“In the original Japanese script, Jiji loses his ability to communicate with Kiki permanently, but in the American version a line is added which implies she is once again able to understand him. Miyazaki has said that Jiji is the immature side of Kiki, and this implies that Kiki, by the end of the original Japanese version, has matured beyond talking to her cat.”

I just stumbled upon your blog when searching for what Chihiro was eating in Spirited Away. I always thought it looked like a manju but the size… Also, I once saw a dorama in which the protagonist ate a bun she had to hold with both hands. o_O
Anyways, my take on the “Jiji can’t be understood by Kiki anymore” thing was, that it kind of represented Kiki’s stage of growing up. When she was all naive, carefree and childish she could talk to Jiji, but as she started to really like Tombo (like the very first stage(s) of falling in love) she lost that ability. So it made me think there’s some correlation between being innocent/talking to Jiji and falling in love/becoming unable to understand him. I think all of us make the experience that some things lose their magic when we’re growing up. Maybe it’s some kind of metaphor? Maybe we could even take it further: she had full control of her magic when she had full control of her emotions and thoughts, but when she fell in love with Tombo her feelings became confused and she couldn’t use her magic anymore. Then everything settled as she re-focused, but the ability to talk to Jiji was lost like the innocence of her thoughts.
And maybe I’m just talking gibberish. ^-^

Thanks so much for the post! Lots of fun to make (and eat).