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Gin
Voiced by: Tooru Emori (Japanese), Darren Pleavin (Sony), John Avner (GKIDS) (English), José Luis Orozco (Latin American Spanish)
A homeless man and troubled alcoholic.
- Alcoholic Dad: He's a dad and his alcoholism seems to be his overall flaw. He apparently left his family due to his shame of his addiction. He really thought they would be better off if he was out of the picture.
- Covert Pervert: Miyuki claims his sexual harassment moment in the beginning of the film.
- Decoy Backstory: Gin's story of how he became homeless as a tragic former racer ends up being total baloney, as the actual explanation he's an estranged alcoholic father with gambling debts is considerably less dignified. It does provide a point of connection with Sachiko's husband, though, and come the climax he ironically ends up putting in the work racing on a bike for real.
- Determinator: Despite being plastered and his antagonists being armed with crowbars, he manages to not only survive and get back the photo they took (one of the only clues to Kiyoko's home's whereabouts), but runs repeatedly to catch up with Kiyoko and his friends.
- Fatal Flaw: He got to where he is because of his alcoholism in addition to his gambling addiction.
- The Gambling Addict: That was part of his downfall as Hana puts it in her "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's gruff, rude, at times dishonest (though its more out of fear and insecurity than being a jerk) and sarcastic. Despite this, he has proven to be genuinely loving, caring, and protective. We find out the reason he left his family and became homeless was so they could live better lives without him involved.
- Papa Wolf: It's first alluded to when some homeless men back off from rowing with Miyuki after realising exactly who she runs with. It's then proven on screen by the lengths he goes to retrieve Kiyoko after Sachiko snatches her.
- Parental Abandonment: It turns out his wife and daughter never died in a tragedy. He abandoned them because he really thought they'd be better off without him.
- The Pig-Pen: Justified, due to his homelessness; people often keep their distance from him on trains because of how terrible he smells.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Hana. While they have been living together on the streets for possibly years, they're really are just very close friends despite usually arguing Like an Old Married Couple.
- Punny Name: The troubled alcoholic just happens to have a name that also is a type of strong alcoholic drink.
- Team Dad: He is an alcoholic disciplinarian but ultimately of the self-sacrificing variety.
Hana
Voiced by: Yoshiaki Umegaki (Japanese), Russel Wait (Sony), Shakina Nayfack (GKIDS) (English), Gerardo Reyero (Latin American Spanish)
A transgender woman and is the character who is the main motivator in getting the baby Kiyoko back to her family.
- Berserk Button: Getting misgendered is a sore spot for Hana. She'll usually brush off any insult, but calling her an old man will immediately send her into a rage and attack whoever said it. She pinches Miyuki's cheek until the girl defers to calling her an old lady. In the past, a drunk patron at the drag bar who called her this during her performance leads her to lash out and violently kick him in the face. This incident lead to her homelessness, as she believes she wouldn't be welcomed back to the bar for hurting a customer.
- Coughing Up Blood: She ended up in the hospital because of this.
- The Determinator: Nothing will stop her from protecting her family. She runs after the taxi that kidnaps Miyuki and Kiyoko from the Yakuza wedding, and later powers through Coughing Up Blood to find them. At the end, barely twelve hours after being discharged from the hospital and told to take it easy to recover, she's chasing Sachiko through traffic and up stairs to get Kiyoko back.Gin: Hana, you shouldn't be pushing yourself!Hana: (Panting) If I don't push myself now, when will I?!
- Drama Queen: Oh so very much. She's this to pretty much comical levels.
- Happily Adopted: She was abandoned by her parents and taken in by the owner of a drag club, who by all accounts raised the young Hana very well.
- I Was Quite the Looker: A flashback to her days as a drag queen reveal that a combination of age and her partner’s death really did a number on her.
- Jumped at the Call: Deconstructed to a degree. Trying to reunite a lost baby with her parents vis-a-vis an urban quest might sound like the proper thing to do, but, as her companions and Hana herself eventually admits, handing her over to the police (who are better equipped to do that) is an arguably more valid course of action.
- Large Ham: She likes to act like a singer on the stage. She was a performer at her mother's drag club, after all.
- Mama Bear: To Miyuki and the baby, Kiyoko.
- Nice Girl: Arguably the most thoughtful and admirable character in the movie. She is protective, kind-hearted, motherly, and extremely caring.
- Orphan's Ordeal: It's not elaborated on, but Hana claims that she went through some of these, and because of it, she has no heartfelt memories of a home or mother, only really having the drag club owner who took her in. This background is the reason why Hana is the most desperate of the trio to help baby Kiyoko.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Gin. They have been living together on the streets for possibly years and sometimes argue Like an Old Married Couple. Miyuki was even convinced Hana was in love with Gin, but she affirms Gin is not her type and she means it. She cares about Gin as a family member and just that.
- Team Mom: Despite being assigned male at birth, she definitely deserves this title. Her dream for most of her life was to be the mother she never had growing up.
- Token Religious Teammate: She seems the most devout in the group, actively listening throughout the church sermon and believes finding Kiyoko was a sign from God.
- Trans Equals Gay: She is almost certainly a heterosexual transgender woman, but is frequently talked to and about as if she were a gay man. This mostly has to do with the ambiguity with which Japanese culture views these two groups.
- Trans Tribulations: Hana was assigned male at birth and openly calls it a "mistake from God", identifying as a woman and being seriously offended when referred to as male.
Miyuki Ishida
Voiced by: Aya Okamoto (Japanese), Candice Moore (Sony), Victoria Grace (GKIDS) (English), Laura Ayala (Latin American Spanish)
A sarcastic teenage runaway. Her past is connected to her family and she's merely afraid of confronting her father again after she stabbed him.
- Berserk Button: Do NOT harm a cat in front of her.
- Bilingual Dialogue: Miyuki and any non-Japanese speaking friend she makes along her adventure.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Taken to extremes. She apparently was angry at her father for not paying enough attention to her and when she suspected he was behind her pet cat's disappearance, she stabbed him and ran away from home. Living on the streets has humbled her.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: She calls her mother by her first name, which leaves Hana shocked at Miyuki's lack of respect. She does call her father "dad", though.
- Calling the Old Man Out: In her flashbacks. It did not end well.
- Formerly Fat: She was overweight when she fled her family. She lost a lot of weight likely due to living on the streets for the past couple of months.
- Girly Run: Runs like this.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She can be bratty, sarcastic, and back-talking. However, she has proven to be empathetic, kind-hearted, and very protective and sisterly towards the baby Kiyoko. It is implied she becomes her god-sister near the end as well.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: She has a cat named Angel back home and gets very angry when Gin suggests they eat some cats. She also has a gift to attract stray cats to her as instant friends.
- My God, What Have I Done?: She stabbed her father in the heat of an argument about her lost pet cat and once she realized what she had done, she ran away from home. Even several months after the incident, she's terrified of facing her father out of fear he might arrest her. She comes to feel even more guilty after she finds out her father wrote a message in the newspaper to inform Miyuki her pet cat had come back home, which means Miyuki stabbed him over nothing.
- The Runaway: She ran away from home after stabbing her father during an argument. She misses home but also freaks out at the thought of her father finding her. Reuniting father and daughter is the last miracle-coincidence in the movie.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Miyuki ran away believing her father would arrest her for what she did, and is too afraid to go home.
Kiyoko
Voiced by: Satomi Koorogi (Japanese), Kari Wahlgren (GKIDS) (English)
The baby.
- Evil-Detecting Baby: She won't stop crying in the arms of Sachiko, her abductor.
- Christmas Miracle: She is saved and brought home by Gin, Hana, and Miyuki and brought to her family when it’s still around Christmastime.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Hana might have been more literal than she was expecting when she said Kiyoko was a child blessed by God, considering the sheer number of positive coincidences that occur once the trio discover her.
- Only Known By Her Nickname: The trio call her Kiyoko, but that's not her real name and we never discover what it actually is.
The other Kiyoko (Unmarked Spoilers)
Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese), Erica Schroeder (GKIDS) (English), María Fernanda Morales (Latin American Spanish)
Gin's daughter. She has helped her mother run the bike shop after her father left and now works as a nurse.
- May–December Romance: She's engaged to a doctor who could easily be Gin's age.
- Nice Girl: She is very gentle, sweet, and nice.
- Walking Spoiler: The fact that Gin's daughter is even alive completely exposes how unreliable his exposition about himself was at the start.
Sachiko Nishizawa (Unmarked Spoilers)
Voiced by: Kyoko Terase (Japanese), Larissa Gallagher (GKIDS) (English), Mónica Manjarrez (Latin American Spanish)
Kiyoko's supposed mother. It turns out she actually kidnapped Kiyoko from her real parents after snapping following her own miscarriage.
- Anti-Villain: Although she endangers the baby, she isn't a villainous person. She's emotionally distraught over her own child's death and her subsequent estrangement from her alcoholic husband. At the end of the day, she's really just an ordinary woman who's in a tremendous amount of pain.
- Awful Wedded Life: Her husband was an alcoholic deadbeat deep in debt. She hoped that having a baby could save their marriage, only to miscarry, which caused her to snap and kidnap another couple's baby. However, the ending optimistically hints at things getting better between them, as her husband, upon seeing her at her lowest point on a news broadcast, realizes just how badly his irresponsibility has affected her and resolves to do better.
- Broken Bird: The stress of having to pay off the debts of her alcoholic husband and suffering a miscarriage on top of it has left Sachiko depressed, exhausted, and suicidal.
- Despair Event Horizon: Already depressed and worn down by an awful marriage, Sachiko finally broke down after she lost her baby in a miscarriage. She kidnapped Kiyoko to pretend she was her baby, but once she realizes she won't be allowed to keep her, she tries to kill herself twice. Not even her husband apologizing and asking her to start over can pull her out of her despair.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Her life has not been ideal, her husband has not been supportive, and her child was stillborn. But as Miyuki points out, that doesn't mean she's entitled to take another couple's child as her own and make them go through the same trauma she did.
- Heel–Face Turn: She comes to her senses at the end and gives the baby back to Miyuki.
- Heel Realization: In the end, she sees the error of her ways when Miyuki makes her realize she's taking an innocent newborn away from her true parents... not unlike how her own child was taken away from her by a capricious and inexplicable act of fate.
- Interrupted Suicide: Twice. First, Hana and Miyuki stop her from throwing herself off a bridge. Later, after being cornered and being demanded to give Kiyoko back to her real parents, she tried to throw herself off a building while carrying Kiyoko in her arms, only to be caught by Miyuki.
- Ironic Name: Sachiko means "happy child," but her life is so rife with misfortune that she suffers an emotional breakdown and tries to kill herself twice. The irony is lampshaded by the yakuza lieutenant.
- Tragic Stillbirth: She lost her real baby in a miscarriage, which finally pushed her over the Despair Event Horizon and lead her to kidnap another couple's baby in a desperate attempt to relieve her pain.
- Tragic Villain: Sachiko is suicidally depressed on account of having lost her child and her husband in the span of less than a week. What makes her an antagonist is that she lies about being Kiyoko's mother and takes her out of desperation since she had a miscarriage. She almost killed both Gin and the baby during her nervous breakdown, but she's so torn-up about it that it's hard not to feel bad for her.
- Trauma Conga Line: It's hardly surprising that she's acting so erratically once it's revealed that her child died and that she hasn't had any emotional support from her husband (who she's had a strained relationship with for a long time).
- Walking Spoiler: Is supposedly the one the homeless trio have been looking for only for it to be immediately revealed that she's actually the baby's kidnapper. It's basically just one twist after another with her.
"Mother"
Voiced by: Seizō Katō (Japanese), Kate Bornstein (GKIDS) (English), Carlos Del Campo (Latin American Spanish)
Hana's foster parent and owner of the drag club she was a part of.
- Drag Queen: She runs a drag club.
- Good Parents: With all the love and respect Hana has for her, it's clear that she did a good job with her foster daughter.
- Large Ham: Might even be more so than Hana.
- Nice Girl: She's eccentric but incredibly caring, generous and understanding.
- Unnamed Parent: She's known as Hana's adoptive mother.
Miyuki's father
Voiced by: Yusaku Yara (Japanese), Crispin Freeman (GKIDS) (English)
A policeman. Months ago, Miyuki stabbed him in the middle of an argument.
- Parental Neglect: According to Miyuki's flashback, she at least felt her father never listened to her and didn't appreciate her gifts, such as the scarf she made for him. Angry at his lack of attention and blaming him for her pet cat going missing, she stabbed him. However, a message he left in the newspaper to inform Miyuki her cat had come back and him only caring to know whether she was okay when she made him a phone call makes Miyuki realize her father does care about her.
- Parents as People: From what little we see of him, he seems to legitimately care about his daughter but is just terrible at communicating. Miyuki spent much of her life growing up thinking that he never cared about her because he never seemed to listen to her or appreciate her gifts, but it's revealed that he's been searching for her not to arrest her for stabbing him but because he just wants to know if she's okay like any concerned parent would.
