BBC Studios and Kadokawa Partner for Live-Action ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ Series

The Story

BBC Studios and Japanese publisher Kadokawa are co-producing a new live-action television series adaptation of Kiki’s Delivery Service

The upcoming series will provide a fresh interpretation of Eiko Kadono’s classic 1985 fantasy novel

Production details casting choices and a formal release timeline are currently undisclosed

BBC Studios and Kadokawa have officially partnered to develop a brand-new live-action series adaptation of Kiki’s Delivery Service. The major international co-production brings the legendary Japanese literary property to the global television landscape through a collaborative studio alliance.

The upcoming television adaptation draws its core narrative inspiration from Eiko Kadono’s celebrated 1985 children’s fantasy novel. While the story achieved global pop-culture status through Hayao Miyazaki‘s iconic 1989 Studio Ghibli animated masterpiece, this live-action venture establishes a fresh creative foundation directly rooted in the original source text. The plot traditionally follows a resourceful 13-year-old witch who embarks on a mandatory year of independent life in a new seaside town, launching an airborne courier business alongside her talking black cat, Jiji.

By combining the global distribution and premium production infrastructure of BBC Studios with Kadokawa’s extensive publishing heritage and IP catalog, the project highlights an increasing industry trend toward localized, cross-cultural storytelling. Specific details regarding the writing team, showrunner attachments, lead casting announcements, and filming locations remain tightly under wraps as early development gets underway.

Original report

Hypebeast

Read full story

Cookie Preferences

We believe privacy is a right, not a trade-off. Choose exactly what you're comfortable with. You can change these any time. Full privacy policy.

Essential Always on

Required for the site to function

Session management, security tokens, login state, and your cookie preference itself. These cannot be turned off. No personal data is shared with third parties.

Analytics Optional

Helps us understand what content you enjoy

We use anonymised analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) to see which articles perform well, how long people spend reading, and where traffic comes from. This helps us write better content. Your IP address is anonymised and no data is sold.

Personalisation Optional

Remembers your preferences across visits

Remembers your reading preferences and recently read articles so we can surface relevant content. All data stays in your browser — nothing is sent to our servers.

Advertising Optional

Used to show relevant ads that support the site

Allows advertising partners to show you ads based on your interests. If you decline, you'll still see ads but they won't be tailored to you. We work with Google AdSense and similar networks. You can opt out globally at youronlinechoices.eu.