Kiki

A thirteen-year-old apprentice witch, leaving her home village to spend a year on her own. She has no visible magical abilities other than communicating with her cat and broom-flying (at which she is still a novice). She is excitable, innocent, and by turns eager and shy. Some of the earlier concept drawings of Kiki closely resembled the original longer hair illustrations by Akiko Hayashi. It was eventually decided to cut her hair short due to the extra difficulty for animators.