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Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Surpsisingly good - more than 5 stars
Review: 1. The directing was absolutely fantastic. Never thought that a japanese director would direct in such a marvelously way without showing any meaningless killings and tons of blood like most of the anime do (or meaningless, slow paced various scenes that most of the japanese-chinese movies have). The directing was too much for an anime and together with the state of the art technology the final result of both directing and anime was great.

2. Really funny, and humorus made me laugh more than a few times and again I laugh very hard with the "eastern asian" humor. This was clever and right to the point.

3. Nice dialogues that meant something and told the story correctly.

Overall this anime exceeded by far my expectations and I am looking forward to seeing more movies coming from this director. The last but a bit embarassing thing is that I hate the good christmass movies. I do so because they make me shed some tears (e.g Scrooged with Bill Marey etc). Imagine how embarassing is to shed tears with an anime. I am not even a girl damn it!!!

Bravo!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Balances It All Just Right
Review: * At the beginning of Satoshi Kon's full-length animated feature TOKYO
GODFATHERS, it's Japanese Christmas -- that most peculiarly contrary
of Japanese customs -- in Tokyo, and a family of sorts of three losers
is trying to get by. The group includes a middle-aged guy named Gin,
a drag queen named Hana, and a teenaged runaway girl named Miyuki.
Christmas Eve is just another night for these three "homuresu
(homeless)" sorts to get through, and colder than most such nights,
until Hana, while sorting through a pile of trash, finds an
"kurisamasu puresanto (Christmas present)" -- an abandoned baby girl.

Gin wants to hand the infant over to the police, but Hana becomes
attached to the little girl, who he names Kiyoko, and wants to track
down the baby's parents and find out what is going on. The result
takes the three on a wild ride of improbable misadventures and
remarkable coincidences, involving yakuza (gangster) bosses, Latin
American "guest workers", the proprietors of a (...) bar, and so on.

On considering the contents of this movie it becomes obvious that
there are many ways to do something like this wrong, veering into too
much sentimentality or moralizing, but TOKYO GODFATHERS plays it just
right, as a tragicomedy. There's nothing basically all that funny
about the three bums, each having a background with at least its fair
share of misery, but a heavy application of some very sharp humor,
mostly in the form of clever dialogue, keeps it flying. There is some
degree of moralizing, with proper fastidious Japanese citizens holding
their noses in the presence of these unsavory characters, but in the
end the three are still responsible for their own fates, and the
moralizing never becomes an irritant.

The production values are excellent, though unlike Kon's previous
MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, the artwork doesn't sparkle, since much of the
story takes place in the dumps and (not surprising for late December
in bad weather) in the dark and tends toward the deliberately drab.
Of course, it manages to set the proper mood. Incidentally, those who
were put off by the unconventional script of MILLENNIUM ACTRESS -- I
loved it myself -- will find TOKYO GODFATHERS much more conventional,
though it certainly still has a fair degree of quirkiness, emphasized
by the "skewed Christmas music" soundtrack, never quite going over the
edge into outright fantasy but pushing the bounds of the plausible
on occasion.

I said in my review of MILLENNIUM ACTRESS that the number of anime
productions released each year that honestly deserved five stars could
be counted on the fingers of one hand. TOKYO GODFATHERS definitely
fits into that category, and leaves me intrigued about what Satoshi
Kon will do next. Incidentally, no English dubbing -- all Japanese
dialogue with subtitles in English, French, Spanish, and Portugese.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Satoshi Kon is a genius
Review: another great anime film from the genius who gave us perfect blue and millennium actress,satoshi kon.
this time around he offers us a comedy about three homless characters. an ex shop owner ,a drag queen and arunaway teenager, who stumble upon an abandoned infant in christmas eve,and decide to look for the baby's mother .and since it's christmas ,we're treated with a hilarious amount of miracles,that do get a little too much near the end, but satoshi kon manages to put it back in balance ,when he introduces the mother .and it's all served with kon's famous striking visuals and breathtaking action.

too bad there is no dubbed version of the film in this dvd.readind subtitles ,with no background knowledge of the language it's translating ,takes out some of the fun of watching a film .the original version is definitely great,but dubbing lets us enjoy the visuals a little bit more.

oh,and there is a reprinting of an original character illustration by satoshi kon of miuki,signed and dated ,exclusively for this dvd.



Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: At first glance at the cover the style of animation put me off a little, but please don't let that stop you!
This is a wonderful movie. The characters are stunningly well crafted and real and the story is fascinating and fun. Funny, sad, wise, madcap, by turns this movie makes you smile and get weepy, it thrills, worries and surprises you. Seriously! I totally love the story and the ending is brilliant.
Give this movie a try, you will totally not regret it!

Synopsis: Three homeless people in Tokyo - Hana (a wonderful transvestite)Gin (a protective soul) and 16 year old Miyuki find a baby in the trash on Christmas Eve. Gin and Miyuki are prosaic and want to take her to the police but sentimnental Hana (abandoned himself as a child) wants to find her family. Along the way little Kiyoko seems surrounded by coincidences and almost miracles as her new friends find her home!


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie! I enjoyed it very much!
Review: Before I saw it, I read in one of the customers' reviews that while watching this animation people tend to believe the characters being under impression that this is a live movie with real actors. I watched it today - it is totally true! I could see realistic emotions of drawn characters, which I never experienced watching animation. And I loved the story. Don't believe to trailer; what you saw there is not what you expect to find in the movie... the story develops in a very dynamic way with absolutely unexpected result! That was really entertaining, and thanks to other customers for not disclosing the plot in their reviews! Intrigued? Watch it!
By the way, please keep your children out of this DVD, as there is some violence, a few explicit talks, and lots of serious social problems, which you would never be able to explain to them....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Woah...Just...Woah
Review: Contains some spoilers.

I just finished watching this movie. I'd been wanting it ever since I read an article in Animerica about it, but I didn't think it was out yet, so when I saw it in a Borders Bookstore today, I snatched it up as fast I could.

And...woah, I can barely describe it. Normal anime takes flawless beauties with high squeeky voices and makes them a magical hero. This movie takes a transvestite "uncle bag lady", a runaway teenage girl (who certainly doesn't look like almost every other teen you see in an anime), and an old pervy geezer who "used to race bikes", and makes them into heros.

One day, in the middle of an argument, the three hear the screams of a baby, and decide to investigate. What follows is a long heartfelt journey as they try to find Kiyoko's (what they name the little girl) parents. Throughout the whole movie, you'll find places where you'll be both bawling and laughing hysterically at the same time (which earns you a few odd looks from family members). At other points in the story, you'll be watching in wonder as the four of them (Hana [transvestite], Gin [old man], Miyuki [teenager], and Kiyoko) look like they really ARE a family.

Speaking of THAT--The characters are so true to life it's amazing. They all have their little quirks, their own personalites, their differences...It's AMAZING what Satoshi Kon and his fellows can do with a used plotline!

And as the last thing I can think of, for I must hurry and watch it again before my brain explodes-The music is so FITTING for this it's not even funny. You'd think the music would be depressing, but the sounds of something like hip-hop and dance music seems to fit the movie even better.

...Woah.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Anime!!!
Review: even people who are normally leary of anime are likely to enjoy this one. "tokyo godfathers" tells a charming tale of three homeless people on the streets of tokyo one christmas season. they stumble across a baby and work tirelessly to return the baby to her mother. what unfurls is not a unique sequence of events, but still it is told such skill and warmth that you're impressed with the quality of filmmaking and story telling. we find out about the drag queen's past and why he's out on the street, why the alcoholic is both miserable and excited at the thought of taking care of the baby, and why the teenage girl jumps between disliking the baby and being so determined to see it returned home.

the story's complexity works well, only because each plot twist adds to the richness of the story. the complications bring depth to the characters and overall mosaic of characters without bogging it down. the pace is appropriate and moves well. the art captures the story's moments with skill and charm. and finally, the character development itself is as impressive as any well written film with real actors.

while it didn't get a large amount of exposure across america, it does have traits that will make it appeal to a broad audience not normally interested in anime. if you're wondering if you should see this one or not and concerned because it's animated, don't worry about it, i think you'll be pleased with what you see.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Uplifting, unusual, and unique.
Review: Every character has depth, a past, and, in the end, a bright future. You'll step into a world where chaos makes such sense. I saw this on a tired Monday night, and I left with a Friday feeling.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Intelligent, beautifully animated film
Review: Here's another film, like Isao Takahata's "Grave of the Fireflies," that proves that animation can cover important topics and stories that could seemingly only be done justic through live-action.

"Tokyo Godfathers" is the story of three homeless people (Hana, Gin, and Miyuki) who discover a baby in a dumpster the day before Christmas. The rest of the film is spent trying to discover the parents of the baby. Along the way, through a complicated series of events, they each learn about one another and themselves. Each character is given his (or her) chance to develop and tell their story, and each is given a chance to redeem themselves.

The animation is beautiful, perfectly capturing the loneliness of the homeless during the holidays. The dialogue between the three main characters seems natural, and the Japanese voice actors are excellent.

Perhaps the mixture of comedy and drama is a bit uneven, perhaps the story and characters can be a bit - bizarre and improbable, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. Heart-warming and poignant, a wonderful film. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good funny anime
Review: I catched this on Starz the other day, this was a funny anime.

A baby thats kidnapped gets dumped and is found by a homeless gay couple. One man names the baby Kiyoto after his daughter.

By a strange twist, he meetshis long lost daughter, though the homeless man left his family and from then were heard treated to one bizarre scene after another.

The couple realized the baby is still lost and try to find the real mother, a woman claming to be the mother takes the baby, but the gay couple realize she is a fake and hunt her down.

Dont want to give anymore info except this is one funny anime.




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