cast iron, they were getting shoved into
Speaker 1: one of those brick wall of things. Maybe that's why
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to have it, because I
Speaker 1: was just like, wait, no, and she was an old
Speaker 1: lady who wasn't like inherently her grandmother, so she must
Speaker 1: be right. And that's yeah, another way that Western storytelling
Speaker 1: that they're like if a woman is older and you
Speaker 1: don't know her personally. She's about to kill you and
Speaker 1: you're wants to eat you stuck your soul because she's
Speaker 1: jealous of your youth. There are no children around her.
Speaker 1: Evil Okay. Anyways, no one tries to coca. It's shocking
Speaker 1: except for a few gusts of wind. Except the wind,
Speaker 1: but the elements. So sometime later, Tombo comes by the
Speaker 1: bakery to invite Kiki to a party that night at
Speaker 1: the Aviation Club, and she's still not thrilled with him
Speaker 1: at first, but she warms up to him and then
Speaker 1: really wants to go to this party. But first she
Speaker 1: has to make a few deliveries because her business is
Speaker 1: starting to take off literally and figuratively. Wow wow, Kiki
Speaker 1: is a girl boss. She is yeah. For one of
Speaker 1: her deliveries, the pot pie is not ready yet because
Speaker 1: the old woman in the credits, I think her like
Speaker 1: she's just mad, madam, that's Debbie Reynolds. Um, her oven
Speaker 1: isn't working, so Kiki helps her bake the dish and
Speaker 1: then helps her around the house. But oh no, Now
Speaker 1: Kiki is running late for the party and it starts
Speaker 1: raining when she sets off to make the delivery. Also
Speaker 1: Debbie Reynolds granddaughter is ungrateful for the pop pie and
Speaker 1: Kiki is soaking wet and she's so late for this party,
Speaker 1: so she just ends up going home and getting into bed,
Speaker 1: which also so relatable, so relatable, and then she gets sish,
Speaker 1: why did she just really quickly shout out the pie?
Speaker 1: Because I don't know that we talked about this in
Speaker 1: our last Miyazaki episode, but the like Miyazaki food scenes
Speaker 1: are kind of like the stuff of legend, and that
Speaker 1: pie in particular, Um, it's just like so like I
Speaker 1: I feel like that I don't know, just like a
Speaker 1: little more detail than it needs to be in a
Speaker 1: way that is very exciting because there's like a crust
Speaker 1: of fish. It's like a pie but there's a fish
Speaker 1: on top, and you're just like, I don't know great well,
Speaker 1: and then even detailing it with like the highest parts
Speaker 1: of the pie got burned a little because it's a
Speaker 1: full roaring fire and it's not going to cook evenly,
Speaker 1: like the thought process that goes into food, the way
Speaker 1: like the loaves of bread. The opening, um, silent husband
Speaker 1: is I like to call him, like flips open the
Speaker 1: pans and twirl them on his fingers for the cat,
Speaker 1: and I just would love to Apparently there isn't mia
Speaker 1: Zaki Land in Japan, and I heard the foods okay,
Speaker 1: and I would like to go to there and just
Speaker 1: eat my way through. I didn't know that existed. God,
Speaker 1: that's incredible. Yeah, silent husband is exactly how And then
Speaker 1: he says one line at the end and you're and
Speaker 1: I just I was like, you can talk. That's not
Speaker 1: how I thought he was going to sound. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just did. His voice is so much deeper than I
Speaker 1: don't know what I thought he was gonna sound like,
Speaker 1: but I was like, whoa okay, okay. So Kiki does
Speaker 1: get sick for a few days after flying in the rain,
Speaker 1: but then she starts to feel better. She makes a
Speaker 1: delivery for someone who turns out to be Tombo, who
Speaker 1: shows her his flying machine a k a. A bike
Speaker 1: with a propeller on the front, and they get on
Speaker 1: it and go to the beach where this blimp ak.
Speaker 1: They keep calling it a dirigible. I had never heard
Speaker 1: that word before. I'm going to keep calling it a blimp.
Speaker 1: But on the way to see the blimp, they veer
Speaker 1: off course and his flying bike breaks, but they laugh
Speaker 1: about it until Tombo's friends show up and invite them
Speaker 1: to tour the blimp, but Kiki doesn't want to go
Speaker 1: because she feels like an outsider among them. She feels
Speaker 1: that they look at her as if she's kind of
Speaker 1: like an odd ball outsider. I like. I like that
Speaker 1: they introduce kind of like Chekhov's Hendenburg. So if you
Speaker 1: introduce a Handenburg like image, it's got a crash by
Speaker 1: the end of the movie. It doesn't have to quite Hindenburg,
Speaker 1: but I would say this did like a Diet Hindenburg.
Speaker 1: There's definitely a catastrophe involved with pretty scary. I remember
Speaker 1: being very scary because you like it almost felt like
Speaker 1: a little Titanic. We're like, oh my god, they're gonna
Speaker 1: get crushed like it. It's it's very scary. Anyways, check Offshindenburg,
Speaker 1: write it down. New merch coming soon. Um. So, when
Speaker 1: Kiki goes home after kind of abruptly leaving Tombo and
Speaker 1: his friends, she discovers that she can't understand Gigi anymore.
Speaker 1: So he just sounds like a cat meowing at her
Speaker 1: and not Phil Hartman making you know, sarcastic quips, which
Speaker 1: would be a big disappointment. It would be so devastating
Speaker 1: if if my cat made slide comments all the time
Speaker 1: and then just abruptly didn't, the heartbreak just a third
Speaker 1: of my entertainment is gone. I kind of always imagine,
Speaker 1: because you know, like if you're like Pet's voice in
Speaker 1: your head. Of course, I do always kind of apply
Speaker 1: a bit of a Newsy's accent to both of my pets,
Speaker 1: and I wonder how much of that is like just
Speaker 1: latent Phil Hartman Gigi from my I'm like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, if you have a little black cat is
Speaker 1: your animal familiar, it's gonna sound a little bit like
Speaker 1: Phil Harp those are I have a giant dog and
Speaker 1: she sounds dopey. She has the tuba that follows Jeff around.
Speaker 1: I did have a little oh god, I was really
Speaker 1: hoping Jeff would come back for more than a second.
Speaker 1: But seriously, he made a meal of his time on screen.
Speaker 1: It's a joy and a highlight. Okay, so she can't
Speaker 1: understand Gigi anymore. Also, Gigi has a cat girlfriend who
Speaker 1: again in the original Japanese version of this movie Lesbian Cats,
Speaker 1: we've got lesbian old ladies. A lot of queer representation
Speaker 1: in this film. So he also discovers she cannot fly
Speaker 1: on her broom anymore, and she breaks her broom trying
Speaker 1: to see if she can still fly. So she's losing
Speaker 1: her witch's powers. She's really depressed. She doesn't want to
Speaker 1: talk to Tombo anymore. But then one day, Ursula shows
Speaker 1: up to visit Kiki and they take a little like
Speaker 1: weekend trip together out in the woods and Kiki confides
Speaker 1: in Ursula while she draws Kiki, and she tells Kiki
Speaker 1: that the same thing happened to her as an artist.
Speaker 1: She felt she couldn't really paint anymore, but she realized
Speaker 1: what she needed was some inspiration and she needed to
Speaker 1: discover her own unique style. So that scene really hit
Speaker 1: for me this time around. I needed it. Then Kiki
Speaker 1: returns home and makes another delivery for the Madam, except
Speaker 1: it's actually a gift, a cake from her for Kiki,
Speaker 1: and she's so touched and she starts crying, and they
Speaker 1: are going to celebrate their birthdays together and it's so beautiful,
Speaker 1: but meanwhile, oh no, there's a terrible accident with they're like,
Speaker 1: oh no, Chekhov's Hindenburg and it's blowing away because of
Speaker 1: strong winds, so really the wind is the antagonist of
Speaker 1: this movie, and the blimp is taking Tombo along with it,
Speaker 1: so Kiki rushes off. She grabs a man's push broom
Speaker 1: and is able to fly on it again, but she's
Speaker 1: very rusty and wobbly on the broom. The blimp crashes
Speaker 1: into a clock tower. Tombo is about to fall off
Speaker 1: and die, but Kiki manages to get there in the
Speaker 1: nick of time, and she saves Tombo. And everyone is
Speaker 1: so proud of Kiki. She's a she's a national hero.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about anyone else, but I legitimately
Speaker 1: burst into tears, like when she grabs him and then
Speaker 1: like lowers him down onto the I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, and it's like it builds a suspense so well,
Speaker 1: like you don't know if she I mean you do,
Speaker 1: but you do, and then she lowers him so slowly,
Speaker 1: and it's so beautiful. Kay, I guess that that is
Speaker 1: a that's a little Mermaid parallel where Ariel does save
Speaker 1: Prince Eric it um. I think a few points in
Speaker 1: that movie, but it's it is such a beautiful conclusion
Speaker 1: and then she and then and then you find out
Speaker 1: and then I get curious about the timeline of the
Speaker 1: movie at the end because it's like she's supposed to
Speaker 1: be gone for like a year, right or so, and
Speaker 1: then like how long has she been gone? Because at
Speaker 1: the end of it's like I was like, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess maybe it's been like two months. Maybe this
Speaker 1: she became a celebrity, like two months into her year,
Speaker 1: her semester abroad. That's kind of where I thought the
Speaker 1: timeline was. Because so the movie ends with Kiki and
Speaker 1: Tombo flying together, Kiki on her broom and Tombo on
Speaker 1: his new and improved flying machine, and then we get
Speaker 1: the credits, and we get a few we you know,
Speaker 1: we check in with different characters, and then there's a
Speaker 1: scene at the very end of the of that like
Speaker 1: credit sequence where kiki parents receive a letter from her
Speaker 1: saying how she loves the city and now she has
Speaker 1: all this confidence and she's like doing great. And I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: so she's still, you know, abroad and like on her
Speaker 1: year abroad basically, So yeah, I think it's only a
Speaker 1: few months into her adventures wild. So that's the story.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we will come
Speaker 1: right back to discuss and we are back. We're back
Speaker 1: on our brooms, baby, and we're ready to soar into
Speaker 1: the discussion. Where to begin? I feel like we've already
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to like, um, keep your feelings at
Speaker 1: bay when discussing I'm discussing, kikiS um, where shall we go?
Speaker 1: Can we talk about how this reflects just so many
Speaker 1: points in our lives. We've sort of been talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about it, Like for me, is very into
Speaker 1: gative of the year between junior high and high school,
Speaker 1: Like it sort of felt like that summer of like
Speaker 1: who am I going to be in this new school?
Speaker 1: And there's gonna be so much less like parental and
Speaker 1: individual oversight, and I'll be making a lot more decisions
Speaker 1: about like what kind of or is I want to
Speaker 1: be a part of and all this stuff. And then
Speaker 1: it also sort of reminded me of like when I
Speaker 1: moved out of the dorms in college, which for me
Speaker 1: was like the second half of freshman year, and I
Speaker 1: got my first apartment and I was like, I could
Speaker 1: totally have so much money shopping spree. Looks like all
Speaker 1: I can eat is pancakes, damn um. And then even
Speaker 1: now sort of the aspects of like burnout and definitely
Speaker 1: female friendships. At this point in time, my life is
Speaker 1: somebody who's like not in a very seriously committed relationships.
Speaker 1: My female friendships are like the most grounding, structural feature
Speaker 1: of my daily life. And I think she's surrounded by
Speaker 1: so many incredible women who see her so authentically. And
Speaker 1: I love that this movie sort of embraces all of
Speaker 1: those moments and ask you, if you're envisioning yourself as Kiki,
Speaker 1: you don't need to change. There's so many times when
Speaker 1: this could have flown off into like, uh, makeup montage.
Speaker 1: She's practically begging for one the whole movie. She's like,
Speaker 1: my shoes aren't right, like these pretty red shoes, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll get those. And I my dress it's not right, mom,
Speaker 1: Like it's just dark and I would look better. And
Speaker 1: Lilac and the woman she lives with, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I got back to a party. You don't twear. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not really a problem because it looks great and
Speaker 1: cool and mysterious and this dope dress you have. Anyone
Speaker 1: else would have been like montage girl, let's fix you
Speaker 1: so people will like you. And I love the idea
Speaker 1: that all these women essentially just encourage her to like
Speaker 1: be herself and take her time and get some rest
Speaker 1: and all the great advice you get from your girl friends.
Speaker 1: And it's so oh man, it's the kind of movie
Speaker 1: you instantly want to share with the little girls in
Speaker 1: your life. You're like, please watch and consume and like
Speaker 1: internalized as quickly as you can. I mean, and like,
Speaker 1: this has been on my mind for you, and I
Speaker 1: guess I hadn't thought about how Kiki is like such
Speaker 1: a unique, shining example of just like the value of
Speaker 1: teaching kids in general, like when to say no, but
Speaker 1: in particular teaching young girls when to say no because
Speaker 1: Kiki is like and and also seeing that not result
Speaker 1: in some worst case scenario where Kiki is like she burnt.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason she burns herself out is because
Speaker 1: she's so she works really hard, Like she is very
Speaker 1: very very accommodating to other people in a way that
Speaker 1: I feel like girls are often like conditioned to do,
Speaker 1: and like she's always doing the most for other people
Speaker 1: in a way that is like speaks to how good
Speaker 1: her heart is. But when she has to, like when
Speaker 1: she hits a wall and she like is completely burned
Speaker 1: out and has nothing left to give. No one's set
Speaker 1: with her. Everyone's like, yeah, of course, like we appreciated
Speaker 1: everything you're doing for us, but like you don't have
Speaker 1: like don't hurt yourself, don't kill yourself on behalf of
Speaker 1: like practice some self care, like I didn't get back
Speaker 1: on your feet. Yeah. Well, and the thing that really
Speaker 1: burns her out is the lack of appreciation, right, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's the rain and it gives her a cold and
Speaker 1: all that, but it's your grandmother and I worked really
Speaker 1: hard to make sure you could have this thing that
Speaker 1: she thought you would love in your against snootiness and
Speaker 1: complete rejection of this you know, gift aide with so
Speaker 1: much love, Like it's so disheartening to her that she
Speaker 1: can't because I feel like before this, Kiki is always
Speaker 1: seeing the bright side of things, you know, when they
Speaker 1: arrive in the town. Her is like, you know, if
Speaker 1: there maybe which is like and there might not be,
Speaker 1: we just don't know yet. We have to go ask
Speaker 1: some questions. She's like always a glass half full kind
Speaker 1: of gal. But everyone's been accommodating and appreciative and supportive
Speaker 1: up until that point, even her first customer as a woman,
Speaker 1: and she gives her way more money than she's like
Speaker 1: I didn't even think a proud of and they're like
Speaker 1: a poor girl, Okay, this is what you want to be.
Speaker 1: Just overpaid a couple of times and you're like, yes,
Speaker 1: people appreciate her work. And then literally like Debbie Reynolds
Speaker 1: is like, you know, Kiki's like, you don't have to
Speaker 1: pay me if if your pie isn't done, and Debbie
Speaker 1: Reynolds is like, no, you came here, you worked, and
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, Miyazaki and you know that, like Miyazaki
Speaker 1: has been involved in like workers rights and labor rights
Speaker 1: throughout his career too, so it feels very like intentional
Speaker 1: and yes, yes, yeah, that's something that really struck me
Speaker 1: to where like a recurring theme slash motif is this
Speaker 1: idea of like Kiki isn't really sure what her work
Speaker 1: is worth, and like is part of me was like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if she's being overpaid by these people.
Speaker 1: It's probably just that she's been conditioned to like not
Speaker 1: know her value, which is another thing that girls are
Speaker 1: not ever taught how to negotiate for themselves or like
Speaker 1: not taught like how to know the worth of their
Speaker 1: labor and skills and stuff like that. Absolutely, and her
Speaker 1: mom even makes such a big point of like she
Speaker 1: barely knows how to fly, which sort of hit me
Speaker 1: on two points is like, one, you did this at
Speaker 1: thirteen as well, your daughter is like clearly very capable.
Speaker 1: She's like checking the night to make sure you're like,
Speaker 1: I mean, thirteen is very young to be like out
Speaker 1: on your stars as far as like, but as far
Speaker 1: as tradition goes, Just like I think parents often are
Speaker 1: like my babies when they were often doing things either
Speaker 1: you know, more intense or just about as intense when
Speaker 1: they were their kids age, and it wasn't necessarily harmful, um,
Speaker 1: but it was also sort of this idea of like
Speaker 1: Keys sort of been I think only child syndrome, where
Speaker 1: she's just around a lot of adults, so she's very mature,
Speaker 1: and she's running around and doing her own thing, and
Speaker 1: she hasn't had the time to like learn potions or
Speaker 1: learn a trade really so that she's fully prepared for
Speaker 1: this journey. And I sort of like that so much
Speaker 1: of her action is just omption. I just want to
Speaker 1: go to the ocean. Let's just go see what that's like,
Speaker 1: we could probably this sound looks good, like the train
Speaker 1: dropped me off here, Maybe that'll work, you know, like
Speaker 1: I could take the pacifier back, and then doesn't think
Speaker 1: about at all making that her job until again, here's
Speaker 1: this older woman who's like, well that could be a business,
Speaker 1: and you don't have any place to say, like, let
Speaker 1: me give you a room, you poor child out on
Speaker 1: the street. I love when you go to the hotel,
Speaker 1: which again I just think about if I was their
Speaker 1: team trying to do it on my own and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check in. Is your parents around? Like who
Speaker 1: are And she's like who's responsible for this child? Which
Speaker 1: is also relatable to like as a thirteen year old,
Speaker 1: but also just as like a person of any age,
Speaker 1: like doing a new thing, going to a new place.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of like I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of metaphors you can map on two Kiki's experience.
Speaker 1: Like I was reading a Twitter thread on our Twitter
Speaker 1: when we were posting about wanting to cover this movie,
Speaker 1: and a listener was like, this movie gave me the
Speaker 1: confidence to like go abroad when I was like a
Speaker 1: young adult and like live abroad and other people were
Speaker 1: commenting things like, oh, like I saw this as a
Speaker 1: metaphor for like pursuing art as a career, and like
Speaker 1: how people generally respond to that, but like how you
Speaker 1: have to, like you know, just kind of keep doing
Speaker 1: it and messing up at it until you kind of
Speaker 1: finally figure it out and and then just I also
Speaker 1: think that similar to Paddington, you can kind of map
Speaker 1: like this is similar to an immigrants experience, and there's
Speaker 1: all these just like relatable experiences, and yeah, we were
Speaker 1: already talking about some of them, but there's also you
Speaker 1: rarely see a female character, like a girl of this
Speaker 1: age in a movie being allowed to just kind of
Speaker 1: fumble through what she's trying to do and like make mistakes,
Speaker 1: but like learn and develop her skills and show emotional
Speaker 1: vulnerability but also show strength. We've had a very similar
Speaker 1: discussion on the Spirited Away episode two. Yeah, because this
Speaker 1: is like something that Miazaki is like known for being
Speaker 1: really good with, and like I love that it's like she, yeah,
Speaker 1: similar to Tahiro Kiki, is not great at everything the
Speaker 1: first time she tries it, and you see her like
Speaker 1: get better in a way that feels like you're saying
Speaker 1: Joel like very very grounded for the fantasy world that
Speaker 1: we're in. And I think that also makes her more
Speaker 1: like accessible to kids that are watching the movie, because
Speaker 1: it's like most kids are not going to be amazing
Speaker 1: at something the first time they try it. And like
Speaker 1: the way that Kiki, like, I don't know it stood
Speaker 1: out to me, especially on this viewing. The way that she,
Speaker 1: like her strength is that she approaches the world with
Speaker 1: all this positivity and confidence and just like trusts that
Speaker 1: she's going to find her place. And it's like when
Speaker 1: she feels rejected enough times, that's when she loses herself
Speaker 1: for a little bit and loses what makes her so special,
Speaker 1: which is that she is able to like just have
Speaker 1: this faith in herself that kids are very often able
Speaker 1: to have in themselves, and that sometimes, you know, like
Speaker 1: at the age she's at, when you're when you're thirteen,
Speaker 1: that's when you kind of start to question that and
Speaker 1: lose that. And the fact that she questions it and
Speaker 1: loses it and then like meets this amazing big sister
Speaker 1: who Another really great moment that I remember thinking was
Speaker 1: really sweet when I was a kid too, is the
Speaker 1: you know, Kiki says I think something that a lot
Speaker 1: of thirteen year olds, I mean, regardless of gender say,
Speaker 1: where they're like, why would you want to draw? Like,
Speaker 1: why would you want to draw me? I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: not pretty, I'm not cute, and because I mean, think
Speaker 1: of a time in your life where you feel less
Speaker 1: cute than being thirteen years old. Oh my god. And
Speaker 1: then her reaction to not be like, oh no, you're beautiful,
Speaker 1: to lave laugh, to laugh so fully, and just being
Speaker 1: like it's not even a rejection of that idea, it's
Speaker 1: a complete understand of course you feel that way, but no,
Speaker 1: let me tell you all your face is beautiful. So
Speaker 1: it's like that sort of like constant love and positivity
Speaker 1: and not over dramatizing a moment, which I think often
Speaker 1: happens for like like oh you feel bad, to stop everything.
Speaker 1: We need to make sure you feel good about yourself
Speaker 1: instead of just sort of embracing that that feeling is
Speaker 1: real and that you can sort of stay with that
Speaker 1: feeling and still recognize that there is beauty in you
Speaker 1: and that you know you look good kid, like you're fine.
Speaker 1: I just think there's there's so much um just support
Speaker 1: and sort of the ideal support that you would hope
Speaker 1: young people would gravitate towards um and none of the
Speaker 1: negative to really counterbalance at all. That it's like there's
Speaker 1: no need, like we're going to keep it two thousand
Speaker 1: percent positive, even if we compare her final heroic scene
Speaker 1: to any other movie's heroic moment, which is always I've
Speaker 1: mastered my skills and now I can do the job
Speaker 1: that needs to be done, which is ludicrous. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you talk to anybody working in literally in the
Speaker 1: field who's sane and not a complete narcissist, they're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I still have so much to learn. There's I'm constantly
Speaker 1: messing it up. I'm constantly questioning whether I'm doing it right.
Speaker 1: I have no flicking clue how I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: next step that I need to do. And so to
Speaker 1: show her fumble the whole way until the very last second,
Speaker 1: like there at the moment where you're like, is he
Speaker 1: gonna let this kid just splat on the ground? Is
Speaker 1: he gonna die in front of all these people you
Speaker 1: don't know, not really, and and for it to be
Speaker 1: sort of this great moment and still be so celebrated
Speaker 1: and so not you know, I think again. It could
Speaker 1: easily be like, oh, she almost dropped him most scary.
Speaker 1: Instead I was like, oh my god, you did it,
Speaker 1: Thank God. And it's it's just all constant love and support.
Speaker 1: And this movie feels like a warm hug. Guys, if
Speaker 1: you need one, like you can watch this movie. It's
Speaker 1: getting me all teared up just describing, like it's so
Speaker 1: thoughtful and like that night with Ursula is so special.
Speaker 1: We're like the only Joel. I think you said this earlier,
Speaker 1: Like she's begging for a makeover in the way that
Speaker 1: you would expect in a movie like about young girls
Speaker 1: in general the whole time, and the only thing that
Speaker 1: changes about her is like her mindset and that trip,
Speaker 1: Like it's so nice, it's perfect. Even the way that
Speaker 1: scene is scored, there's an entire crescendo until she turns
Speaker 1: off the light, which I've never noticed before until this screening,
Speaker 1: and so it's like almost mirrors when she's about to fly.
Speaker 1: So when she's about to fly, it's like all the
Speaker 1: sound cuts out and then there's that wishing wrestling, and
Speaker 1: then she takes off and goose bumps. By the way
Speaker 1: in the final scene where she bought like I'm just
Speaker 1: doing that, like you're like, oh, God's happening. But in
Speaker 1: this scene it's sort of the opposite, where it's all
Speaker 1: the magic is in the actual notes of the music,
Speaker 1: is not something that has to be concentrated on or
Speaker 1: really ex breast. It's just naturally there. And when she
Speaker 1: turns off the light, it's even more magical because you know,
Speaker 1: if you've been at a sleepover, when the lights go off,
Speaker 1: that's in the real conversations. And now we're just two
Speaker 1: voices talking in the dark and and like being somehow
Speaker 1: even more honest and intimate than we were before. When
Speaker 1: the lights are on. It is like such a perfect
Speaker 1: encapsulation of just those girlhood sleepovers, and I really love it.
Speaker 1: It's so special. Speaking of I mean, we already touched
Speaker 1: on this a little bit, but I wanted to do
Speaker 1: a deeper dive into Kiki's relationships with other girls and women,
Speaker 1: because you have scenes at the beginning where it's clear
Speaker 1: that she has a good relationship with her mom. We
Speaker 1: see her say goodbye to her like group of female
Speaker 1: friends that are like her age. Everybody seems very supportive
Speaker 1: of her, you know, they're all wishing her well and
Speaker 1: like so excited for her to embark on this journey
Speaker 1: than when she gets to the city, she befriends a
Speaker 1: son No, she befriends Ursula, the lesbian couple. No woman
Speaker 1: betrays her in the hall, like there's no and there's
Speaker 1: no real like villain of this movie either, like the Wind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Wind is the sole villain of the Like there's
Speaker 1: the only villain. She's a challenger. It is just something
Speaker 1: she has to work with. Yeah, yeah, Like the only
Speaker 1: villain is like her, like loss of confidence, and like
Speaker 1: the forces that cause her to lose her confidence is
Speaker 1: the real enemy. And then so she has all these
Speaker 1: like just wonderful, supportive relationships with women, and you know,
Speaker 1: they kind of take on different roles where like a
Speaker 1: son No kind of becomes sort of like a mother
Speaker 1: figure but also a bit of a mentor, like a
Speaker 1: business mentor almost. Ursula is sort of like taking on
Speaker 1: this big sister also mentorish role where she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I experienced something similar. You can confide in me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you some advice on how to get
Speaker 1: through this. Um you've got madam and what is her
Speaker 1: lover's name? And again, I don't think they're not like
Speaker 1: canonically necessarily lovers, but they definitely call her by a name,
Speaker 1: Yea Barsa maybe, yes, yes, that is absolutely correct. Are
Speaker 1: we supposed to think that Barsa works for her? I
Speaker 1: feel like there's like a line of dialogue that indicates that, yeah,
Speaker 1: she might be like an employee, but it seems like
Speaker 1: they're in love. That's probably what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: So very unprofessional of Debbie Reynolds to be dating her employee.
Speaker 1: It's very definitely now, this is how they could be together. Okay,
Speaker 1: she has to pretend to be the employee so they
Speaker 1: can live their lesbian lifestyle without judgment. Because it's also like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what era we're supposed to be in,
Speaker 1: but it seems like, based on the horrors, it might
Speaker 1: be like the forties or fifties. I felt like when
Speaker 1: I heard aviation Club, I'm like, World War two write
Speaker 1: aviation Club, that boy and striped hat and propeller hat,
Speaker 1: and you know, everything happens in Miyazaki's childhood or present day,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty much it. So I feel like I
Speaker 1: feel like this is probably just around the time he's
Speaker 1: like in his mid teens, which would be a little
Speaker 1: bit post World War. In any case, she's got all
Speaker 1: these just wonderful, supportive relationships with these women. And then
Speaker 1: the one person her age who she be friends is Tombo, who,
Speaker 1: as we joked about at the very beginning, does do
Speaker 1: that like I'm gonna wear you down until you agree
Speaker 1: to be my friend. And I think you can kind
Speaker 1: of assume that he has a crush on her, but
Speaker 1: also it might just be like, you know, he thinks
Speaker 1: she's really cool because she can fly and he loves
Speaker 1: to fly, and maybe he just wants to be friends.
Speaker 1: Either way, no romance emerges, which again, if you're comparing this,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's not fair to compare like a Studio
Speaker 1: Ghibli movie to a Disney Renaissance movie, but like, because
Speaker 1: Disney Renaissance movies are the animated movies that I was watching.
Speaker 1: Is a kid in the US in the nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: even though a lot of those movies had a female protagonist,
Speaker 1: it was stuff like yeah, but she never had a mom,
Speaker 1: She never had any female friends. If she met a boy,
Speaker 1: he became her boyfriend. If she had an animal sidekick,
Speaker 1: the animal sidekick was there to help her get that boyfriend.
Speaker 1: You know, stuff like that. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: a very fair comparison because it's the same years and
Speaker 1: and the Disney Renaissance movies were borrowing so heavily from
Speaker 1: Miyazaki movies, just way less affect, like borrowing all the
Speaker 1: wrong stuff that not borrowing anything thematically that would have
Speaker 1: been helpful. But like that art is gorgeous. Fuck a
Speaker 1: message though, right, we got that unlock. Not interested in
Speaker 1: evolving there, but beautiful art. I also think like this
Speaker 1: is a this film really sort of challenges the idea
Speaker 1: of like I don't even want to say challenges, that's
Speaker 1: the wrong wording. This film sort of really highlights like Okay,
Speaker 1: she wants a boyfriend, but has no idea like what
Speaker 1: that actually means. She just sort of sees like there's
Speaker 1: that moment where she's in the shop and it's a
Speaker 1: slow day and she's bored, and she sees like a
Speaker 1: very elegant girl in her very large floppy hat and
Speaker 1: her son dress hop on the back of a boy
Speaker 1: scooter and she's sitting side saddle. How do they do that?
Speaker 1: It's so elegant, and you know, just one hand brace
Speaker 1: gently on the back and the other around her guy's
Speaker 1: waist and they zoom off and it's all very romantic,
Speaker 1: and she lets out this sort of like deep sigh
Speaker 1: and then when she has a chance to recreate this,
Speaker 1: she street doesn't She She's like foxingting side saddle. She's like,
Speaker 1: I this is how I ride my broom. I know
Speaker 1: how to fly. And she's completely in her element of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know how to fly, like I can get really
Speaker 1: low into the ground, and I know how to hit
Speaker 1: these words and you instead of guiding me, and their
Speaker 1: relationships entirely built on their desire to like fly and
Speaker 1: be up and move. And it's sort of really interesting too.
Speaker 1: It's a sort of challenge idea of like she might
Speaker 1: want a boyfriend, but she's not ready for no nothing,
Speaker 1: she's thirteen. Like she just gives this opportunity to be friends.
Speaker 1: And I think, again, what an aspirational thing for young
Speaker 1: girls to have is just this idea of like you
Speaker 1: can just be friends with the boys, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: awesome too, Like, and they can treat you fairly and
Speaker 1: respectfully and never try to objectify you or challenge you
Speaker 1: or make fun of you, which I think, especially coming
Speaker 1: out of like late eighties movies like Porky's and a
Speaker 1: much better film but with somebody themes fast times Richmond
Speaker 1: High this idea of like boys are constantly just laughing
Speaker 1: at girls, and I I think the idea that none
Speaker 1: of that happens here is it's kind of great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he like appreciates her, like initially for her flying skills,
Speaker 1: and then when he gets to know her better, it
Speaker 1: just seems that he likes her character, her like kindness
Speaker 1: and and positivity and stuff like that. And again, like
Speaker 1: comparing it to a Disney Renaissance movie, those plots are
Speaker 1: usually revolving entirely around the head. A ro romance versus
Speaker 1: Keys Delivery service is about like a very just like
Speaker 1: internal struggle of Kiki, like growing up and coming of
Speaker 1: age and learning how to be a person in the world.
Speaker 1: And she makes some friendships along the way and those
Speaker 1: inform and inspire her. But yeah, it's just like it's
Speaker 1: not common that you'd have just a story like that
Speaker 1: about a girl, like a team girl. Imagine so very cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's very it's very beautiful. I think I will
Speaker 1: say that that that the Tombo stuff, the way it's
Speaker 1: developed is a little bit that's the only thing about
Speaker 1: the movie then, like it's a little clunky. At some
Speaker 1: points he is following her around. She does repeatedly say
Speaker 1: I don't want to be your friend and it works
Speaker 1: out for them, and like, I don't know, it's a
Speaker 1: perfect movie. Uh. That did stick out to me for
Speaker 1: a second where I'm like, Tombo, take the hint for sure.
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to hang let her like if she
Speaker 1: wants to, if she changes her mind, let her come
Speaker 1: to you. She'll let you know. It's like the most
Speaker 1: respectful level of because it's so I think, because it's
Speaker 1: framed as being very inty, like she's so cool? Are
Speaker 1: you mad at me? Still? Why can you explain it
Speaker 1: to me? I don't understand what happened? I want to
Speaker 1: hang out. Why are you sad? What's going on? Like
Speaker 1: it's so much about like what what can I do
Speaker 1: to make it better? Like I just I just want
Speaker 1: to hang out here. And it's never you know, aggressive
Speaker 1: or and again never blaming or like she's like she's
Speaker 1: so frigid, she won't talk to me. I don't understand her.
Speaker 1: It's just constantly going back to you, like you just
Speaker 1: tell them what's going on? And I think it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of the sweetest way you could be hopelessly I
Speaker 1: don't even want to say hopelessly in love, but sort
Speaker 1: of like attracted to somebody and again not even in
Speaker 1: a romantic way, but just attracted to that person. But
Speaker 1: who is this person? Please talk to me. I feel
Speaker 1: like they could be good friends. It's precious, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree Jamie that like the way it's handled is
Speaker 1: a little like especially because like it works out for
Speaker 1: them and they become friends, even though he did wear
Speaker 1: her down and not not really like take her hints
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But Joel, you're also right in
Speaker 1: that he's not really displaying aside from like some light stalking. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's not. He's not engaging in other toxic behaviors that
Speaker 1: also usually get rewarded in movies. So the only thing
Speaker 1: I wish is that Anna hadn't sent her to his
Speaker 1: house that I was. I guess the woman does betray
Speaker 1: her for a second, like you don't know what he's like,
Speaker 1: You don't know this boy? Is he good? Right, especially
Speaker 1: because Kiki's reaction is like so know, how did how
Speaker 1: could you do this to me? And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're throwing Kiki under the bus right now like
Speaker 1: a lot. That's truly like the only element that felt
Speaker 1: late eighties to me. Everything else was like timeless, perfect,
Speaker 1: no notes, But that that part, that little element, It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I bet that that if that was written now, would
Speaker 1: be done a little differently. The only other example of
Speaker 1: something like that for me was um. So there's a
Speaker 1: pancake motif as well, and this I love a motif,
Speaker 1: And there's so many motifs in this movie. One of
Speaker 1: them is a pancake motif. Um. It's initially introduced when
Speaker 1: she is worried that she is only going to be
Speaker 1: able to eat pancakes because that's all she's going to
Speaker 1: be able to afford. So it's kind of this like
Speaker 1: class thing and she's like getting her business off the
Speaker 1: ground and like not really earning money yet. But then
Speaker 1: later she's a girl building her empire, which like we yeah,
Speaker 1: we have joked about that before, and I think there
Speaker 1: is like a possible like capitalist read to this, but
Speaker 1: I choose to view her enter into Yeah, I just think,
Speaker 1: you know, she's she's not starting a business so she
Speaker 1: can get rich and exploit other people. She's just like
Speaker 1: I have a skill that most other people don't see
Speaker 1: them to have because most other people are not witches
Speaker 1: who can fly on a broom. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: use this skill and provide a helpful service in order
Speaker 1: to support myself and learn independence. Yeah, I have to
Speaker 1: live in a capitalist society. And it's not her fault.
Speaker 1: She does have to live through it. It's tradition. It's
Speaker 1: tradition that you need to start a business on your
Speaker 1: thirteenth birthday. Yes, um okay. So she's talking about how
Speaker 1: she's only ever going to be able to afford to
Speaker 1: eat pancakes, and then at one point she says, if
Speaker 1: I don't get customers, I'm going to have to eat
Speaker 1: pancakes forever, and then I'm going to get fat, fat, fat.
Speaker 1: So I didn't appreciate, but but then I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: that is a very like thirteen year old girl thing
Speaker 1: to say, because she's been conditioned to Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that fatness equals bad. But I think if this movie
Speaker 1: were to come out today, a line like that would
Speaker 1: be eliminated. It's very little stuff like it. It is
Speaker 1: kind of wile that the grapes we have are like comparatively.
Speaker 1: I mean compared to like Disney movies of the same
Speaker 1: era we've covered, where it's like cracking your knuckles being like,
Speaker 1: all right, where do we begin, like our sleeves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last kind of thing I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: is we have discussed on the podcast before the representation
Speaker 1: of women or girls as witches in media and how
Speaker 1: which is are often portrayed as villains. They're scary, evil seductresses,
Speaker 1: or they are like old body horror hags or some
Speaker 1: other version of bad scary witch lady, um, and how
Speaker 1: that was born from a historical fear and misunderstanding of
Speaker 1: women's sexuality, women's bodies, women existing in the world period.
Speaker 1: But this movie doesn't do anything like that. It's borrowing
Speaker 1: some like iconography from which stuff such as a black
Speaker 1: cat and flying on a broom and like potions mixing
Speaker 1: that like we see her mom doing at the beginning
Speaker 1: and end. But other than that, it's just like she's
Speaker 1: a witch and that's actually really cool and um most
Speaker 1: people are fine with it, except for that one cop.
Speaker 1: And I found a great essay by Christine John Baptiste
Speaker 1: on bitch media from a couple of years ago that
Speaker 1: like does a great job of fully unpacking like Kiki's
Speaker 1: place in which culture and also like Japanese magic girl
Speaker 1: culture is really good. The passage that stuck out to
Speaker 1: me goes a little something like this hit it quote.
Speaker 1: Like Witchcraft itself, the film centers on the bonds between women,
Speaker 1: though the male savior remains a common trope incoming of
Speaker 1: age movies. Girl Meets boy, Girl falls in love with boy.
Speaker 1: Boy makes girls lives better. It's women whom Kiki can
Speaker 1: trust as she learns about herself and rediscovers her strength. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it goes on to just kind of unpack how
Speaker 1: traditionally which is you know, it's a way of of
Speaker 1: making women who are empowered and uh sustaining themselves and
Speaker 1: often engaging in like sisterhood and solidarity with other women
Speaker 1: seem like an evil and terrifying thing that is worthy
Speaker 1: of violence. And this is this movie is saying the
Speaker 1: exact opposite, Like it's strength. Keiki is using her powers
Speaker 1: for good while also knowing her own worth. She like
Speaker 1: gets self esteem and gives self esteem to the women
Speaker 1: around her, and they're all kind of in it together.
Speaker 1: There's no and there's no villain in this story. And
Speaker 1: she's like she's accepted. It's it's very beautiful. Um, is
Speaker 1: there anything else? Uh, we want to talk about? Actually,
Speaker 1: one thing that I was curious about, because this is
Speaker 1: something I noticed a lot in my neighbor Toto and
Speaker 1: this movie in Kiki Delivery Service, was that you see
Speaker 1: young girls underwear a lot, which in animation is a
Speaker 1: very deliberate choice. You have to like very deliberately animate
Speaker 1: that animation famously not real. Yeah, correct, And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: is this just sort of like my puritanical American point
Speaker 1: of view where I was kind of weirded out by
Speaker 1: the very frequent shots of young underage girls and seeing
Speaker 1: their underwear, or is this maybe a cultural thing that
Speaker 1: I'm just not fully aware of, especially because these movies
Speaker 1: never like sexualize the characters in any way. There's never
Speaker 1: any kind of like predatory camera work happening. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I was like, why do we see
Speaker 1: their underwear so much? It's a good question. And and
Speaker 1: so we consulted our guests on the Spirited Away episode,
Speaker 1: Aomi Shionazaki, and I asked if she had any insight
Speaker 1: about this, and she sure did, and she sure did,
Speaker 1: and we are so grateful and this is what she
Speaker 1: had to say, Jamie, would you do the honors? Sure, so,
Speaker 1: Aaomi says, regarding kikiS delivery service and my neighbor Totoro.
Speaker 1: Let's start with this unfortunate panti question. I'm not even
Speaker 1: someone I would consider a historian of Japanese animation as
Speaker 1: a whole, but since Magical Girls have been around a
Speaker 1: long time, and I've watched a lot of shows from
Speaker 1: across the decades, I'm unfortunately very familiar with this topic.
Speaker 1: I do have to admit that, as someone who has
Speaker 1: taught very young Japanese children for years, kids who were
Speaker 1: addresses often end up showing their panties without realizing it
Speaker 1: because their children and they play and they're literally not
Speaker 1: thinking about stuff like that yet, and I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: them to have to, which obviously true of all kids. However,
Speaker 1: there is a reason why we never see panties and
Speaker 1: spirited away. After Miyazaki paid attention to media for young girls.
Speaker 1: Even now, it's an audience whose comics and cartoons are
Speaker 1: generally panty free. But also there were major changes made
Speaker 1: to regulations in children's media in the nineties, which, from
Speaker 1: my understanding, occurred after the Pokemon seizure fiasco. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that means either. The Pokemon cartoons back in
Speaker 1: the day had so much flash animation that they would
Speaker 1: occasionally caused kids to have seizures, so they were like
Speaker 1: heav we edited before they came over to America. I
Speaker 1: don't know much about what happened on the Japanese side,
Speaker 1: but I do know they want to started airing over
Speaker 1: here and people caught win that that had happened. That
Speaker 1: there was a lot of concern among parents about their
Speaker 1: kids watching the show. That is why I was thinking,
Speaker 1: seizing Pokemon cards happened at my school. If you had
Speaker 1: Pokemon cards, they were seen. That is how I interpreted
Speaker 1: that as well. Okay continuing, I want to look into that.
Speaker 1: That's wild um continuing with Ayomi. When it comes to
Speaker 1: the concept, we can blame Osamu Tezuka, the god of manga,
Speaker 1: who began work in comics and animation from the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: He began to drop panti shots in Astro Boy for
Speaker 1: the character of Iran, who was a child and went
Speaker 1: really wild with the marvelous Melmo. In the early seventies,
Speaker 1: a Magical Girl series about a nine year old girl
Speaker 1: who gets magical candies that aged her up or down
Speaker 1: and whose panties can be seen just all over the place. Well,
Speaker 1: earlier magical girl shows had been for girls and was
Speaker 1: thus largely panty free. This was the show focused on
Speaker 1: teaching sex education to children. For the record, parents complained
Speaker 1: about the show, but primarily about the sex education part,
Speaker 1: not the panti shot part. Confusing world we live in.
Speaker 1: I know, boomer parents really really uh wow? Okay, or
Speaker 1: I guess this would be the boomer parents parents. Anyways,
Speaker 1: Later on in the seventies, we also got the first
Speaker 1: fighting magical girl, Cutie Honey, who has rendered nude all
Speaker 1: the time despite being seventeen years old, and parents definitely
Speaker 1: complained about that nudity fair her series has been a
Speaker 1: lot of variations in terms of levels of sexualization depending
Speaker 1: on the intended audience. As she's been rebooted, panty shots
Speaker 1: had become extremely normalized in media not targeted to girls
Speaker 1: in Japan, to the point where some viewers might be
Speaker 1: numb to it. But it's not just you. I did
Speaker 1: some googling in Japanese and found a lot of parents
Speaker 1: and or feminist blogs and social media posts asking if
Speaker 1: it's okay to still show these two movies to kids,
Speaker 1: often only realizing the panti shots were weird in the
Speaker 1: context of hearing non Japanese insight on the films. If
Speaker 1: these movies were made today, I think they'd have either
Speaker 1: very few panti shots or none at all, due to
Speaker 1: that change in regulations of children's media in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Improvement can be seen in Pano to be Sure, where
Speaker 1: she is designed with adorable poofy white shorts. Oh yeah
Speaker 1: she is. Um. The regularity of panti shots and media,
Speaker 1: especially media for teen boys and young men, is so
Speaker 1: normalized that it's often celebrated or shocking when a show
Speaker 1: doesn't cross that line. Luckily, I mostly watched shows for kids,
Speaker 1: so I don't have to be subjected to that most
Speaker 1: of the time. Um, it goes on, It goes on
Speaker 1: for their but it First of all, thank you so
Speaker 1: much Aumi for that truly contextualization. What a wild history, Uh,
Speaker 1: what a world? And also I think, as Aumi points out,
Speaker 1: another example of a male tour filmmaker realizing kind of
Speaker 1: the implications of what he was doing, or sort of
Speaker 1: like connecting some of the dots and and seeing how
Speaker 1: his work could be interpreted or the similarities of far
Speaker 1: more troubling depictions of uh young girls in media and
Speaker 1: then course correcting as a result. So another shout out
Speaker 1: to Miyazaki for kind of recognizing that. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: is something because I grew up watching Toto. That was
Speaker 1: the only um Miyazaki film that I had exposure to
Speaker 1: as a kid, and I remember thinking as a kid like, wow,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of underwears in the movie and that
Speaker 1: and that's weird because I try to hide my underwear. UM,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I was just curious about that. So once again,
Speaker 1: thank you Aomi for um providing all of that insight
Speaker 1: and context, very very helpful. And I want to learn
Speaker 1: more about the Pokemon. Thank you Joel for telling us
Speaker 1: what the Pokemon seizure scandal is. There's so much, god,
Speaker 1: so much, so many, so many bizarre things to know
Speaker 1: in this world. So is there anything else said we
Speaker 1: wanted to touch on. I think that's it from me.
Speaker 1: I'm good. I feel thank you guys for this. I
Speaker 1: really appreciated taking a this trip back. I watch How's
Speaker 1: Moving Castle like three times a year. It's my favorite
Speaker 1: Miyazaki film. Unfortunate, I'm so sorry. I want to be
Speaker 1: better best. But every time, like look at Howl and
Speaker 1: then she's old and she learning life lesses is so great. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean we have so many requests for all of
Speaker 1: these movies. Like when we announced we were doing it's
Speaker 1: going to take us years. Yeah, so we're going like
Speaker 1: everyone's like, well, why aren't you doing Princess Mononoke? And
Speaker 1: I was like, we will just give us we will
Speaker 1: get there at a time, please, But if you haven't
Speaker 1: already done Howl's I will two thousand percent come back
Speaker 1: for House because it is oh so pretty good. Um.
Speaker 1: And it does have a bad language, but we can
Speaker 1: talk about her later. Um. But yes, it's only back
Speaker 1: to Kiki and it just what a way to honor
Speaker 1: your inner thirteen year old child if you're doing that
Speaker 1: kind of work in therapy, like I am. Um, I
Speaker 1: was like, look at her, she serves to be loved
Speaker 1: and just supported, and look at how great things turned
Speaker 1: out when she trust her heart and herself. And oh god,
Speaker 1: what a beautiful movie it probably it is. I forgot
Speaker 1: how episodic it was in It's I love an episodic movie.
Speaker 1: I just Kiki. I I can't wait to show Kiki
Speaker 1: to my niece when she's also shout out to the
Speaker 1: children's book that this was adapted from book by Ko Kadono,
Speaker 1: which I read that there were pretty significant adaptation changes
Speaker 1: that Muzaki made in the script and the Originally the
Speaker 1: author was not thrilled with those changes, and the project
Speaker 1: almost got shut down because of it. But eventually the
Speaker 1: author was like, actually, go go ahead. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: the more cinematic moments, such as the Hindenburg crashing, was
Speaker 1: not in the source material. That felt like a movie momentum.
Speaker 1: But the book was also kind of episodic. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I think that's probably where that structure in the movie
Speaker 1: comes from. But yeah, I just wanted to shout out
Speaker 1: the source material. I haven't read it. Oh my gosh, guys.
Speaker 1: One of the notes from the author is this Kiki
Speaker 1: delivery service was inspired by one of my daughter's drawings.
Speaker 1: It was a picture of which Blancus guy listening to
Speaker 1: a radio musical notes dance around her reminded me photos
Speaker 1: of New York from a bird's eye view that I
Speaker 1: had seen in Life magazine. They were beautiful images and
Speaker 1: I felt like there was a story there. Oh God,
Speaker 1: I love this so fret, everything about this is so wholesome,
Speaker 1: and thank you, thank you for noting that the source
Speaker 1: material is by a woman, because I feel like that
Speaker 1: very much. I mean always always happy to like give
Speaker 1: Miyazaki his flowers for being exceptionally good at taking great
Speaker 1: care with his characters who are women. But also shout
Speaker 1: out to Igo Kadono, and also just a quick shout
Speaker 1: out because this is the dub that I and I
Speaker 1: think all of us are very emotionally attached to. Kirsten
Speaker 1: dunst Man, What what a run, what a career? Holy shit?
Speaker 1: The fact that kikiS delivery service the Disney dub is
Speaker 1: like the fifties coolest thing she's ever done, is just
Speaker 1: a testament lover r I p. Phil Hartman, Gene Garthell
Speaker 1: Drill I funked it up to and of course Jeff
Speaker 1: the Dog Jeff and Jeff the Dog as himself feminist icon.
Speaker 1: Jeff the Dog does this movie past the Becco test? Yes,
Speaker 1: it does, almost constantly mentioned from scene one your perfection,
Speaker 1: and that brings us to our nipple scales zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples based on how the movie fares. Examining it
Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm gonna go like four
Speaker 1: and a half, maybe four point seven five. Even the
Speaker 1: only thing I'm really docking it for is how the
Speaker 1: Tombo character does that I'm gonna wear you down and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not respect to your boundaries, and that's not
Speaker 1: really interrogated in any meaningful way, and it ends up
Speaker 1: working out for everybody because they become friends. And that
Speaker 1: behavior should not be encouraged or portrayed in such a
Speaker 1: way that it yields good results or at least without
Speaker 1: a significant like having to reckon with that behavior, because
Speaker 1: I'm all for it, Like I think it actually could
Speaker 1: be really valuable for boys watching movies to see that
Speaker 1: behavior and then see of like, oh, I can't do that,
Speaker 1: and I will not be rewarded with friendship if I
Speaker 1: do that, And like watching a character learned that could
Speaker 1: have been it just it feels like the only missed
Speaker 1: opportunity of the movie because it does take her a while,
Speaker 1: like she's like, oh, you're rude and you didn't introduce
Speaker 1: yourself and you don't even know my name, and you know,
Speaker 1: like she's not receptive to it for a long time.
Speaker 1: But I wish there had just been more of a
Speaker 1: clear when she does switch, and like she gets excited
Speaker 1: to go to the party after he invites her. I
Speaker 1: don't really know why, what inspired, Like what's the catalyst
Speaker 1: for So I wish, yeah, he had been like, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for stalking you. I won't do it again. Here's
Speaker 1: an invitation to my party. Something like that would have
Speaker 1: worked a little bit better for me. But um, otherwise, like,
Speaker 1: there's just so much to love about this movie. There's
Speaker 1: so much that it's doing well that media that's like
Speaker 1: appropriate for children, like a you know, kids and family
Speaker 1: movie that especially in mainstream American cinema, was not doing
Speaker 1: at all. So I love the relationships between female characters
Speaker 1: in this movie. I love that it's an exploration of
Speaker 1: a girl who's figuring things out and exploring what she
Speaker 1: likes and what she wants to do, and what her
Speaker 1: skills are, and who she is and what type of
Speaker 1: person she wants to be and how the world and
Speaker 1: you know, like external factors and other people that you
Speaker 1: encounter are going to maybe put a damper on your
Speaker 1: attitude sometimes, but like learning how to deal with that
Speaker 1: and overcome those obstacles and just like the whole character
Speaker 1: arc and just like exploration of her character that happens
Speaker 1: in the movie is just like so wonderful. We're in
Speaker 1: desperate need of more of those types of stories and
Speaker 1: characters still to this day. Four and three quarters nipples
Speaker 1: one Takiki, one to a son, No one to Ursula,
Speaker 1: one to the lesbian couple, and my three quarters nipples.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I should do Gigi or Jeff
Speaker 1: the dog because I know so much. Add silent husband
Speaker 1: and they each get a part of the quarter. Okay,
Speaker 1: true look and then and then you know Greg at
Speaker 1: the end, Greg is there at the end. There is
Speaker 1: a Greg born from the Greg Nancy and we have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that young Greg cousin Greg Um. Anyways, I'm
Speaker 1: going to meet you there at four point seven five.
Speaker 1: I do think the tambo Uh story was a missed
Speaker 1: opportunity to completely subvert literally everything else going on in
Speaker 1: children's media at that time, at least in the West.
Speaker 1: And I do I'm very into right now learning about
Speaker 1: the Disney Studio Jeebli relationship and how it seems it
Speaker 1: also seems like Studio Ghibli movies had a huge impact
Speaker 1: on how Disney animated movies look but how Pixar animated
Speaker 1: movies are written with you know, point on like a
Speaker 1: strong emotional stories and like subverting what you're used to seeing,
Speaker 1: and just I just think that that interaction between the two, um,
Speaker 1: the two studios just really fascinating and speaks to Studio
Speaker 1: Ghimbili so much, because it's like Yazaki's movies are so
Speaker 1: good that they made Western movies progressively better over time
Speaker 1: because the bar was simply so high come on icon
Speaker 1: on influencer, influencer, and that like Miyazaki was inspired by
Speaker 1: Disney originally, so it's like this weird like back and
Speaker 1: forth relationship. For sure, you know, not to hand it
Speaker 1: to men, but it's just interesting. Um Kiki is just
Speaker 1: I loved her when as a kid. I love her now.
Speaker 1: I think it's like the law. The more time that passes,
Speaker 1: the more I'm astounded that there's a story about a
Speaker 1: young girl learning her own worth and like not you know,
Speaker 1: learning things over time and like discovering what makes her
Speaker 1: special even if she her skills are not honed yet
Speaker 1: she's a kid like of course, and finding these supportive
Speaker 1: figures that are rooting for her that she can be
Speaker 1: vulnerable and emotionally honest with and even just like simple
Speaker 1: writing choices. I don't know if this is the writer
Speaker 1: of the original book or if this is a Miyazaki choice.
Speaker 1: Don't know, but um, but just the fact that I
Speaker 1: feel like a lesser movie would have Kiki rediscover her
Speaker 1: confidence through Tombo. But it's Ursula. This character who was
Speaker 1: in the movie for like three minutes comes back, and
Speaker 1: it has this incredible arc and teaches Kiki awesome big
Speaker 1: sister stuff. Another Titanic parallel is Ursula draws not like
Speaker 1: one of her friends. No no, no, no no, but
Speaker 1: it would have caught this compares. It's not any romantic thing,
Speaker 1: but a sort of serve the same purpose of being
Speaker 1: like you were, independently of everything else going on, beautiful
Speaker 1: and yourself and I care about that individual. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: that moment, they were both completely at ease and uniquely seen. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's no denying Okay, the parallels, they're the Titanic, the
Speaker 1: Shrek parallels, I mean, the Shreky in nature. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no denying it. Um. Yeah, I just it's it's
Speaker 1: an incredible movie, and I am excited to watch it
Speaker 1: more frequently now because now it's like, I don't know
Speaker 1: as an adult that makes stuff for a living. That
Speaker 1: scene with Ursula, I'm like, gotta return to that more often.
Speaker 1: I think to the woods, it's really good way to Joel,
Speaker 1: what say you? Wait, I gotta give my nipples along.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, yeah, sorry, sorry, s all right. I'm given
Speaker 1: one to Ursula. I'm getting too Tiki Ki giving one
Speaker 1: to Gigi, the Japanese Gigi, the girl Gigi. How many?
Speaker 1: And I'll give the remaining point seven five to fill
Speaker 1: Heartman Gigi because I appreciate both of them, and I
Speaker 1: think that full Heartman Gigi is um an excellent ally
Speaker 1: and an Yago style hilarious animal sidekick. Yes, Joel, what
Speaker 1: to say? Um? I agree with you guys entirely. I
Speaker 1: can't go above or below this ratings for the obvious
Speaker 1: reasons already stated. Um, I do wish um Tombo, which
Speaker 1: now that I'm saying it is too close to Sambo,
Speaker 1: so I would chee into that name. And I feel
Speaker 1: like the reason Keiki accepts his invitation to the party
Speaker 1: is just She's been accepted by so many adults and
Speaker 1: has his career. This is her first opportunity to like
Speaker 1: hang out with kids her own age, and I sort
Speaker 1: of wish that had been hit harder. Who else is
Speaker 1: going to be there? Is that mean girl who doesn't
Speaker 1: like her grandma going to be there? Because I could
Speaker 1: skip that. Um Also, um, the car they drove around
Speaker 1: in would terrify me too. She was very right to
Speaker 1: be afraid of a car filled with mad children with
Speaker 1: the word monkeys scribbled on the side. I don't know
Speaker 1: what you're getting into, but nothing good happens in that car.
Speaker 1: I promise you not a seatbelt in sight. Um Ursula
Speaker 1: obviously gets one. Assano totally gets one. I'm going to
Speaker 1: give one to her mother because he has such a
Speaker 1: beautiful line, which sort of see her trying to not
Speaker 1: even though she's not like a bad kid. She's not
Speaker 1: trying to contradict her mother, but she is trying to
Speaker 1: create space that's just her own the whole time she's
Speaker 1: around her mom. And there's this like iconic moment for
Speaker 1: me anyway, where she gets away from her mother and
Speaker 1: she's like, my mom has been teaching me to fly
Speaker 1: since I was a baby. She taught me to never
Speaker 1: be afraid. And I was like, moms are the best.
Speaker 1: They're just the best. Like there's so much love and
Speaker 1: respect in that line that she doesn't get to necessarily
Speaker 1: show her mother when she's around her, because you don't
Speaker 1: when you're thirteen. Um, and I thought that was such
Speaker 1: a lovely tribute to the woman who sort of shaped
Speaker 1: her before we get to meet her. So one goes
Speaker 1: to mom, Um, I'm gonna give one just to Debbie
Speaker 1: Reynolds for being Wie Reynolds. Um. Yeah, and then one
Speaker 1: of the dog and wanted the cat because obviously they
Speaker 1: have supported and uplifted this story and you know, way
Speaker 1: to hold it down for the kids when the parents
Speaker 1: are distracted, really appreciate making sure everything goes smoothly when
Speaker 1: adults are doing adult things. Shout out to pets, pet,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. And then I that when when you said
Speaker 1: the thing about her her mom, it is like fascinating.
Speaker 1: In the Miyazaki movies we've covered so far, so Kiki's
Speaker 1: in Spirited Away, theyre is like this interesting needle he
Speaker 1: seems to thread with his characters where it's never like
Speaker 1: a reject tradition, embrace modernity or reject modernity, embrace tradition.
Speaker 1: It's always like embrace a little bit of both. And
Speaker 1: like even in Kiki's outfit where like she has the
Speaker 1: bow as hers and that's her like modern girl thing,
Speaker 1: but she's wearing the traditional dress and like sticks by
Speaker 1: it even when she's like teased for it. And I
Speaker 1: like that kind of thematic blend of like there's always
Speaker 1: some old and some new, and his character is like
Speaker 1: see the value in tradition, but also like leave the
Speaker 1: ship they don't like behind and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: good way to live your life. Well, and that's Kiki's
Speaker 1: delivery service. Yes it is, Joel. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. This has been an absolute delight. Thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much for having me. I need and
Speaker 1: seriously come back for house moving castle. Where can people
Speaker 1: follow you on social media? Check out your stuff, support
Speaker 1: your stuff. You guys can find me all over the
Speaker 1: internet at guama Nique. That's j O E L L
Speaker 1: E m O n I Q you E please please
Speaker 1: please go check out my new podcast. It's called Comic
Speaker 1: Con Meta Pod. There are no dashes in there, don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. Comic Con Meta Pod for separate words. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about it. We have some great interviews
Speaker 1: for you. We just did the most chaotic interview of
Speaker 1: my life with Seth Green and Donald phase on. Um
Speaker 1: it's I think we're gonna release it, uh this coming Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Whatever that is to talk about being two of the
Speaker 1: members of jour from Joe and Putat, we don't even
Speaker 1: get to do. They're supposed to come on for fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and they stay for an hour and halfway through there
Speaker 1: just talking to each other, and we were like, what
Speaker 1: the tape roll? And it was so much of Seth
Speaker 1: being like here, like Donald will start talking in a
Speaker 1: negative tone about himself, stuff to be like, don't you dare,
Speaker 1: don't you do it? He's like, you're really out here
Speaker 1: working and trying. The are such good buddies in real life.
Speaker 1: We tried to make them debate, but they had all
Speaker 1: of the same feelings about everything, and so the debate
Speaker 1: totally glad. It's very chaotic but so much fun. And
Speaker 1: we had Um, John Carlo is supposed to go on,
Speaker 1: who is as kind and warm as you'd want him
Speaker 1: to be the absolute opposite of Gusts his character I'm
Speaker 1: breaking bad um not all a bad guy, totally like
Speaker 1: good human from the like twenty minutes that we got
Speaker 1: to interact with him to the point where we were
Speaker 1: crying over fandom, which if you followed me on any
Speaker 1: of my other shows, you know, like fandom is everything.
Speaker 1: I love fans, um not the toxic kind, but the
Speaker 1: kind that are just really loving their content and get
Speaker 1: into theories and you know, media has the power to
Speaker 1: change lives, as you guys so know. And to see
Speaker 1: somebody who you know makes it valuing their fans and
Speaker 1: these very precious interactions, you know, and then to the
Speaker 1: point where he is actually shedding tears, I mean transformational.
Speaker 1: We felt so much lighter and we were like just
Speaker 1: in disbelief. My co host Hector and I were just like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this happened. It's the most like just uplifting,
Speaker 1: positive interview we've had in so long. Um So, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff out there, and if you
Speaker 1: know anything about Hector, he's just wonderful, brilliant, treasure, adorable human.
Speaker 1: Um So, I hope you guys will calm check it out.
Speaker 1: It's available wherever you get podcast, comic con, metapod, hell, yes,
Speaker 1: check it out. You can check us out on Instagram
Speaker 1: and Twitter at Bechtel Cast. You can check out our
Speaker 1: Patreon a k a Matreon at patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast, where you get to bonus episodes every month
Speaker 1: and access to the entire back catalog of bonuses, of
Speaker 1: which there are over one hundred. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: The passage of time is wild? Like that? Wow? Wow? Yeah?
Speaker 1: This this month, the month of May, were doing Face
Speaker 1: Off and Top Gun. So if you want a very
Speaker 1: different vibe, head over there, because oh guys, it is
Speaker 1: very follow up chaos. I want to be grapple with
Speaker 1: the fact that I think Face Off is an amazing movie,
Speaker 1: so good. No shame they took the face all the
Speaker 1: way off when they shocked and put it on to
Speaker 1: someone else the amount. I just wasn't expecting to see
Speaker 1: the faces off quite so much, and I was like,
Speaker 1: so as a big body horror fan, oh, I love
Speaker 1: when those faces are not on. Um anyways, head over
Speaker 1: there for that. You can check out our merch at
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast, follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter Instagram at Bechtel Cast and uh, what do
Speaker 1: you say, gang, why don't we get on our brooms
Speaker 1: and brooms and zoom to kick off with zoom on
Speaker 1: those brooms