is a 1989 Japanese animated

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 fantasy film

Fantasy film

Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...

 produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli

is a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...

 film.

The film won the Animage

Animage

is a Japanese anime and entertainment magazine which Tokuma Shoten began publishing in July 1978. Hayao Miyazaki's internationally renowned manga, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, was serialized in Animage from 1982 through 1994...

 Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989. Kiki's Delivery Service is loosely based on Eiko Kadono

Eiko Kadono

is a Japanese author of children's literature, picture books, non-fiction and essays in Shōwa and Heisei period Japan.-Biography:Kadono was born in Tokyo, and attended the Nihon Fukushi University in Aichi prefecture, followed by a degree in English literature from Waseda University.After...

's novel of the same name

Kiki's Delivery Service (novel)

is a children's fantasy novel written by Eiko Kadono and illustrated by Akiko Hayashi. It was first published by Fukuinkan Shoten on January 25, 1985. It is the basis of the Studio Ghibli anime film of the same title.The book won numerous awards in Japan...

, which is the first in a series published by Fukuinkan Shoten in 1985.

According to Miyazaki the movie touches on the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in Japanese teenage girls.