Today’s summary is a little different from previous ones, as I’ll be combining Week 16 and 17 summaries into one for an overarching summary of Chapter 8. This summary is also a little less detailed than previous ones, so if you have any questions about particular areas/wording in this chapter that aren’t covered by the summary, please let me know!
Week 16+17: Chapter 8 Summary (SPOILERS)
With fall half over, a cold wind has started blowing in Koriko that cuts like a knife and causes Kiki's humbly made shop to creak. While listening to the wind blow, Kiki thinks about her hometown and how instead of the wind, the colour of white snow was how they knew winter had come, with snow gradually blanketing the mountain and eventually blanketing the town. As she thinks about this, she also remembers the first winter after learning to fly a broom and her mother explaining how to recognize the town's buildings in the snow based on their shape.
For whatever reason, since the weather got colder, Kiki’s customers have dropped considerably. Despite this, she still sits in her shop, with Jiji on her lap. Continuing to think of her mother, she tries to recall the various things her mother would make, such as saffron tea and soup for when you have a stomach ache, but couldn’t remember the details. Looking back, she wonders why she was so annoyed by everything her mother said and now finds it strange.
Suddenly, she feels a strong gust of wind. Looking at the door, she sees it’s slight ajar and four eyes are peeking in. She hears children start whispering about Jiji, with one wondering if he could breath fire, as they’d heard you can use a witch’s cat instead of a match. Hearing this, Jiji and Kiki exchange glances before Jiji turns to the door, purposefully opens his eyes and mouth wide, and blows out a big breath. With a shout, the shop door is closed by the kids. They continue to talk about Jiji and how he just seems to be a regular cat before they patter away. Kiki teases Jiji about being popular and suggests that maybe he should try going along with it and try dying his fur or wearing sunglasses. Jiji pointedly ignores her.
A little while later, the phone rings. Picking it up, an old woman speaking incredibly slowly asks Kiki to come to her house. Agreeing, Kiki sets off and soon arrives at her house, which being on the side of a river, also has a small blue pier. Entering the house, Kiki sees a small old woman knitting. Still speaking incredibly slowly, she asks Kiki to wait a moment, as she’s in the process of finishing a stomach band for her son, who left for work saying he didn’t need it before she could finish it.
Finally finishing her knitting, the old woman starts to talk again, but this time at regular speed. She asks Kiki and Jiji if their stomachs are okay and tells them they can’t let them get cold and that nothing beats a stomach band for staying warm. Hearing Jiji’s purr she declares that it’s proof his stomach is cold. Looking around at objects in her house, all of which have stomach bands on them, she grabs a band that was covering a thermos and puts it on Jiji. Although Jiji doesn’t seem to like it, Kiki says it’s pretty, to which the old woman says she’ll knit one for Kiki as payment for an errand if she’s okay with it. Kiki agrees.
The old woman then passionately starts to tell Kiki the benefits of stomach bands, saying she even recommended them to the zoo keeper to help prevent the animals from getting sick, as well as to the mayor. However, like her son, they brushed her off. Pointing at the large belly band the old woman had just knit, Kiki asks if the old woman wants her to deliver it to the zoo’s elephants. The old woman says it’s for her son, then explains that he’s the captain of a “pon pon” boat and that he’s currently out doing an important job. Apparently, he’s been asked to deliver some high grade wine to Morimo Peninsula and that if it’s not transported carefully, the taste will get significantly worse. Since Morimo Peninsula has two mountains, it was decided that transporting the wine by car would be too rocky, so it’s being delivered by boat instead. However, the old woman points out that the ocean has “mountains” too, called waves, and wonders if the wine will be okay.
Continuing, the old woman asks Kiki to deliver the large belly band to her son, explaining that his boat is an old white boat named Tete that recently started spitting out smoke and making a yawning noise. Taking the large belly band, Kiki wonders just how big the old lady’s son is. The two set off to search for the boat. Along the way, Jiji complains about the belly band the old woman put on him, saying he looks like a sheep, but despite this, he seems pleased by its beautiful colours.
Flying out to where the big river meets the ocean, Kiki looks around the port for the boat but is unable to find it. Setting out over the ocean, Kiki continues her search. Although the paint is starting to peel, eventually she finds a boat with Tete written on the side of it. Calling down to them while still flying in the sky, Kiki startles the crew. The captain gives Kiki permission to land, but speaking in a soft voice, he tells her to land softly so as not to startle the wine. To Kiki’s surprise, the captain and crew all have huge bellies.
Kiki tells the captain that she’s been sent by his mum to deliver the belly band. However, she also adds that (even taking into account the size of his belly) there’s no way it’ll fit. The captain explains that it’s not for him, but for the ship’s smokestack. Since it recently started spitting smoke and making different noises, the old woman says that the smokestack’s stomach must be cold. The captain continues to explain his mother won’t stop until every stomach in the world has been warmed. He says that him and the crew follow her orders. To Kiki’s amusement, rather than everyone on the boat being plump, they’re all wearing stomach warmers. Him and the crew all then proceed to show off their brightly coloured belly bands.
Realizing that Kiki is the one behind the Witch’s Delivery Service, who’s rumoured to be able to transport anything, one of the crew members asks Kiki if she would be able to transport the boat. Kiki tells him that’s impossible and asks why. The captain explains that originally they thought that, since it was a short distance, it would be fine to transport the wine by boat. However, no matter what they do they can’t get the bottles to stop banging together.
Looking at the crew and their belly warmers, then at the large bottles of wine which were around the same size, Kiki proposes that they put the warmers on the bottles to stop them from bumping. The captain and his crew quickly strip them off, and then carefully wrapping the wine bottles with them one by one. Kiki noticed that without the belly band, the captain was considerably more slim. With that task done, Kiki is about to set off before she remembers why she came in the first place. Since everyone is now breaking the captain’s mum’s advice about keeping their stomachs warm, the captain concedes to putting the large stomach warmer on the smokestack. Kiki takes off again towards town. Although it might just be her imagination, the boat now sounded normal again…
The next day, when looking at the newspaper, Kiki was surprised to see an article about Tete and it’s crew. Apparently, they had all caught abdominal chills. Below that, there was another article talking about a store on the Morimo Peninsula that had started selling wine wrapped in beautiful woolen wraps…
A week later, Jiji still hadn’t taken off the stomach warmer he’d received from the old woman, but rather was always keeping it clean by batting it with his tail. Around town, people had also commented on it, saying a witch’s cat is different and must be using it to keep his magic warm…
Another week later, Kiki heard from the old woman that her stomach warmer was finished. When she went to pick it up, the old woman showed her one that was so colourful it looked like the inside of a candy jar. The old woman explained that since Kiki was always wearing black, she should at the very least have a flashy belly band. Kiki also asked the old woman if she would teach her how to knit, as she wanted to knit something for her mum and dad. The old woman replied that of course she’d teach her how to make stomach warmers for them.
How did everyone find Chapter 8? I personally found it really charming, and even though it felt a bit like filler, it may have been one of my favourite chapters just because of how silly it was. It was overall insignificant to the plot, but I also liked the pun about the 魔法びん and 魔法ねこ.
Anyway, it’s the beginning of Golden Week in Japan, so if you’re staying home instead of braving the crowds, this week might be good if you need to catch up. Regardless of what you get up to, happy reading all!
Chapter 8 had some really good illustrations, so including some of them here for anyone using a different version of the book:
I am following the book as a very first novel fully in japanese. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard but overall, I am learning a lot 
