Tokyo Godfathers (2003) Movie Review

PG-13  |  92 min

Genre:  Adventure, Animation, Drama

Writer & Director: Satoshi Kon

Plot: On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo find a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

Tokyo Godfathers is another film directed by Satoshi Kon, it follow three people who are homeless who stumble upon a baby and then precede to look for its parents. 

What I noticed about the movie was how dark it was. The film mostly takes place at night but the actual look was very dark and grainy but very much felt realistic. The background look fantastic and even blends well with the moving animation which I think kept everything look natural. Not a lot of movies in animation look like this and its nice to see that at least one film has done it and made it work. 

This is definitely Satoshi Kons most straight forward movie, doing nothing special in terms of twists and turn that most of his movies do. This one rather focuses on the characters and the situations they get into on the way of finding this babies parents. It wasn't until after I finished the movie that I realized that there aren't any movies out there that I know of that have a group of homeless as their main protagonists. Even portraying them as just normal people and not at all in a negative light. You get a feel for their life and as soon as the baby shows up in the story I got sucked in. 

I would say this is the most character developed film that Satoshi Kon made and it helps with getting involved with the story. Everyone has something in their past that makes them interesting, and even more when certain situations force them to confront their past. Characters want to have better lives but lack the motivation to really do something, but you see as they change as soon as the baby shows up in their lives. They're all very likable and that makes you root for them when they get stuck in bad situations in the film.

Satoshi Kon has proved that he can tackle a wide variety of genre in Anime. Having this film be more toned done in terms of style and story really shows that he knows what a film really needs. When a animated movie can make me forget I am watching hand drawn characters, its done a pretty good job at what its doing. This is one film of his you should check out, even if your a fan of Anime or not, this one is a good blend of both.

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