Character · Kiki's Delivery Service
Jiji
The cat talks, complains constantly, and the film never states whether anyone besides Kiki can hear him.
In Otakana the clue reads: Sarcastic black cat familiar
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Kiki's Delivery Service
- Letters
- 4 · Normal
Jiji rides on the broom, sits in the delivery basket, and offers commentary that was not requested. He is Kiki's familiar, which in this film means a companion rather than a servant, and his real function is to be the one person she can say anything to. He is also a coward about dogs, which under the circumstances seems fair.
Whether Jiji genuinely speaks or Kiki simply hears him is the film's quietest question, and Hayao Miyazaki answers it structurally instead of in dialogue. When her confidence goes, the conversation goes with it. Eiko Kadono's 1985 novel, which the 1989 film adapts, handles the relationship differently, and the gap between the two caused friction during production.
Rei Sakuma voices him in Japanese. The English dub handed him to Phil Hartman, who improvised extra lines and made the cat funnier, chattier and considerably more American than the original, and Disney trimmed some of that back for a later rerelease. Hartman died in 1998, and Jiji was among the last roles he recorded.
Spelling JIJI
JIJI is four letters and two syllables, the same pair printed twice: JI then JI. Rows like that get under-guessed, because a doubled syllable feels too simple to be the answer. The Japanese ジジ has no long vowel and nothing to trim on the way into English. Two J's and two I's is the entire word.