“It is the people in the industry who force boundaries onto animation… It’s all about cute girls, robots and explosions, to them. That’s not right. Movies like this [Tokyo Godfathers] exist and work.”
For most people, the anime genre has never represented more than an entertaining avenue for teenage fanboys and girls keen on violence, T&A and hyperkinetic animation. So that is why ev
ery once in a while a gem is needed to to clear up any lingering misconceptions about anime.
Enter Tokyo Godfathers.
Tokyo Godfathers offers much more complicated characters and a very poignant plot that is a refreshing change of pace for anime.
Tokyo Godfathers, is a Christmas holiday tale with all the trimmings: a trinity of homeless people, an infant foundling, the glittering lights of a snowy metropolis, Tokyo-cum-Bethlehem. Despite being different from the typical holiday stories, the basic plot remains intact: adversity reigns until the child is found, fate smiles, and love wins the day.
In other words, high melodrama.
BUT! Tokyo Godfathers has good drama, it is unappealing since it features homeless people instead of cute boys or girls.
Furthermore, Tokyo Godfathers is also full of surprises. Laced with screwball comedy and high-speed action, the film encompasses more complex themes than the usual sugarcoated “spirit of Christmas.” It opens on Christmas Eve, as the homeless trio enjoys a modest celebration. Gin is a gruff, middle-aged drunkard tortured by the loss of his family. Hana is a gay former drag queen, still splendid with a powerful maternal instinct. Affectionately known as “Uncle Bag”, she looks after Miyuki, a willful runaway teen.
While searching through a trash heap, they stumble upon an abandoned baby
, whom they name Kiyoko ("pure child") and vow to reunite her with her parents. Their quest results in an unbelievably zany series of coincidences, through which each is forced to confront past demons and reckon with the realities of love and forgiveness.
Kon’s weaving of storyline and circumstance is a display of narrative finesse (no loose ends here), but the good fortune pushes hard at the limits of believability. Then again, Tokyo Godfathers is a Christmas movie. Miracles are supposed to happen.
What makes most of these “miracles” bearable is that they are balanced by moments of broad humor. In one brilliant sequence, Gin has been savagely beaten by a youth gang, and lies bleeding in a dark alleyway. As the camera closes in on his battered face, we see a faint golden glow emerge off to the side. The camera pulls back to reveal a radiant angel standing over him. But just as the scene is about to devolve into utter cheesiness, the glow fades, leaving behind a bitchy drag queen in angel costume. Heavenly transcendence is an illusion; earthly salvation takes a humbler form.
Normally animators usually render surrounding objects in less detail than the object of focus. But for this movie, Kon insisted on detail for everything, from the windows on a skyscraper to the creases in a garbage bag. This creates a “hyper-real” vision of the city, making it seem grittier and more tactile. Kon applies a similarly amplified animation style to the charac
ters—bulging eyeballs, outsized mouths, flailing limbs—making their emotions both more humorous and more palpable.
Unlike other holiday films, Tokyo Godfathers is not for the whole family. It incorporates many of society's problems, such as homelessness, random violence, and death. However, despite such grim topics, director Satoshi Kon is still able to tell a touching, funny, and hopeful story. In fact, telling the story amidst such bleak issues makes the film that much more impactful.
Tokyo Godfathers is a movie I would strongly recommend, and it is a nice alternative to the predictable, textbook holiday film.
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