The late, great Japanese animator Satoshi Kon’s third feature, Tokyo Godfathers, follows three homeless people who find a baby abandoned in a dumpster on Christmas Eve. Having already formed a reluctant makeshift family, alcoholic grump Gin (Tooru Emori), ex-drag queen Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki), and runaway teen Miyuki (Aya Okamoto) decide to take care of the infant until they can agree what to do with the wailing little girl. In their efforts to find the baby’s parents and discover the truth of her abandonment, the trio end up embarking on a wild and whimsical adventure through the snowy streets of Tokyo, encountering unexpected people from their individual pasts along the way.
The film seems built upon a series of happy accidents and bizarre happenings that test the viewers’ suspension of disbelief until they are cajoled into accepting the most outlandish examples of impossibility and fantasy by the story’s end. This tone is set right from the first scene when Gin and Hana attend a Nativity play in order to score a free meal at a church. Later, Hana reveals her wish to have her own child, which for her would be as miraculous as the Virgin Birth. When the three stumble upon a crying infant in the dumpster moments later, Hana takes it as a direct gift from God. She names the baby Kiyoko, a reference to the popular Christmas carol “Silent Night.”
From there, more and more strange coincidences befall the characters. One moment of chance snowballs into another, creating an increasingly propulsive and fantastical tale. For example, the three main characters save a man who is accidentally trapped under his car. It turns out he is a mob boss heading to his daughter’s wedding and his future son-in-law has information the trio can glean about the baby’s mother. At the reception, Gin recognizes the groom as a problematic figure from his past, which triggers his anger. Right before he confronts the young man, an assassin attacks the wedding party and the trio are sent running into the night. This eccentric sequence of events is just one of the many convoluted plotlines packed into Tokyo Godfathers’ 92-minute runtime.
There are also several examples of fateful parallels in the film. Gin, at one point, relates the story of how he became alone and homeless. It turns out that gambling addiction and debts led him to lose his wife and daughter. Later, he encounters his doppelgänger on the streets: an older homeless man wearing the exact same outfit as himself. This man tells Gin of a lifelong struggle with gambling, which led to his shame and loneliness, which resonates deeply with Gin. Another example of doubling in Tokyo Godfathers is in the name “Kiyoko,” which, in addition to being the one randomly picked by Hana for the baby, turns out to be Gin’s daughter’s name as well. These coincidental moments, while telegraphed pretty clearly in advance, manage to hit the poignancy mark later on, despite how often they are used in the film.
There is a sense of dark tongue-in-cheek throughout the movie that helps ease this sense of increasing incredulity along. At one point, Hana jokes about taking off her shoes in preparation for jumping off a bridge while in the background, a woman is seen doing that very thing. Characters mutter under their breaths, undermining the self-serious monologue of another. Meanwhile, a well-timed sniffle or sneeze is often used to break up the solemnity of the rather adult themes and circumstances of the film. And there is a lot of serious stuff packed into this animated work! Homeless living, domestic violence, family drama, addiction, and even attempted murder are among the many elements presented in Tokyo Godfathers.
The film deserves kudos for shining a spotlight on homelessness, which is often an overlooked aspect of society. Homelessness in Japan, in particular, is not a subject that is often discussed or portrayed in the media. As a country that experiences very little homelessness today, Japan did at one point reach a peak after its economic collapse in the 1990s. At its highest recorded count in 2003, there were over 25,000 unhoused individuals living on the island nation. This would have been exactly around the same time that Tokyo Godfathers was released, showing how the topic was particularly relevant then.
Director Kon, who also wrote the story of the film, portrays the three lead characters with great detail and empathy. Gin, Hana, and Miyuki are shown dealing with the unique struggles of sleeping rough in a city during wintertime. They must scrounge, trade, and defend themselves within the hidden social systems amongst unhoused people. They retain their humanity in the face of difficult living conditions and mistreatment by “regular” people, ignoring or addressing outright insults from time to time. The film also illustrates some of the many unfortunate ways that people in Japan end up homeless, which oftentimes stems from a place of shame and self-loathing that stops them from turning to their families for help. The three protagonists are not perfect characters either. They are sometimes caustic and unpleasant, telling lies to others and even themselves. But the result is that Gin, Hana, and Miyuki are fully realized characters who very much leap off the screen.
Another notable aspect of this film is the handling of its transgender character, Hana. While certainly her eccentricities are sometimes heightened, and her initial insistence on keeping the baby veers toward delusional (there is simply no way a combative trio of homeless people can properly provide for a newborn), Hana is clearly the glue that holds this family of misfits together. Her bubbly positivity, propensity to break into song, and readiness to call people out keep Gin and Miyuki in check. While she receives her fair share of insults as a towering, camp, homeless trans woman, she can more than stick up for herself. Eventually, even previously disrespectful characters who deliberately misgendered her at the beginning end up calling her “Miss Hana,” accepting her more fully after she wins them over with her charismatic personality.
As disparate as the many elements of Tokyo Godfathers are, this wacky fairy tale, loosely inspired by the John Ford-directed western flick 3 Godfathers, manages to weave everything together in the magical way that only a Christmas-themed movie can. It’s honestly worth adding to the list of other oddball Christmas classics, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
