Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers is a visually stunning and arresting 2003 film that contains elegant and detailed animation and a script that is both poignant and hilarious. Directed by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress), Tokyo Godfathers is a clever and sweet story involving a creative cast of characters and tremendously surreal situations. Kon brings us these situations with delicate style, manic humour and depressing moments of extraordinary sadness and pain. Tokyo Godfathers is certainly an anime that has a little bit of everything.

The film opens on Christmas Eve as our three main characters, three homeless people, are foraging through some trash. They find an abandoned baby and instantly become attached to it. One of the three, a transvestite named Hana, begins to feel instincts of mothering and wants to show the child love. With the baby, the group finds a bag with some supplies and a note attached, asking the finder to take good care of the child. The trio sets out and, using a few clues, tries to track down the parents of the abandoned child. The adventure that follows is one of the most remarkably entertaining and colourful adventures I have seen on film, animated or not.

The trio, believing the child is a gift from God, begins to experience a great number of coincidences related to the child. Gin, one of the group who is a middle-aged alcoholic gambler, meets his daughter again and begins to develop communication with her. High school runaway Miyuki begins to find purpose for herself and Hana also finds a sense of belonging and purpose with the child under the care of the group. The film utilizes many modern aspects of “controversial” life, including suicide and homosexuality, to provide a realistic backstory to the characters and to develop a real sense of grit as we journey through the streets and see things through the perceptions of three homeless people.

Some scenes are tremendously funny and other scenes are painfully hard to watch, such as the scene in which some teenage punks decide to beat up Gin and an older homeless man who had previously passed away. Satoshi Kon never shies away from showing the darkness and never fails to provide enough light to go with it, leaving the audience in a constant state of something mirroring perpetual bliss and insanity, just like the characters of the film. We are given the street life in all of its rawness and gruesome appeal, yet we find heroes there in these three people. They are coarse, gruff, dirty and they love to squabble. Yet, they are as heroic a trio as envisioned on film in a very long time.

Tokyo Godfathers was adapted loosely from John Ford’s 1948 western, Three Godfathers. In Ford’s film, a trio of thieves must take care of a child that is found. Tokyo Godfathers is a strongly narrated film that contains a lot of twists and turns along the way, including several surprises to place emphasis on the notion that this child has brought great fortune to the three.

The animation is stellar and colourful, representing all of the variations of the locales provided in the film and the differences between the characters. We are shown several sides of life throughout the film’s 92 minute runtime, creating such a broad sense with the storytelling that it becomes difficult to keep track of time. The film’s plot is not only excellent in propelling the characters through these circumstances, but it also serves as a bit of a social commentary on how homeless people are treated and what people of all types and backgrounds are capable of.

All in all, Tokyo Godfathers is one of the most superb anime features I have ever seen. It is a wonder to behold and a beautiful film from start to finish. If the visuals aren’t enough to captivate you, the detailed plot and the creative, engaging characters surely will suffice. Tokyo Godfathers is a gem of a film, whether you like anime or not.