Yuka Yamaoka Art / Physics 123

Kiki’s Delivery Service

Hayao Miyazaki is a famously known Japanese Animation Director and producer who have won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards for one of his famous animation, Princess Momonoke. Miyazaki is the Japanese version of Walt Disney and Kiki’s Delivery Service, was the fourth theatrically released film from studio Ghibli; It is also the second feature film that Miyazaki directed but did not originally write himself. Miyazaki’s 5th creation: “Majyo no Takkyubin” also known as “Kiki’s Delivery Service” shows audiences the present world, but with a Witch being in the existence. In “Kiki’s Delivery Service” the law of physics are mostly similar to our world only in one condition, a Witch being in existence and being able to fly on a broom. While mostly everything is the same as our world, In Kiki’s world, the laws of physics are bent in such ways so that it would be funny for the young audiences to watch. The movie is about a 13year old witch Kiki living in a rural village but has to leave for her witch training and live by herself for one year in a different village or city she finds.
In this paper I would like to talk about how Miyazaki bended the law of physics in order for the cartoon to be funny and serious. While Kiki and some of the other witches are able to fly on a broomstick, everyone else are using either bicycles, car, or just by feet as transportations, but that doesn't make it easier for Kiki to travel around. In an early scene when Kiki decides to depart her village to begin her Witch-training, she gives all her focus and energy to the broom her mother gave her. Kiki still a novice witch, has trouble controlling her newly inherited broom, and ricochets off of three of the trees in her front yard. This being said, I would like to talk about the bending of the law of physics. While Kiki an ordinary 13year old girl, probably only weighs about 100 pounds or even less is thrown around the trees with out falling off from her broom. In this case, because she has magical powers, she can hold on to the broom, but for an 13year old girl to keep her self up and balance on a broom that weighs less than her is simply impossible. In our world we don’t have gravity power where people can fly with out any equipment. The trees aren’t flexible enough to have Kiki pounce around, if this were in real life she probably would have gone through the trees giving her some sort of injury or scratch from the branches. At one point when Kiki finds the city Koriko, that she wants to stay at, she comes down from an high point to give everyone a good impression but fails. Instead she ends up causing traffic and almost a huge accident. While she goes through the tunnel, Kiki didn't recognize the tour bus coming her way, so she freaks out and tumbles across almost hitting a Volkswagen Beatle, taxis, and couple other classic cars. She doesn't get hurt at all and does some acrobatic moves to dodge her way through. While she is only going 5 miles per hour, the cars are going much faster, she wouldn’t be able to dodge all those cars that quickly in a short time span. After, she ends up going straight through the crowd of people, which moves, out of her way so she can pass by. While she is going 20mph, it seems as if no one was either hurt, or was flown out to the streets. If this were to happen, with a car passing by 20mph, some one would have definitely been injured, another bending the law of physics.
During the beginning of the movie, Kiki’s father who probably weighs only about 130 pounds comes home with camping gear on the roof of his car. Approximately weighing 200 pounds and when Kiki tells him that she is going to depart that night, he rushes to make phone calls, but for some reason his feet gets caught on the rope that was hanging and he nearly falls but doesn’t. Instead the 200-pound gear falls from the roof of the car without breaking the Father’s ankle. This is impossible to do, either his ankle should have been severely injured or he would have fallen face down first. Yet he was managed to tiptoe with out falling face down. This was made to be funny that someone trips over a rope, and like in class, we have had couple examples from Wile. E Coyote making his attempts to capture the Road Runner.
Half way the movie, Kiki’s friend Tombo is obsessed with aviation he is a member of a club building a human-powered aircraft. He first meets Kiki when she made her grand entrance to Koriko and helps her when the police catch her of causing huge traffic. Tombo shows Kiki his experiment of his propelled bicycle. They take a trip down to the beach to go see the airship. The propelled bicycle it’s self is a bended law of physics. As said in class, “internal propulsion is not possible because the impulse gained from one reaction is lost due to another internal action” so if the propel was behind the bike it would have worked better than having it up front. Also while Kiki and Tombo are taking a joy ride on Tombo’s propel bike, a car comes along their way and nearly hits them. They dodge it somehow by jumping over the car; two teenagers on a bike cannot do that although they were able to do that probably because Kiki has her magic. After, two cars come towards their way and they have no choice but to get off the road, they are in mid air for about nine seconds. Then the propel comes off and the two land on ground. Later the propel comes falling slowly to the ground. I have posted a clip below.

At the climax of the movie, a strong summer wind hits the Koriko city and the cables that were connecting the airship and the ground loosened. Many people were trying to prevent it from flying away. According to Tolliver Airship, a normal airship is about 250-foot long, about 40 feet high and 41 feet wide. In the movie thousands of people where trying to pull this aircraft filled with helium down. It’s like a huge balloon, just like in the Pixar movie UP. The airship being upside down and floating towards the city has Tombo hanging on a rope. This 13year old boy doesn't look like he can even lift him up but he manages to hold tight. The balloon also carries a police car that ends up falling after Tombo falls on the car, but the bumper of the police car manages to stay giving Tombo a place to stand. While the airship is drifting towards the tower clock, Kiki is trying to save Tombo in the air. After the bumper falls, the only thing Tombo has is to grab on to is the rope. While Kiki is trying to save him, Tombo looses his strength and ends up falling rather quickly, but Kiki catches him in mid air, by holding the broomstick with one hand and catching Tombo with the other.
There is no way that a 13-year-old girl can catch a 13-year-old boy in the mid air. They are the same height and almost the same weight. Either one or both of their shoulders would have been dislocated or Tombo could have died. But both were safe and landed on the ground safely. The tip of the airship hit the clock tower while the tail part started to collapse and landed on a residential apartment complex. There were several people in the cockpit, which probably added the more weight to the airship to collapse.
In this movie Miyazaki made gravity almost the same as our world. The only difference was the existence of a witch who needed to go train in order to become a full-fledged witch. Miyazaki has bended many of the laws of physics in order to make this a serious but funny movie as possible. We know that trees aren’t trampolines that will bounce us around. Nor we are not able to pull a 200-pound camping gear with one leg with out breaking it. The propel would have made a better purpose if it was behind the bike, instead of in front of the bike, and a 13 year-old girl cannot grab someone in mid-air with out dislocating her shoulder.