Tokyo Godfathers
Tokyo Godfathers is a 2003 Japanese anime holiday, adventure, comedy-drama film directed by Satoshi Kon loosely based on Peter B. Kyne's novel Three Godfathers.
Tokyo Godfathers was the third animated film directed by Kon and the second which he both wrote and directed. Keiko Nobumoto, noted for being the creator of the Wolf's Rain series and a head scriptwriter for Cowboy Bebop, co-wrote the script with Kon.
Tokyo Godfathers received an Excellence Prize at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival. It also won Best Animation Film at the 58th Mainichi Film Awards.
Plot
One Christmas Eve after watching a children's performance of the Nativity scene, three homeless people – a middle-aged alcoholic named Gin, a former drag queen named Hana, and a dependent teenage runaway girl named Miyuki – discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage for presents. Deposited with the unnamed baby is a note asking the unknown finder to take good care of her and a bag containing clues to the parents' identity. The trio sets out to find the baby's parents. The baby is named Kiyoko by Hana, based on the Japanese translation of Silent Night literally meaning "pure child", as she is found on Christmas Eve. Outside a cemetery, the group encounters a high-ranking yakuza boss trapped under his car. The man happens to know the owner of the club where Kiyoko's mother used to work; his daughter is going to be marrying the club's owner that day. At the wedding reception, the groom tells them that the baby's mother is a former bar girl named Sachiko. He gives them Sachiko's address, but the party is interrupted when a maid, revealed to be a Latino hitman in disguise, attempts to shoot the bride's father. The hitman kidnaps Miyuki and baby Kiyoko while holding them hostage at gunpoint and takes them back to his home. There, Miyuki befriends the hitman's wife and confesses to fleeing her home after stabbing her father.Hana searches for Miyuki and Kiyoko while Gin takes care of an elderly homeless man who is dying in the street. After giving Gin a little red bag, the old man peacefully passes away. Some teenagers show up and beat up Gin and the dead old man's corpse. Meanwhile, Hana finds the girls and they go off to find a place to stay. They go to Angel Tower, a club where Hana had worked at before being fired for assaulting a rude and intoxicated customer years ago. Gin, who was rescued by another member of the club, is also there. The trio sets out to find Sachiko's house, but they discover that it has been torn down. They are informed of the unhappy relationship between Sachiko and her husband, who is a gambling alcoholic. The group rests at a store until they are told to leave by the clerk. Hana collapses, and is taken by Gin and Miyuki to the hospital. Once at the hospital, Gin finds his estranged daughter, who is also named Kiyoko, working as a nurse. Hana berates Gin in front of his daughter and storms out of the hospital, with Miyuki following behind with baby Kiyoko in hand. Hana and Miyuki find Sachiko about to jump off a bridge. Sachiko insists that her husband got rid of the baby without her knowledge, and that they return the baby to her.
Gin finds Sachiko's husband, who confirms a TV report Gin saw earlier that Kiyoko was actually stolen by Sachiko from the hospital. They chase after Sachiko and Kiyoko. After an intense car chase, Miyuki chases Sachiko to the top of a building. Sachiko reveals she became pregnant in hopes it would bring her closer to her husband. When her baby was stillborn, she decided to kidnap Kiyoko from the hospital's nursery, thinking, in her grief, the baby was hers. As Sachiko is about to jump off the building intending to commit suicide with Kiyoko in her hands, her husband comes out of his apartment, located just across the street, and begs her to start over with him. Sachiko jumps off nevertheless, but Miyuki manages to catch her before she falls, but then Sachiko accidentally drops Kiyoko. Hana jumps off the building after Kiyoko, catches the baby, and lands safely due to a miraculous gust of wind. Hana, Miyuki, and Gin are taken to the hospital. Miyuki hands Gin his cigarettes and drops the old man's small red bag on the floor, revealing a winning lottery ticket. Kiyoko's real parents want to ask the trio to become her godparents. When a police inspector introduces them to the trio, the inspector is revealed to be Miyuki's father.
Cast
- Tōru Emori and Jon Avner as Gin; a gambling addict and former bicycle shop owner who claims to have been a bicycle racer. He ran away from his family when his debts became too great. His daughter, a nurse, shares the name of the newfound baby Kiyoko.
- Yoshiaki Umegaki and Shakina Nayfack as Hana; a former drag queen who became homeless following the death of a former boyfriend. Hana was also an abandoned child, and is the most sympathetic to Kiyoko's plight and is the one who gives the baby her name.
- Aya Okamoto and Victoria Grace as Miyuki; a runaway high school student who fled home following a violent argument with her father.
- Satomi Koorogi and Kari Wahlgren as Kiyoko an abandoned infant girl that the main characters find in the dumpster on Christmas Eve and decide to reunite her with her parents.
- Shōzō Iizuka and Jamieson Price as Ōta; a yakuza boss who the main characters save from being crushed by his car. In gratitude, he invites them to his daughter's wedding reception.
- Seizō Katō and Kate Bornstein as Mother; the proprietor of the gay bar Hana was formerly employed in.
- Hiroya Ishimaru and Kirk Thornton as Yasuo; Sachiko's husband and the one who left Kiyoko at the garbage dump.
- Ryūji Saikachi and David Manis as an old homeless man who is discovered by Gin. He entrusts Gin with the disposal of a small red bag before passing away.
- Yūsaku Yara and Crispin Freeman as Miyuki's father; a policeman in charge of searching for the missing baby Kiyoko, who was separated from her family.
- Kyōko Terase and Larissa Gallagher as Sachiko; a woman who claims to be Kiyoko's mother.
- Mamiko Noto and Erica Schroeder as Gin's daughter; a nurse who is also named Kiyoko.
- Satomi Kōrogi as the daughter of the yakuza boss Ōta, who is also named Kiyoko.
- Akio Ōtsuka and Jamieson Price as a doctor engaged to Gin's daughter Kiyoko.
- Rikiya Koyama and Michael Sinterniklaas as Arao; Ōta's son-in-law who was collecting debt from Gin.
- Inuko Inuyama and Philece Sampler as Kurumizawa; a resident of Sachiko's former neighborhood.
- Kanako Yahara and Philece Sampler as Yamanōchi
- Rie Shibata and Erica Schroeder as Cat lady
- Kōichi Yamadera and Marc Thompson as Taxi driver
Additional voices : Jordan Cole, Philece Sampler, Lexie Foley, Erica Schroeder, Crispin Freeman, Michael Sinterniklaas, David Manis, Marc Thompson, Jamieson Price, Kirk Thornton, Orlando Rios, Jaden Waldman
Themes
The film puts an emphasis on the theme of "coincidences". Movie critic George Peluranee notes that "Tokyo Godfathers is a film that shows the small yet significant ties that each of us have with supposed strangers, and tells well the story of miracles, family, love, and forgiveness."Susan Napier points out that Tokyo Godfathers is part of a trend in anime and manga as depicting families in an increasingly dark fashion, showcasing the problems with traditional families, and attempts by people to construct a "pseudo-family" out of an increasingly fragmented and isolating modern Japanese society. It is put forth that despite the seeming criticisms of traditional families throughout the film, it ends with a more conservative feeling as everyone returns to their traditional/original families. Despite its seemingly traditional ending, the film offers a more radical version of family. Throughout the story these three homeless vagabonds unknowingly form a "pseudo-family" to protect themselves from the outside world and to overcome their personal demons.