Eric Stevenson This is a great movie and one of the best Christmas films of all time. I just now noticed that it seems like the IMDb is creating a new format for reviews and I personally don't care for it, but I will keep writing reviews anyway. So this movie features three homeless people who find an infant and try to find her parents. That's really all there is and all there needs to be. The weirdest thing is that I heard that Japan is actually the least religious country on Earth. Well, maybe not the least but two thirds of its population are not religious.It's not like this doesn't contain any references to the baby Jesus. It explicitly mentions him at the beginning of the story through a play. I think it's great that such a secular country can look into the religious themes of a holiday. I thought Christmas in Japan had something to do with KFC. Did I miss that in this movie? I am glad the movie was rated PG-13. There was a scene where a woman was breast feeding two babies at once. Another breastfeeding scene appeared later.You'd think with any bare breasts that much, a movie would be rated R. I'm glad the MPAA understood that breastfeeding is something perfectly natural. What's so beautiful about this film is the gorgeous animation. I think this might be the most realistic anime film I've ever seen. It may also be the only one that wasn't based on a manga or directed by Miyazaki. It's great that other artists are learning to create anime masterpieces. ****

Anssi Vartiainen It's Christmas time in Tokyo and as three homeless companions wander the streets, digging through trash for dinner, they come across an abandoned baby. The spirit of Christmas drives them to pick her up and the rest of the movie details their journey to find the parents of the little tyke.This might very well be the most down to earth movie director Satoshi Kon has ever made, which is saying a lot about his usual fare. It contains no supernatural elements, no crazy trips into the cracking psyche of man, nothing really out of the ordinary. Yet it is strange enough so as to be recognizable. The plot relies heavily on happy coincidences, but often enough those coincidences are so out there that they have to be intentional, making the seeming laziness of the script into a stylish feature. I certainly had no complaints, the whole story was a blast to follow, especially because you really couldn't predict where it was going.But, beneath all the craziness and oddness, Tokyo Godfathers is a character film and it pulls it off fantastically. All three of the eponymous "godfathers" are deeply layered, tragic, funny and, beyond all else, interesting personalities. Each one is as different from one another as day is from night, yet you can see what pulls them together. They're as interesting separately as they are in a group, but it's the group that drives the individuals to do pretty much anything. I was actually sad to see the film end, because it meant saying goodbye.Tokyo Godfathers is an excellent film on many levels. It is a superb animated film, fantastic characters study and actually a pretty neat Christmas film as well. Definitely worth checking out.

TheLittleSongbird For me, Satoshi Kon's best film is Paprika. That said, all of his films are ones to be highly recommended, they Paprika especially can have a tendency to be challenging, which can delight or alienate viewers, but they are gorgeously animated, compelling and I think very unique. Tokyo Godfathers is not quite as good as Paprika but it is a truly beautiful film and of Kon's work I'd go as far to say that it also is his most accessible. The animation is beautiful and detailed if in a different way to the more surrealistic styles of Perfect Blue and Paprika, here very intricate with very expressive character design, and very fitting with the film's tone. The music is memorable and beautifully composed, complimenting the story perfectly. The dialogue is thoughtful with some humorous touches, matching the nature of the story that is full of charm and pathos- bringing some optimism and hope into a cold world and society- without ever feeling mawkish or dull. The story is slow-folding but in a deliberate sense. The characters are full of emotions and we identify with them no matter the flaws, in short they are very true to life, none of the idealistic stereotypes I've seen all too often. Hanna is the one that stood out to me the most. The voice acting is as dynamic as you'd expect, more so in the Japanese dub rather than the English. All in all, beautiful and highly recommended. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Neddy Merrill The most striking aspect of Satoshi Kon's well-regarded 2003 anime feature is the fact, that the script could have easily been a live action. In fact, the story may be hindered slightly by anime format and certainly derives no benefit from it. To be fair, Kon's animators do an excellent job of using broad kabuki facial expressions to express the various emotions the characters encounter during a wildly improbable set of Christmas Day events. They also render the dark complexity of the Tokyo underground and its forgotten homeless population (Japan's legendary low unemployment rate is helped by not including people without a permanent, legal address in the statistics) with a fearful realism. Kon's production team does render the plot-driven character development that unfolds frame by frame throughout the film with the pathos of a Tennessee Williams' play. So you can't fault the execution of the animation, it just seems unnecessary. Live action or anime, however, the story of two homeless men – one transgender – and a runaway who find a baby abandoned among some Tokyo garbage and their effort to unravel the mystery of its parentage plays as compellingly backwards as it does forwards. In the effort to return the baby to the rightful parents, both men are forced to confront their pasts and their own allegorical abandonments. While the plot twists defy even the best efforts at suspending disbelief, they are entertaining even if some allow the mechanics of the writing to show through. In short, see this satisfying tale for the compelling story even if you are not into Japanese anime and definitely don't wait for the inevitable American remake (Nathan Lane as "Uncle Bag", Abigail Breslin as Miyuki, etc.).