Line #43 Anime/TokyoGodfathers


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tokyo_godfathers_movie_poster_6914.jpg]]
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3	''Tokyo Godfathers'' is a 2003 {{Anime}} movie directed by Creator/SatoshiKon; the film is heavily based on Peter B. Kyne's 1913 novella ''The Three Godfathers'' about a trio of bandits who discover a foundling. This dramatic comedy is a stark departure from Kon's more [[MindScrew mind-bending]] works, but it still contains his atmospheric touch, keen social commentary, and insight on the human condition.
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5	Three [[HomelessHero homeless people]] -- Gin (an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]]), Hana (a UsefulNotes/{{transgender}} woman) and Miyuki (a [[TheRunaway teenage runaway]]) -- find an [[DoorstopBaby abandoned baby]] while digging through trash and spend Christmas Eve looking for its [[ParentalAbandonment missing parents]].
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7	Contains a lot of {{Contrived Coincidence}}s (miracles, really, but always within the realm of possibility), but that's kind of the point. In the meantime, viewers get a glimpse of a side of Tokyo that is rarely seen in anime.
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9	See also ''Film/ThreeGodfathers'', with which ''Tokyo Godfathers'' shares its source material.
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12	!!''Tokyo Godfathers'' contains examples of:
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14	* AnswerCut: When Miyuki and Hana reunite, the former asks where Gin is. Hana says "He could be dead for all I care." Cut to Gin lying in a back alley about to do just that. A minute later Hana asks herself where Gin is and again we cut to Gin in the alley.
15	* ArcNumber: 1225 (which refers to December 25).
16	* ArcSymbol: Angels. Miyuki is first seen in front of a billboard showing a model dressed as an angel, the neon sign in front of the club Hana used to sing at is the Tokyo Tower with angel wings and the lamp on top of the taxi that Hana hijacks to chase after Sachiko is an 'A' with wings. And at one point Hana declares the baby to be a "messenger of God", the traditional function of angels in the Bible, and in a dream Miyuki imagines that the baby has wings on her back. Also, Miyuki's cat is named "Angel".
17	* ArmorPiercingQuestion: [[spoiler:"Kiyoko wants to see her mom and dad, why don't you get that?!" It's how Miyuki manages to snap Sachiko out of kidnapping the baby for herself]].
18	* BabyBeMine: [[spoiler:Sachiko isn't the real mother; she had a miscarriage and kidnapped "Kiyoko" from the hospital]].
19	* BarefootSuicide: Never ones to be impolite, Japanese women take off their shoes before they plunge to their deaths.
20	* BeneathNotice: The assassin infiltrates the wedding party disguised as a maid.
21	* BerserkButton: You can call Hana "Shitty", but never call her an "old man". [[spoiler:A patron at the club she used to work in found that out the hard way.]]
22	* BilingualDialogue: Miyuki and the South American man from the wedding, and again when [[spoiler: he takes her to his home and leaves her with his wife]]. The man speaks only Spanish to Miyuki, but she doesn't understand him. Later, when [[spoiler: she is in the room with the wife]], she attempts to speak Spanish with Miyuki, but switches over to English briefly, which Miyuki ''does'' understand. She is very supportive, even if it seems she doesn't understand what a big mess Miyuki got herself into.
23	* BrickJoke:
24	** In the first scene, Gin and Hana are in a soup line and Hana asks for double portions because she's "eating for two," complete with her patting her stomach. The audience soon learns that the second helping was for Miyuki. 20 minutes later, however, the protagonists find baby Kiyoko and are boarding a train to take her home, only for the charity worker to pass by on an escalator. He is understandably shocked to see the clearly transgender Hana holding an infant, and the camera pans to him mentally exclaiming "He ''was'' eating for two!"
25	** While he tells Miyuki and Hana how he became homeless, he mentions he was a professional bike racer. [[spoiler:While it turned out Gin was actually the owner of a bike shop that has since gone out of business, he ends up using a bicycle for real in the climactic chase.]]
26	* BringingRunningShoesToACarChase: A variant. Gin on his bicycle is able to overtake Sachiko in her truck.
27	* BruceLeeClone: The leader of the teen delinquents pulls off the stance and noises of one, though his overall effectiveness is in question considering he expends it on homeless people who are in no condition to fight back.
28	* CallingTheOldManOut: Miyuki ran away from home because her attempt to do this to her seemingly distant father escalated to her stabbing him in a fit of anger.
29	* CarChase: During the climax when [[spoiler:Sachiko]] tries to escape with a truck.
30	* CarFu: During the CarChase, [[spoiler:Sachiko uses her truck to crush Gin on his bicycle]] against a wall.
31	* CarMeetsHouse: Sachiko driving her truck into a building.
32	* ChristianityIsCatholic: It's never stated what denomination the church is, but having a Midnight Mass almost definitely makes it Catholic.
33	* ChristmasMiracle: Hana outright calls Kiyoko a Christmas miracle and blessed by God. Over the course of the film the trio encounters so many miraculous coincidences that it's kind of hard to argue against the entire film being a long string of them.
34	* ClimbingClimax: The climax has Sachiko fleeing onto a rooftop leading to a RooftopConfrontation with Miyuki.
35	* ContrivedCoincidence: These are the driving force of the plot, and occur so frequently that listing them would spoil the whole movie. Often they are so hilarious and unexpected that by the time it gets to the truly absurd stuff, the viewer is liable to just roll with it.
36	** The characters speculate that the baby they are helping is under the protection of God, and that miraculous things are happening to assist them.
37	* CoughingUpBlood: [[spoiler:Hana throughout the movie. We never find out [[SoapOperaDisease exactly what she has]] but as the doctor only informs us that being homeless and running mad all over town is not helping the condition, we can infer that it wouldn't be anything serious if she weren't.]]
38	* CrazyCatLady: The trio meets one at the ruins of Sachiko's home.
39	* CreativeClosingCredits: The opening credits are worked into advertisement banners in the streets of Tokyo.
40	* CueTheFallingObject: After Gin walks through the still standing door of Sachiko's destroyed house, the door topples after a few seconds.
41	* CueTheSun: At the end, Hana catches a glimpse of the sunrise in the climax as she [[spoiler: descends with the baby, holding onto a banner that a gust of wind leaves them gently floating down to the ground]].
42	* DespairEventHorizon: Crossing it is what sent each of the protagonists (sans the baby) to the streets. Part of the angst they possess is the knowledge that they could have coped with their respective tragedies and failures better with the film giving them chances to move on.
43	* DeusExMachina: The driving force of the movie, and proof that Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad.
44	** In keeping with the theme of ChristmasMiracle, a sudden gust keeps Hana and the baby from falling to their death at the end.
45	* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: Averted when Hana is telling her foster mother how she lost her boyfriend, her foster mother asks under her breath if it was AIDS, but Hana says he slipped on the soap.
46	* DisproportionateRetribution: [[spoiler:Miyuki stabs her father over her lost cat (which she assumes he either threw away or killed), but it's pretty clear that was just the final straw and that there are plenty of other underlying issues there.]]
47	* TheDoorSlamsYou: In pursue of Sachiko and the baby, Hana and Miyuki run into a door opened by an unwitting resident.
48	* DoorstopBaby: There's no real doorstop with homeless people, but yeah, that's about it.
49	* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Averted; when a group of gossiping women is discussing the couple the main trio are searching for, it is brought up that "sometimes you'd see bruises". One of the women initially takes pity on the wife until it's brought up that the husband was the victim, at which she's even more horrified and surprised.
50	* DueToTheDead: Gin closes the eyes of an even older homeless man who he had been comforting in his last moments. [[NotQuiteDead Only to freak out when it turned out the other man had just stopped talking for a few seconds.]]
51	* EarnYourHappyEnding: Though the journey is fraught with hardship and brushes with death, ultimately everything turns out well for ''everyone''. [[spoiler:The baby is reunited with her parents, the main trio have all reunited and reconciled with their families and are named the baby's godparents, Sachiko has seen the error of her ways and regained the will to live, her husband has resolved to become a better man, [[SignificantBackgroundEvent a news broadcast in the background reveals that the violent hoodlums have been arrested]], the loan shark who got shot is in stable condition at the hospital, and though they don't realize it, the audience sees that the gift Gin received from the dying bum was a winning jackpot lottery ticket.]]
52	* EthnicMenialLabor: Hispanic in Japan.
53	* EverybodyLives: Despite a number of close calls for a number of characters, the only character in the film who actually dies is [[spoiler:the old bum, who passes peacefully from old age.]] ''Everyone'' else gets away unharmed: [[spoiler:Gin survives a horrific beating from some hoodlums and injuries from a car chase, Hana survives her unspecified illness and - miraculously - falling off of a tall building, and Sachiko survives her multiple suicide attempts and regains the will to live. Even the loan shark who got shot in the chest three times is mentioned to have survived his injuries in a news broadcast.]]
54	* FacialMarkings: It's no coincidence that Kiyoko the baby has a mole on her forehead just like [[{{UsefulNotes/Buddhism}} the Buddha]].
55	* FlatWhat: Miyuki and Hana have this reaction when Gin tells them that [[spoiler:Sachiko is not Kiyoko's real mother]].
56	* FollowThatCar: Hana has the taxi driver follow Sachiko in her truck.
57	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
58	** Hana brings up the possibility of adopting the baby herself, saying that maybe adopted parents can be just as good as birth parents. This winds up coming back into play much later [[spoiler:when it turns out Sachiko ISN'T the mother of the baby.]]
59	** Gin glumly justifies Hana's naming of the baby Kiyoko, saying it's a nice name. Miyuki asks if that was the name of his last girlfriend, but he never responds. [[spoiler:It's because he named ''his'' daughter Kiyoko.]]
60	** Not long after he tells Hana and Miyuki his story about how he became a bum, Gin unconsciously contradicts one part of his story when he sees the groom. [[spoiler:This is the first direct clue that Gin was just telling a tall tale.]]
61	*** When first talking about the age of his daughter, Gin adds [[spoiler:"if she's even still alive", because he abandoned her years ago and doesn't know her whereabouts]]. He [[spoiler:amends this shortly after by saying that both his wife and child are now dead, though Hana doesn't notice]].
62	* {{Forgiveness}}: Miyuki's father has forgiven her for [[spoiler:stabbing him so many months ago. He's frantically searching for her so that they can reconcile and so that she will be safe.]]
63	* TheGlomp: Hana's mother does this to her when they reunite.
64	* GodIsGood: An overarching theme and discussed by various characters. Many events in the movie can easily be interpreted as God guiding and even directly helping the protagonists. Noticeably, despite thinking God gave her the wrong sex, Hana is a firm believer of this.
65	* GoIntoTheLight: Parodied when Gin is collapsed in an alley and meets [[spoiler: a drag queen dressed as]] an angel.
66	* GoodVersusGood: There is no true asshole in the film. Characters who seem like mean-spirited are either caring for someone special or are at their very worst a JerkWithAHeartOfGold… with the exception of the violent youths who beat up homeless old men for fun.
67	* GossipyHens: A group of middle-aged women whom the three leads meet fit this trope; their gossip helps point our heroes toward the mother of the abandoned baby they'd found.
68	* HappilyEverAfter: By the end of the movie, [[spoiler:the baby is returned to her real parents, all three homeless characters have been reunited with their families, Sachiko and her husband have started over, and it turns out the trio have been carrying around a winning lottery ticket the whole time.]]
69	* HeelRealization:
70	** [[spoiler:Sachiko's husband]] after Gin gives him TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and he sees what has become of his wife thanks partially to him.
71	** [[spoiler:Sachiko herself]] also has one after a lot of effort from Miyuki.
72	* HeroicBystander: It's pretty heroic when three homeless people do all they can to take care of an abandoned baby and restore her to her parents, complete with [[spoiler:chasing down the kidnapper]] when the latter endangers Kiyoko. [[spoiler:So much so that Kiyoko's parents say they want to make the trio their daughter's godparents as thanks for saving her life]].
73	* HeroStoleMyBike: Sachiko steals a truck and Gin goes into pursuit with a stolen bicycle.
74	* HitmanWithAHeart: The Hispanic assassin set out to kill the Yakuza boss at the wedding takes Miyuki hostage, but then brings her to a kind Hispanic mother who breastfeeds Kiyoko and provides some comfort for Miyuki, and even when he's holding her hostage, he's clearly trying to be nice and reassuring toward her.
75	* HollywoodDriving: The Yakuza boss who is driving the heroes to Kinshicho turns around in his car and talks to his passengers in the backseat while his car is getting dangerously close to a bus.
76	* IllKillYou: Gin angrily proclaims that he will kill the groom right before the hitman foils his plan.
77	* InMysteriousWays: The story takes a MaybeMagicMaybeMundane approach, with numerous "coincidences" that can be interpreted as divine guidance.
78	* InelegantBlubbering: Pretty much Hana's default method of crying, especially when she is reunited with her foster mother. Also Miyuki and Sachiko. Seriously, nobody cries pretty in this movie.
79	* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler:Sachiko is stopped from committing suicide]]. Twice.
80	* InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers: [[spoiler: Sachiko kidnaps a baby from a maternity ward after losing her own baby, then abandons it while the real parents are frantically looking for their newborn.]]
81	* IOweYouMyLife: Rather, "I owe you our baby's life." [[spoiler:Kiyoko's real parents are eternally grateful that three homeless people rescued their baby when her kidnapper abandoned her on a wintry night. They ask in SincerityMode if they can make the trio their baby's godparents. The three accept, with Hana having some bemusement that they only did what a decent person should do]].
82	* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: When Miyuki calls Hana a "shitty old man", Hana says, "'Shitty' I can take, but 'old man' I won't!" and nearly assaults her. After Gin breaks them up, Miyuki corrects herself and calls her a 'shitty... uh... hag.' A flashback reveals that Hana once lashed out at a visitor at the bar she worked at who made the same mistake.
83	* KarmicJackpot: Three homeless folks find an abandoned baby and do all they can to care for the newborn Kiyoko, while finding her actual parents. By the end of the film [[spoiler:they're made her honorary godparents, reunited with their families who forgive them, and have a winning lottery ticket.]]
84	* KindheartedCatLover: Miyuki. She has a cat named Angel back at home and gets very angry when Gin suggests they eat some cats.
85	* LaserGuidedKarma: In the end, the gang of teenagers that beat up Gin and the dead homeless man? [[spoiler: A news report in the ending scene say they were arrested for the murder of the homeless man. Because he had just died when they beat his corpse it looks like they beat him to death.]]
86	%%* LivingMacGuffin: The baby.
87	* LighterAndSofter: While the film can be dark and brutally realistic, it is noticeably more light-hearted and comedic than Creator/SatoshiKon's more serious arthouse works.
88	* LifeWillKillYou: Mother asks Hana in a whisper if her lover died of AIDS. Hana replies that he just slipped on the soap in the bath.
89	* LongLostRelative: Hana and her "mother" (mentor), [[spoiler:Gin and his daughter]], and [[spoiler:Miyuki and her father.]]
90	* MagicRealism: The plot is driven by a series of incredibly fortunate coincidences, giving it a very "Christmas magic" vibe.
91	* MasculineFeminineAndrogyneTrio: Gin is a gruff, hairy, alcoholic man, Miyuki is a teenage girl, and Hana is a transgender woman. The "feminine" and "androgyne" roles fit the latter two in two different ways: appearance-wise, Miyuki has a small, lithe build whereas Hana has a tall, wiry physique, but personality-wise Miyuki is a tomboy whereas Hana is very emotional and motherly.
92	* MatchCut: At the end, a shot from the baby in Hana's arms dissolved in a shot of the baby in the arms of its real mother.
93	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Are the three being guided by some divine intervention? Are they just really lucky with all the {{Contrived Coincidence}}s guiding the story? When the deranged woman sees [[spoiler:the baby talk to her]] is it genuine, or just a hallucination on her end? The movie overall favors the former part of the trope, but It's still all left a deal ambiguous and up for the viewer to decide.
94	* MissionFromGod: Not exactly said, but with the underlying themes of Christianity, Hana's statements, and the DeusExMachina that seems to be everywhere, God might have had something to do with it.
95	* MyCard: The Yakuza boss hands over his card to the heroes after they saved his life. They notice he is from Kinshicho and on the journey goes.
96	* MyGreatestFailure: For Gin, it's getting banned from bike racing due to cheating and thus not being able to pay his daughter's medical bills. [[spoiler:Or so he says. In actual fact, it's running up a massive amount of gambling debt and getting loan sharks on his family's tail.]]
97	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Despite being plastered and his antagonists being armed with crowbars, Gin manages in an off-screen moment to get back the photo they took.
98	* OhCrap: Miyuki has a huge one when she realizes that the man on the bullet train across from the one she's on [[spoiler:is her father.]] She panics and crawls out the window to run away.
99	* OneSteveLimit: Averted. The trio meets (or already know) multiple Kiyokos by the end of the movie.
100	* OnlyOneName: The hobos, being ostracized by society, don't have much need for surnames. [[spoiler:Only Miyuki's last name, Ishida, is revealed during her attempt at phoning her father.]]
101	* PapaWolf: Miyuki's father doesn't care that [[spoiler:she stabbed him in a fit of anger while her mother was praying.]] He just wants to find her and make sure that she's all right and has been searching for her frantically.
102	* ParentalAbandonment: Not just the baby that they find, but Gin's abandonment of his own family.
103	* ThePowerOfLove: In the climax, Hana scales down a building, with only her adrenaline and wits, to rescue Kiyoko. They both survive.
104	* QueerPeopleAreFunny: "I am a mistake made by God!" Ultimately subverted, though, as although Hana is the subject of a lot of jokes, she's also treated as a character as complex and meaningful as the others.
105	* RealityHasNoSubtitles: The Hispanic characters speak in very real Spanish, but since Miyuki can't understand what they say, there are no subtitles.
106	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
107	** Consequently, Hana delivers this message to Gin at the scene where [[spoiler:he just found his nurse daughter.]]
108	--->'''Hana:''' That's who your father is! He's a gambler that couldn't deal a deck of cards, an ugly drunk, and his feet stink! He killed off his wife and daughter in a fake sob story just to buy sympathy. [...] You have no right to tell me about debt. On the other hand, you are an authority on digging through garbage. You wrote the book on getting into debt, but you did make a baby, though raising them isn't exactly your forte. Ha! The instant things got hard you dumped your debts and daughter onto your wife and ran away because you know you can't do anything right! That's the closest thing to racing you've ever done!
109	** Gin later gives one to [[spoiler:Sachiko's husband]], which doubles as one to himself due to the similarities between the characters.
110	* RedOniBlueOni: Discussed and Invoked. Hana compares the relationship between her and Gin to a story about them. The reason it's discussed is that Hana is explaining to Miyuki why she yelled at Gin in front of his daughter.
111	* RobbingTheDead: The trio regularly raids food offerings left by graves to keep themselves fed. After they take in Kiyoko they also find a formula for her this way.
112	* RunningGag: Hana's tendency to create haiku poems on the spot at key points of the story.
113	** Miyuki finding underwear whenever the gang have to go through somebody's belongings
114	* SacrificialLion: Oddly enough, the older homeless man. His death serves to spur on Gin to not only reunite with Hana and Miyuki but with his own family. [[spoiler: His death also leads to the gang of thugs being arrested for his death, and his lottery ticket ensures the heroes can rebuild their lives.]]
115	* SavedByThePlatformBelow: When it looks like Hana and the baby are falling to their death, the next scene reveals that Hana managed to hold on to a banner. Not for long though.
116	* ShoutOut: Akio Ohtsuka gets a brief cameo as a [[Manga/{{BlackJack}} doctor.]]
117	** Much of the plot is taken straight from the John Wayne classic ''Film/ThreeGodfathers''.
118	** You can see posters of Creator/SatoshiKon's previous works on the window of the convenience store.
119	** When Gin hits Miyuki over the head she says "[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Not even my own father hit me]]!"
120	** Hana's costume in her flashback at the club appears to be based on [[Creator/LeePace Lee Pace]]'s protrayal of real-life transgender woman Calpernia Addams in the film ''Soldier's Girl.''
121	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Very idealistic and uplifting without going corny at any point in the film.
122	* SpitTake: Gin does one when seeing the groom at the wedding who is no other than the man he owed a large sum of money to.
123	* StatingTheSimpleSolution: The trio discusses if they should take Kiyoko to the police station, in case someone is looking for her. Hana vetoes the idea by making a logical counterpoint: if no one claims Kiyoko, she'll be shuffled into the foster-care system, and Hana's already getting attached. Besides this, it's late at night, so they need to make sure the baby is fed and warm first before transporting her anywhere. [[spoiler:Going to the cops would have reunited Kiyoko with her real parents much sooner, but it means that they wouldn't have saved Sachiko's life]].
124	* ThanksForTheMammary: Early in the movie, Gin and Miyuki are arguing and wrestling with each other, and at one point, Gin grabs Miyuki's breast. Unsurprisingly, [[PervertRevengeMode she slugs him for it.]]
125	* TheUnreveal: Onscreen, the viewers don't find out [[spoiler:what baby Kiyoko's real name is. Hana remarks wistfully that she's no longer their Kiyoko, but she is safe]].
126	* TimePassesMontage: The montage of the trio spending hours at a diner while the world around them moves in fast motion.
127	* TokyoTower: Seen dancing, along with other Tokyo buildings, at the start of the closing credits.
128	* TheTramp: All of them.
129	* TrashcanBonfire: An early scene shows the homeless of Tokyo gathering around some of these.
130	* TraumaSwing: The trio finds Sachiko with the baby in a park sitting on a seesaw.
131	* TruthInTelevision: Some of the events in the movie were based on real-life incidents that occurred in Japan around the time the film was made. [[spoiler:The scene in which Gin is beaten up by a group of teenagers was based on a similar incident involving a hobo being beaten up by teenagers. Miyuki's troubled backstory was based on an incident in which a teenage girl stabbed her father after getting into an [[RealityIsUnrealistic argument with him about which TV channel they wanted to watch]].]]
132	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: A background event, nobody seemed to have reacted over the couple getting hit by that car.
133	** At first Hana and Miyuki seem to blithely pass by [[spoiler: Sachiko, who's about to throw herself off a bridge]], only for them to visibly DoubleTake and rush to try and stop her.
134	* WhiteAndGreyMorality: The main protagonists are a trio of homeless people, and despite [[CrazyHomelessPeople the negative stereotype associated with homelessness]], they come off as relatively decent people with sympathetic reasons for their homelessness, and one of them is a JerkWithAHeartOfGold. The closest thing the film has to an antagonist is [[spoiler:a grieving, suicidal woman who kidnapped a baby out of hysteria after learning she had miscarried, and even she comes around to see the error of her ways.]]
135	* WoundedGazelleGambit: Inverted, as Hana deliberately plays the villain to draw two characters together.
136	* {{Yakuza}}: The trio rescues a middle-aged man who's been trapped under his car. When he recovers and offers to repay them for their kindness, Gin immediately notices [[{{Yubitsume}} his missing pinky finger]] and tries to bail out. It turns out the man owns the hostess club the trio were looking for, and brings them to meet the manager who happens to be marrying his daughter on that very night.
137	* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Hana and Miyuki are homeless due to believing this. When she lost her lover, Hana was still too ashamed to face her foster parent for attacking a heckler at her drag bar. Miyuki left believing [[spoiler:her father would arrest her for stabbing him]].

Context Anime / TokyoGodfathers