Gütiokipänjä

Gütiokipänjä (グーチョキパン店, Gūchokipan-ten), pronounced Guchokipanya), is a bakery in Koriko owned and operated by Osono and her husband Fukuo, as seen in the film, Kiki's Delivery Service.

Background
The bakery and storefront can be found on the ground level, while Osono and her family's living quarters are on the second floor; they also provide a place for Kiki to stay in an old guest quarters. The name is a pun off roshambo (rock [gu], scissors [choki], paper [pa]) and bakery [panya] although the name is not referred to in the film.

History
Kiki first sees Gütiokipänjä when travelling through Koriko on her first day. She rests at the balcony outside the bakery when Osono runs out with a pacifier a customer dropped. Kiki offers to get the pacifier back to the baby, so she takes the pacifier and jumps over the balcony, and Osono is shocked, until she sees Kiki flying on her broomstick. Kiki then takes the pacifier to the woman for her baby, and returns to Osono, who offers her a hot beverage. They talk about Kiki's being a witch and Kiki told her she came to Koriko for a year as part of her witch training. Osono says Kiki can stay with her and her husband for a while, but she has to help out at the bakery to pay her rent.

Kiki eventually starts operating her delivery service out of Gütiokipänjä, delivering baked goods to Osono's customers.

Behind the Scenes
A bakery named Bokcaféet Porten found on Östra Tullgränd, Visby, Sweden helped inspire the film's setting. According to background artist Hiroshi Ono, "The bakery was based on the setting, but we didn't really encounter any wooden structures during our research trip. I was impressed by the chimneys that turn the wind direction so I use that for the bakery chimney." Katsuya Kondō also contributed several image boards of everyday life in the bakery.

As for Kiki's room adjacent to the bakery, Ono elaborated, "My drawings of Kiki's room were based on Yoshifumi Kondō's pencil sketches. At first we went with a wooden bed, but it looked too shabby so we gave up on that idea."

Real-Life Bakery
A real-life Gütiokipänjä bakery inspired by the film and Eiko Kadono's original story could be found at Lake Hamana in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. Beneath the large 'Welcome' sign are two figurines of Kiki and Jiji. Over fifty types of bread are available every day, including bread made from local delicacies. The interiors are soft and natural, decorated with wood elements similar to the version seen in the 1989 animated film. The second floor contains a dine-in area and decorations that evoke a traditional European bakery.

Contact Info

 * Address: 330 Shonai-cho, Nishi-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
 * Telephone: 053-487-6288
 * Business hours: 7:00 am to 7:00 pm

Model Kit
Studio Ghibli, in collaboration with Sankei Co., released a 1/150 scale kit of the Gütiokipänjä bakery, part of their Petit Nostalgic Diorama Series. Compared to other figures in their "Miniature" series, the bakery contains almost double the parts. There are plenty of small items such as three-wheeled cars, street lights, fences and benches in plants and backyards, and clothes drying tables.

A kit costs 4,796 yen, and assembly time is estimated to be roughly ten hours.

Trivia

 * An homage to the bakery, along with stand-ins for Kiki (a Lalafell character named Mugi Azu) and Jiji appear in Patch 5.4 of Final Fantasy XIV.

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