This film is fucking crazy. I've seen this one before but I was still left completely shocked by the end of it like my first watch-through. This movie is insanely dramatic and it gets really dark, yet it's also a comedy. It whips you in so many different directions and drops so much information on you that you don't really know what to do with a lot of it. I feel like on paper this film sounds like a disaster but it's absolutely amazing.

At its heart, this is a film about family. The film's main trio, Gin, Hana and Miyoko, are all homeless as a result of some sort of family incident which renders them incapable of facing their family (I'd love to talk about specifics but I don't want to spoil too much). They find a baby abandoned in the trash and the film follows them searching for her mother again. As i've hinted before, the road to the parents is long, shocking, and not at all simple. Through their journey, each main character is given the chance to reconnect with their families and right wrongs (as long as other people who become involved at the end which I won't talk about). It's definitely a movie that thinks heavily about what a family is and the significance of a family.

Through it all, you don't really see many definitively good people. There's nothing at all wrong with a purely good person in a movie, but I think this film substantially benefits from having extremely flawed people at the front. I think a lot of people view homelessness as an end stage of life, like you can't turn yourself around again at such a point, but this film denies that idea. By showing 3 homeless people undergoing character arcs and reconnecting with their families and their mistakes, it's clear that you can always turn your life around as long as you're alive.

As I mentioned before, this film tries to mix dark and dramatic moments with silly and absurd comedy, often juxtaposing them against eachother or finding some sort of comedy in the darkness. Surprisingly the film succeeds exceptionally well at both lightening up the dark moments but simultaneously treating them with all the seriousness they deserve. I've never watched any of Satoshi Kon's other works, but I honestly think he's a genius for directing something like this. That balance is fucking hard to do. To be so deeply emotional and shocking and extremely hilarious at the same time is a tough balancing act, one I know I cannot do. So, as a guy who puts a lot of time and effort into being funny, this film shatters my mind with how effortless the comedy feels.

This isn't even touching on any religious intertext, or how the film talks about and acknowledges society's view/prejudice against homeless people, or Hana as a rather respectable representation of a trans woman by being a fully realized character and the character that moves the story forward. Tokyo Godfathers is truly achievement after achievement. What a fucking incredible movie. You have to see this if you haven't.