Tokyo Godfathers

TOKYO GODFATHERS (2003) - May 1, 2004
An excellent Japanese animated film about a group of three homeless people - a broken family man, an aging cross-dresser, and a teenage runaway - who find a baby abandoned in the trash and decide to find its mother. Touching at times, and also surprisingly funny. Though it's essentially plotless (it almost falls into the "lots of stuff happening in a short amount of time" category), it is really entertaining throughout and the three main characters become people we really care about. They continue to make progress in their adventure by a series of increasingly unbelievable, almost magical coincidences and turns of fate. The whole movie is realistic but has an unreal vibe to it. But definitely in a good way. It's lighthearted and fun, and is able to seamlessly move from comedy to drama. All the while a higher power almost seems at work in the background (one of the characters frequently notes that God is helping the baby), helping the characters get where they need to go. ****