Tokyo Godfathers, written and directed by Satoshi Kon, is a tragicomedy adventure film that takes place during Christmas, starring live-action stars Toru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki, and Aya Okamoto. We follow the three protagonists â a middle-aged alcoholic Gin, trans woman Hana, and dependent teenage runaway Miyuki â discovering an abandoned newborn and grappling with the responsibility of caring for her until the parents return. Throughout the film, we are filled with a sense of bearing witness to something much larger than ourselves, something inexplicably beautiful.
Tokyo Godfathers looks beyond the tinsel and the glamorous lights of the Christmas season and shows family, in all its guises, at its core. In its classical Western narrative, Christmas is viewed as a celebration of good virtues over sins (as shown in Dicken’s Christmas Carol). Christmas is seen as a holiday that celebrates the good and punishes the sinful. It is viewed as the passage of good and bad deeds committed by humans, who have fallen in sin from the Garden of Eden. Then Kon, through his film, delves into the essential human condition, reflecting on what truly makes us human. He does not limit his characters within the frame of their respective realities but allows their truth to soar by allowing them the agency to traverse and then transgress the thresholds of society.
The film begins with a Christmas nativity play (A Nativity play or Christmas pageant is a play that recounts the story of the Nativity of Jesus). It is usually performed at Christmas, the feast of the Nativity. As the Chorus progresses, we are opened to a shot of the audience with Hana, the singularly inspired congregation member, juxtaposed by Gin, who is sleeping right beside her. Hana, a trans woman, leans onto idealism and piety with her entire body and soul, while Gin appears cynical, older, and more callous in his ways. The youngest member of the trinity, Miyuki, is a rebellious teenager whose disposition mirrors both Gin and Hana to the extent that she balances them out. They find an abandoned baby while browsing through the trash, claimed by Hana as a miraculous Christmas gift and their sole blessing from God. The baby, quite literally, is the light of their lives. Kon adopts the motif of light and darkness as suggestive of the ebb and flow of love in and out of the lives of the main trio. The baby they find amidst the dumpster is given a halo-like glow to signify the warmth and devotion they are going to discover along the way.
While the titular trio runs all over the streets of Tokyo trying to find the birth mother of the abandoned child, they essentially end up realizing just how much they need each other in their lives, how much they depend on the person they have come to acknowledge as their chosen family.
The bounty of the comedy soon shifts into something much darker and disorienting as the characters are now forced to deal with the ugliness of their contrived circumstances. Those who have seemingly no role in society are treated as trash, lower than strays, to be disposed of, and as Gin is beaten within an inch of his life, the audience is forced to reconcile the idea of God’s established blessings to that of human suffering. Miyuki, Gin, and Hana’s way of living is but preferred alternative to the denunciations they would have to face with their families. The trio represents the three most oppressed groups of Japanese society: the poor addict, the teenage girl, and the trans woman. Miyuki’s character is a lonesome echo of the internalized anger and resentment that Japan’s systemic mistreatment of women has instilled into its society. Hana suffers from the most consistent torrent of aggression as Kon depicts how Westernised notions of gender norms have been weaponized against her very existence. Hana, however, fights back with an equally domineering spirit at every single instance of bigotry, and in her devotion, her unending urge to do good is a frequent reminder of how ardently she loves. Through her character, Kon emphasizes the message that family is simply the place where our love dwells. When the baby falls from a rooftop, Hana, without a second thought, jumps into the wind to catch her, and as she falls while holding a tearaway banner, a torrential gust of wind catches the pair and lowers them gently onto the street below. Kamikaze (translates to ‘divine wind’ or ‘spirit wind’- In Shinto, kami are not separate from nature, but are of nature, possessing positive and negative, and good and evil characteristics. They are manifestations of musubi (ç”ăł), the interconnecting energy of the universe, and are considered exemplary of what humanity should strive towards). As the sun rises, light completely envelopes the both of them.
The answer to all answers, the reason for our existence in this universe, historically, has led us only to God. The human condition has never made the space for prolonged satisfaction. Our existential inquiry always leads us to the ideal presence of a being of unfathomable power and extreme knowledge, one who holds the answers we seek in life. Religion seems to be the answer to the loss. But for Kon, love seems to be the answer we strive for. The film celebrates life; it celebrates love in its degrees, love that transcends space and time. Love governs our experience of this universe, and hence, for Kon, love is all that you need.
Tokyo Godfathers is filled with heart. Every character, each with their losses in life, is made equal and rejuvenated in the radiance of love. To Kon, everyone deserves an opportunity to possess love, to rediscover what they had once thought lost and to mend their broken wounds, for love gives us purpose in life.