When people think of director Hayao Miyazaki, they tend to think of one or two films – My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. Those two are fine movies, each breathtakingly imaginative and beautiful.

I, however, think of Kiki’s Delivery Service as Miyazaki’s masterwork. Of course, I’m biased – I’ve had about four or five years of proto-hipster indoctrination.

While I was attending elementary school, I had the curse of having a hippie for a music teacher. Whenever it was a rainy day and recess got canceled, the teachers in my school would usually show a movie to make up for the crap weather.

For some freak reason, I had music class right before recess for almost five years. And that music teacher would show us Kiki’s Delivery Service, and only Kiki’s Delivery Service, instead of some Pixar movie.

Thankfully, I moved. I moved far, far away.

Also fortunately, Kiki’s Delivery Service is an infinitely rewatchable movie. Miyazaki’s colors and aesthetic popped, even on a crappy television set. He manages, somehow, to create the illusion and rush of flying without modern day contrivances and technology.

For my pre-pubescent mind, it was pretty much the best alternative to recess. Spending an hour of quality time with a Japanese animated witch as she flew around some city doing something or another never really got old.

There’s a certain magic that Miyazaki has captured in his film, something special that transcended language and cultural barriers. I don’t think any one of my classmates ever complained about watching Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Viewing Kiki’s Delivery Service again years later, I think the film still holds up. My Neighbor Totoro might have been a shade more original and Spirited Away might be a touch more epic, but Kiki’s Delivery Service captures childhood and growing up more purely, more evocatively.

And the colors, man. The colors.

Kiki’s Delivery Service will screen tomorrow at 5:10 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring. The screenings are a part of a Studio Ghibli retrospective, which runs through June 17.

chzhang@umdbk.com