Tokyo Godfathers

This is a Christmas story told from a different perspective, that is strangely familiar. The story revolves around 3 homeless people (a middle aged man name Gin, a homosexual cross-dresser name Hana, and a teenage girl named Miyuki) who discover a newborn baby in the garbage. The events follow the three as they decided what to do with the baby, trying to find the parents, dealing with their own pasts,etc (Christmas seems to be an introspective time - along with all holidays). After the first 30 minutes of the movie, everything becomes strangely predictable yet still moving and meaningful. The movie is laced with "coincidences" and tons of Christmas references. It touches on numerous subjects including family, guilt, redemption,etc. Satoshi Kon delivers another beautiful looking movie with a humanistic storyline. And in true Satoshi Kon fashion adds a touch of the bizarre to shake up the traditional story. This movie will be added to my Christmas holiday viewing list, which gets me into the XMAS spirit.

-Celluloid Rehab

This strikes me as a movie you will either accept whole-heartedly or trash whole-heartedly. It is shamelessly sentimental and is built on a series of absurd coincidences, but the amazing thing is it all works. The coincidences could feel like a shameless plot device but instead there is just a sense of wonderful magic, as though somehow the foundling the movie is built around lives an oddly charmed existence that transforms the lives of those around it.

The movie does a wonderful job of making its characters both broad but human. This is not one of those cheesy movies that make homeless people seem ultimately wiser and nobler than the rest of us, but while they are all deeply flawed they all have a redeeming warmth.

The movie is both very funny and very touching, and is really about the miracle of love in a world of harsh realities. If you're not willing to totally suspend your disbelief and give in to the movie's blatant flouting of all concepts of reality then you'll probably hate it, but if you want a charming fable this is a great choice.

Having suffered through the painfully pretentious and shallow, pseudo-Lynchian mess of Perfect Blue, I was understandably skeptical about watching another film by Satoshi Kon (I have not yet seen Millennium Actress, but am now quite intrigued to do so). Tokyo Godfathers (a title which at first struck me as belonging most probably to a pseudo-psychological mafia thriller) was not only a pleasant surprise; it was the best anime feature I've seen in many years, probably since Ghost in the Shell, excluding anything by Hayao Miyazaki. Like the classic Grave of the Fireflies, Tokyo Godfathers struck me as unusual in the fact that it draws much from European cinema – English, Irish, German or Italian – while most commercial anime features try to mimic American film-making. But while Grave of the Fireflies was painfully sad and bleak, Tokyo Godfathers is irresistibly charming, and manages to be funny and incredibly touching at once like few anime films – few animated films, at that – ever achieve.

Tokyo Godfathers is remarkably non-violent, as pacifistic perhaps as Miyazaki's films. You won't find any grand futuristic structures or fantastical creatures here; in fact, the animation may seem crude at first. But the characters are where the film really hits its mark. Kon triumphs, like in his excellent series Paranoia Agent, by not succumbing to the accepted prototypes and standards of how characters should look in an anime film; the lead characters in the film are all gorgeously ugly, in a way that even Miyazaki had not yet dared to do. Even the child character, Miyuki, is chubby, and not cute and beautiful in the way little girls 'should' be, by the unwritten laws of anime. Thus, Kon's characters are believable and true to life; they are three anti-heroes, outcasts from society, each running away from their pasts. Especially charming is Hana (AKA 'Uncle Bag'), the golden-hearted transvestite, who supplies much of the film's comic relief but also some of its most touching moments.

Tokyo Godfathers – despite some far-fetched but amusing plot twists and coincidences – is at its core a very simple story, a beautiful little story about family, love and friendship. Few anime films are so unpretending; and thus, few anime films manage to be so strong. Watch Tokyo Godfathers; you'll laugh, you'll cry. And believe you me, ten minutes into it you'll forget it was ever animated.

At first glance, I wasn't sure if I would like this movie. The "miracles DO happen on Christmas" cliché is very boring and I typically don't enjoy movies that employ it, but this is a very different kind of Christmas movie.

We are given three homeless characters with complex personalities and backgrounds, who are as endearing as they are repellent. They take up the task of caring for a baby they found in the trash, and trying to bring it back to its mother. We learn the secrets that made these people homeless, we learn about the workings of human shame and desperation, and we learn that "miracles DO happen on Christmas." But in the least cheesy way possible!

The plot is very slow-moving, but still, it is interesting and very carefully laid out. This would be a very compelling live-action movie, but the use of animation adds so much visual interest, particularly the expressive (and sometimes hideous!!) face of Hana, the gangly transvestite. The choice of music is unique and very fitting: the song played during a walking-around-the-city montage is reminiscent of Clockwork Orange.

Interesting and careful story, complex and realistic story, tremendous visual appeal and excellent music. I guess this movie pretty much has it all!

Satoshi Kon's animation films are increasingly impressive with each new release. This movie is not only a technical masterpiece of the Japanese animation style, but can also rival a good independent live-action film in its storytelling. The film's plot also doubles as a social commentary about life on the fringe in Tokyo (not only the homeless but also cultural minority and the mentally disabled), from both the inside and the outside looking in. As a Westerner, I was astonished at how the homeless characters adapted to Japanese traditional practices for their survival.

The story of "Tokyo Godfathers" is much more compelling and heartwarming than Kon's previous films, "Perfect Blue" and "Milennium Actress", but the signature semi-realistic drawing style from his other films is still prominent. The discrepancies in movement between each character in the action sequences is particularly phenomenal. The backgrounds are intricate and perfectly painted. Note the art direction of the background buildings in some scenes to add even more connotation to the plot - sometimes they are more than what they seem!

Kon is the next Miyazaki, and I predict that he will continue to bring Japanese animation films to the international foreground years to come.