Tokyo Godfathers

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Tokyo Godfathers

Directed by	Satoshi Kon
Produced by	Masao Maruyama
Written by	Satoshi Kon Keiko Nobumoto
Starring	Aya Okamoto, Toru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki
Music by	Keiichi Suzuki Moonriders
Distributed by	Madhouse Studios (Japan), Sony Pictures (USA)
Release date(s)	29 December 2003 (Japan) 16 January 2004 (USA)
Running time	92 minutes
Language	Japanese
Budget	?
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Tokyo Godfathers (東京ゴッドファーザーズ) is a 2003 anime film by Japanese director Satoshi Kon. Tokyo Godfathers is Kon's third animated movie and was written and directed by him. Keiko Nobumoto, noted for being the creator of the Wolf's Rain series and a head scriptwriter for Cowboy Bebop, was also involved in the writing of the movie. It has also been broadcast across East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia by the anime television network, Animax. Tokyo Godfathers is 92 minutes long and has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

1 Storyline
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 External links

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Storyline

One Christmas eve, three homeless people (a gruff, middle-aged hobo, a transvestite, and a run-away girl) discover an abandoned newborn while foraging through some trash. Desposited with the baby is a note asking the finder to take good care of the unnamed baby and a bag containing clues to the parent's identity.

The unlikely group is a pseudo-family with a history: Gin (ギン) is an alcoholic and a gambler who has estranged himself from his wife and daughter; Hana (ハナ) a.k.a. Uncle Bag is an ex-drag queen whose lover died and who aspires to be a mother; Miyuki (ミユキ) is a sullen teen who stabbed her policeman father over a misunderstanding. Hana believes that Kiyoko (清子), the baby, is a gift from Heaven and convinces the others to keep her for the night. Together, in their quest to find the infant's parents, the friends become closer and begin to act like a real family, even to the point that Miyuki has a fantasy in which the four of them have moved into a house, adopted little Kiyoko, and act like the family she always wished she had.

The story is patterned and partially named after the 1948 John Ford Western film Three Godfathers, in which a trio of thieves come to be responsible for a newborn baby.

[edit] Cast

Toru Emori - Gin (voice)
Aya Okamoto - Miyuki (voice)
Yoshiaki Umegaki - Hana (voice)
Shozo Izuka - Oota (voice)

[edit] Trivia

In one scene, three women are heard saying "Of course not, of course not!". In Satoshi Kon's TV series Paranoia Agent, the three women star in the episode "ECT" with the same catchphrase.
There are innumberable reocurring instances of the digits 12-25 (i.e. the date of Christmas), such as on license plates, in phone numbers, on taxi meters, and on lottery tickets.