fusenReading 魔女の宅急便 in Japanese
Kiki, a thirteen-year-old witch, leaves home with her black cat to live on her own in a town that has no witch, and earns her keep by flying deliveries. This is Kadono Eiko's novel, which Studio Ghibli adapted in 1989: a storyteller narrates in polite Japanese and keeps the words close to home, which makes it one of the gentler novels written for Japanese readers.
Estimated from the free sample of volume 1 in the 角川文庫 edition and the publisher's descriptions. Checked on . How levels are judged
- Level
- Elementary (estimated)Estimated level: this book’s text can’t be analysed here for copyright reasons, so the level is estimated with AI from the publisher’s free sample and other public information, not counted word by word.
- Furigana
- Almost none: a rare word such as 妖精 has it, but 薬草, 満月 and 電信柱 don'tSeen in the free sample of the 角川文庫 edition; other editions may differ
- Japanese
- Polite storytelling (です・ます) with plain-form dialogue; many words written in kana
- Length
- Volume 1 is about 210 pages in the 角川文庫 edition; six volumes, complete
- Read it in
- E-book stores (角川文庫) and print editions from 福音館書店, its first publisher
How hard it is
The narrator tells the story the way an adult reads aloud to a child: in polite です・ます form, in short sentences, now and then turning to the reader with a question. The people talk like a family at the kitchen table, and the opening chapters stay with a house, a garden of herbs, a broom and a bell hung in a tall tree, so few words lie far from everyday Japanese. What makes it harder than a graded reader is the 角川文庫 edition's lack of furigana: 薬草 and 電信柱 come without readings, and words a textbook writes in kanji are often in kana here.
That puts it well below 薬屋のひとりごと and 羅生門 on this site's scale, both level 4. Other readers' ratings: Natively and jpdb.
| Title | Level | Known with 5,000 words |
|---|---|---|
| 葬送のフリーレン manga | — | |
| 魔女の宅急便 children's novel | — | |
| よつばと! manga | — | |
| 時々ボソッとロシア語でデレる隣のアーリャさん light novel | — | |
| 本好きの下剋上 light novel | — | |
| 無職転生 light novel | — | |
| SPY×FAMILY manga | — | |
| 羅生門 short story, 1915 | 86.5% | |
| 薬屋のひとりごと light novel | — | |
| Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 light novel | — |
Words to know before you start
The book's own subject words, picked by hand from the free sample of volume 1 and the publisher's description. Two of them are spelled in kana in the book: ほうき for 箒 and あとつぎ for 跡継ぎ. There are no counts, since the text can't be analysed here.
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 魔女 | まじょ | witch |
| 宅急便 | たっきゅうびん | TA-Q-BIN (express home delivery service provided by Yamato Transport) |
| 箒 | ほうき | broom |
| 黒猫 | くろねこ | black cat |
| ひとり立ち | ひとりだち | being independent; becoming independent |
| 旅立つ | たびだつ | to begin a trip; to depart; to embark |
| 満月 | まんげつ | full moon |
| 薬草 | やくそう | medicinal herb |
| 鈴 | すず | bell (often globular) |
| 跡継ぎ | あとつぎ | heir; inheritor |
| 民俗学 | みんぞくがく | folklore studies; folkloristics |
| 正真正銘 | しょうしんしょうめい | genuine; authentic; true |
2 more words
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 妖精 | ようせい | fairy; sprite; elf |
| 着地 | ちゃくち | landing (on the ground) |
Meanings from JMdict (EDRDG), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this list is shared under the same licence.
Names
All the names are in kana and read as written. Who they are:
- キキ: a witch's daughter who turns thirteen and must find a town of her own
- ジジ: her black cat, raised with her and able to talk with her
- コキリ: her mother, a witch who grows herbs and makes medicine for sneezes
- オキノ: her father, an ordinary man who studies legends of fairies and witches
- コリコ: the town where Kiki sets up her delivery service
- とんぼさん: a boy close to Kiki in the later volumes, his name written in hiragana
Things that trip readers up
- Familiar words in kana. ほうき, くしゃみ and あとつぎ are written as a child would read them, so a line can be a long run of hiragana. Look up from the start of the run: a dictionary finds the longest word that fits, then go on from where it ends.
- 宅急便 is a brand name. It is Yamato Transport's delivery service; the general word is 宅配便 (たくはいびん). The publisher calls Kiki's business a 宅急便屋さん.
- The novel is not the film. Picture books and film comics retell the Ghibli film with its stills. The novel is Kadono Eiko's own text and goes on for six volumes, following Kiki as she grows up.
- Furigana depends on the edition. What this page says about furigana comes from the 角川文庫 edition. 福音館書店's hardcover and 福音館文庫 paperback have their own typesetting; check a sample page before choosing one.
Where to read it on Android
| Edition | Where | Looking words up |
|---|---|---|
| 角川文庫 | E-book stores such as BOOK☆WALKER; all six volumes | The store apps aren't tested yet; see reading apps compared |
| 福音館書店 | In print: the original hardcover and 福音館文庫 | Take a photo of the page with Fusen and tap a word, as with manga. How it works |
Reading it with Fusen
Make a collection for the book and save words with + as you read. ほうき is back every time Kiki flies; once it is saved, the popup marks it Saved 1× and one tap shows the sentence you met it in. When a learner is ready for a first novel like this one is covered in the immersion reading guide's When to start.