Kiki's Delivery Service Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Kiki's Delivery Service Blu-ray Movie Review

Japanese Academy Award winner Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Hayao Miyazaki's follow-up to My Neighbor Totoro, has been re-released by Shout! Factory as part of multi-acquisition deal with Studio Ghibli. The BD boasts slightly better compression than the previous Disney/Buena Vista Bu-ray and carries over nearly all of the extras. Shout!'s edition doesn't offer anything new in the extras department aside from an attractive leaflet.

This Blu-ray & DVD Combo Pack comes with a slipcover and an Elite case for the discs. Cover art on the slip and keep case covers is the same (see #s 1 and 10). For thoughts on the acclaimed animated feature and critique of a/v specs, you can see my colleague Kenneth Brown's review of Disney's 2014 BD/DVD twin pack here.

Front cover of slip and back cover of BD case.

Kiki's Delivery Service Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kiki's Delivery Service appears in its native ratio of 1.85:1 on a BD-50. While the source print is likely the same, the MPEG-4 AVC-encoded average video bitrate of 32000 kbps is a step up over its predecessor, which had a mean bitrate of 27.73 Mbps. The total bitrate for the Shout BD reaches 38.52 Mbps. See and click on Screenshot #s 5-9 for frame enlargements.

Shout! supplies twenty-four chapter breaks.

Kiki's Delivery Service Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The sound track options available on the Blu-ray include the original Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (2036 kbps, 24-bit), an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (2026 kbps, 24-bit), and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (192 kbps) dubbed in French.

There are three subtitling options: English SDH for the English sound track, English subtitles for the original language version, and French subtitles.

Kiki's Delivery Service Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature-Length Storyboards (1:43:04, 1080p)

• "Ursula's Painting" featurette (2:26, 1080p/i)

• "Creating Kiki's Delivery Service featurette (2:27, 1080p)

• "Kiki and Jiji" featurette (3:27, 1080p)

• "Flying with Kiki and Beyond" featurette (2:51, 1080p)

• "Collaborating with Miyazaki" featurette (1:48, 1080p)

• "The Locations of Kiki" featurette (29:14, 1080p)

• "Scoring Miyazaki" featurette (7:22, 1080p)

• "Behind the Microphone" featurette (4:49, upconverted to 1080)

• Original Japanese Theatrical Trailers (7:45, 1080p)

• NEW 8-page Booklet with Producer's and Director's Statements - In addition to short essays by producer Toshio Suzuki and director Hayao Miyazaki, the slender leaflet has four color stills from the film.

Kiki's Delivery Service Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With the Disney package out-of-print and going for around $30, this two-disc set is a no-brainer for those who didn't pick it up the first time. It's about half the price and only loses a few very brief featurettes. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to all anime fans.