SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: TAM ZHAO WEI

STUDENT ID NO: 0322587

FILMS SELECTED: “KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE” & “THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA”

WORD COUNT: 1067 WORDS

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 30TH SEPTEMBER 2015

Pre-writing [Contrasting Essay]

Introduction

- decided on two movie films under the genre animated films.

- Kiki’s Delivery Service, directed by Hayao Miyazaki

- The Tale of Princess Kaguya, directed by Isao Takahata

- Kiki’s Delivery Service is a story of a young apprentice witch who’s going through her one-year training at a fresh new town. She faces, challenges and obstacles, ups and downs in her life

- Princess Kaguya is raised as a noble princess and is forced to live a noble princess’s life

Supporting Paragraphs:

1. Time Setting

- The Tale of Princess Kaguya took place during the Heian Period (782-1167) in Japan

- Kiki’s story was silhouetted during the mid-modern Japanese era which is from 1950- Can easily differentiate both the films

- Simply by observing the fashion of people, ancient culture, literature sense

- For example, in the film The Tale of Princess Kaguya, a noble women has to use white powder

on their face, blackened their teeth, and wear tons of cloths on them (heavy)

- For example, Kiki’s Delivery Service, people fond of wearing high waist shorts, old west coats,

colourful tops and bottoms, mini skirts, hippie style

2. Placement Setting

- Kiki’s Delivery Service took place in three major places as well, the town by the ocean, the

Gütiokipänja Bakery and the small hut in the forest

- The town by the ocean has always been a dream to Kiki as she never thought that she will be

able to live in such a town. Kiki set foot on this beautiful town and started her one-year training

here.

- The Gütiokipänja Bakery belongs to Osono-san, a kind and helpful lady that offers a hand to

Kiki when she has no idea where to live at. She even helped her in starting her own delivery

service by lending her the phone in the store and also introducing customers to Kiki.

- The small hut in the forest is home to a young female artist named Ursula. Kiki met Ursula

during her first delivery service and they become good friends. Ursula offers Kiki to stay at her

place as to let her relax a bit when she’s facing the lost of her witch power.

- The Tale of Princess Kaguya took place in three major places, the bamboo grove, the small hut

at the outskirts, the mansion in the capital.

- Bamboo Grove is where Princess Kaguya was found as a tiny nymph by the bamboo cutter

- The small hut at the outskirts is where Princess Kaguya live when she was young, later on she

moved to the capital

- The mansion at the capital is specially built for Princess Kaguya by his father, Miyatsuko

3. Character

- The main character in the films are Kiki and Princess Kaguya respectively.

- There’s difference in this two character as they were born in different era and also in a very

distinctive family.

- Kiki was born in a witch family; Princess Kaguya was born as a tiny nymph from a bamboo

shoot.

- Kiki is just like any other children that grows at a normal pace; Princess Kaguya grows rapidly

from a baby to a young teenage girl. She got a name ‘takenoko’ which means bamboo shoots

from the children living at another village.

- Kiki is a helpful, kind and polite girl

- For example, she even apologize to cows for disturbing their breakfast in the train couch.

Besides, she offers to help out Bartha to bake the cake that needs to be delivered to her grand

daughter.

- Princess Kaguya is a obedient but emotional girl.

- For example, when her parents told her to leave for the capital at once, she obeys and do it like

they said. She even willings to sacrifice herself to let her father be crowned as a court sire.

- When she heard some people commenting that she’s a fake princess, she immediately broke

the pottery plate and ran out of the mansion like a gust of wind.

4. Plot- Kiki climax : she loses her witch power - depressed- for example, she cannot communicate with Jiji and cannot fly with her broom

- she decided to go on a visit to Ursula’s small hut in the forest as a short getaway (practical)

- then she feels better and confident again to face her challenges ahead

- Princess Kaguya climax : she ran off her mansion only then she realised it was but a dream- for instance, the eagerness of Princess Kaguya to return to the outskirts even showed in her

dreams but yet she did not take any action to make her dreams come true

- she clearly did nothing practical in fact just staring at the moon every night

- then she could not stop the gods from bringing her back to the moon as she had once thought

to leave earth due to her stress

Conclusion

- recap time setting, placement setting, characters, plots

The two movie films that I’ve decided to do are both under the animated movie genre. They

are Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), directed by Hayao Miyazaki and The Tale of Princess Kaguya

(2013), directed by Isao Takahata. Basically, the movie Kiki’s Delivery Service is about how a

young witch overcomes all the challenges and obstacles during her one-year training away from

home at another town. On the other hand, the movie The Tale of Princess Kaguya is about how an

extraordinary child that was born from the bamboo shoot struggle to seek for happiness and the

meaning of her life. Both these films shows contrasts between each other on the time settings,

placement settings, character and also the plot.

Firstly, the most contrasting points from both the film is the time setting. Kiki’s Delivery Service

is a story that is set in the 1950s. This can be proven by observing the fashion of the people. For

example, the women and the girls wear dresses, tunics, culottes and baggy gowns. The men

wear hats, silk scarfs tied like a loose tie, suits with rather flared-bottom trousers and etcetera.

Besides, the types of vehicles used such as pony cars, muscle cars, economy cars also reflects

the time setting. However, the film The Tale of Princess Kaguya has a time setting between 782 and

1167 C.E., which is the Heian Period in Japan. The clothing and the women’s make up can prove the above statement. For example, Princess Kaguya was trained by Lady Sagami to become a noble woman by putting on make-ups such as thick white powder on the face, blacken the eyebrows and teeth, wear her hair very long, wear a lot of cloths and many more. There is a scene in the movie where Princess Kaguya ran off the mansion, leaving a total of 14 heavy

cloths along the way she ran. This clearly shows how many cloths the women tend to wear during the Heian Period.

Moving on, there is also a contrast in the placement setting between this two animated films. In the film Kiki’s Delivery Service, the whole story took place at a modern town in the northern Europe with name Korico. In town Korica, which is a mishmash of various locals such as Naples, Lisbon, Stockholm, Paris, is where Kiki decided to settle down and start her witch training. This is the place where she makes new friends and started her own delivery service with help of Osono-san. On the other hand, Princess Kaguya’s story took place at the ancient mansion her father, Miyatsuko built specially for her. In the mansion, Princess Kaguya is forced to learn

calligraphy, music, proper gestures for a noble lady and etcetera. Her father did all he could to

give her happiness. To Princess Kaguya, the happiness given by her father at the mansion isn’t the happiness that she wanted. She mentioned “I was born to truly live! Just like the birds and the beasts.” shows her desperation of going back to her real home.

Moreover, the contrast between the two main character, Kiki and Princess Kaguya based on their personality in the films shows the uniqueness of them. Kiki was born in a witch family,

she learns how to fly using her broomstick since young. As mentioned by Kiki in the film, “We fly

with our spirits”, shows her passion flying in the sky with no constraints at all. Kiki’s fond of freedom. For instance, she has been so excited to go on her training journey . Without further considerations, she decided to leave home. This shows that Kiki’s determination in pursuing what she wants. However, Princess Kaguya shows personality that is totally the opposite of Kiki’s. Princess Kaguya has been raised up with restrictions set by her father. For instance, Princ

ess Kaguya was forced to leave home and move to the mansion without her consent. Compared to Kiki, Princess Kaguya has a weaker personality as she dare not speak out to her father regarding how much she misses home at the outskirts. Another example, Princess Kaguya ran back to the outskirts from the mansion realising it was but a daring dream she had deep down in her heart. She has no courage at all to make things right. Hence, she ended up staying at the mansion with no passion of living.

Lastly, the plot climax until the denouement of both films as well contrast each other. The

climax in Kiki’s Delivery Service is when Kiki started to lose her witch power. She realised it when

she cannot communicate with Jiji, her cat, and is unable to perform her flying ability. She was so

depressed that she stayed in her room all day doing nothing. After that, she decided to accept

Ursula’s offer which is a stay over at her place in the forest. Thanks to this getaway, Kiki felt much

better and is more optimistic to face her challenges. Kiki faced her challenges and did not flinched.

Therefore, the story ended perfectly with Kiki retrieving her witch power and saved Tombo, her

friend from a crashing dirigible. In contrast, the climax in the film The Tale of Princess Kaguya is

when Princess Kaguya ran off her mansion and went back to the outskirts. But what happened is

but a dream of her. This showed her eagerness of returning to the outskirts. Nevertheless, she did

nothing practical to make her dreams come true. Eventually, the story ended with the return of

Princess Kaguya to the Moon on the fifteenth of August although she was not willing to. All in all,

Kiki’s story has a good ending while Princess Kaguya’s tale ended in melancholy.

In a nutshell, the film Kiki’s Delivery Service contrasts with film The Tale of Princess Kaguya

in aspects of the time setting, placement setting, character and the plot. Kiki’s story is set in the

1950s while Princess Kaguya’s tale is set between 782 and 1167 C.E., which is during the Heian

Period of Japan. Besides, a modern Europe town is set as the placement setting of Kiki’s story but

an ancient mansion for Princess Kaguya’s tale. The contrast in both the characters is that Kiki has

a rather stronger personality compared to Princess Kaguya. Last but not least, the ending of both

story gives strong contrast as Kiki’s story ended merrily while Princess Kaguya’s story was a

bittersweet one.

(1067 words)

References

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Author Unknown (n.d.), Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Retrieved 2015, September 23 from studio-ghibli.wikia.com website :

http://studio-ghibli.wikia.com/wiki/Kiki's_Delivery_Service

Ryoko, T. (n.d.), Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki’s Delivery Service).

Retrieved 2015, September 23 from nausicaa.net website :

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/kiki/faq.html#kadono

Author Unknown (n.d.), The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

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http://studio-ghibli.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tale_of_Princess_Kaguya

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Films [Video File]. Retrieved from youtube.com website :

https://youtu.be/xSFhBCMDPqg

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