Tokyo Godfathers is exactly what you need when a sappy, feel good movie is required. To my surprise, it hasn’t really gotten the recognition in the States I feel it deserves from anime fans. It’s one of those anime that can be told in any medium, so no giant robots or being flushed away to strange kingdoms here. Despite that though, the animation is top notch in it. I am always impressed with Satoshi Kon’s-of Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue fame-works. He always does a great job, be it as writer, director or both.

The story follows a merry band of Tokyo’s (and Tokyo here is a microcosm of Japan) outcasts: A transvestite, a hobo and a runaway. One day they find an abandoned baby and decide to do the Right Thing. Only they aren’t too sure what the Right Thing is or how to accomplish it. So starts an odyssey into the lesser known, or maybe lesser talked about would be better phrasing, depths of Tokyo. The story exposes what lies behind that gleaming, high-class facade that the metropolis presents to the world. As the story progresses the characters and their shaky, unlikely, but ever so true friendships do too.

This movie is actually a really good critical look at the undesirables of Japan. It shows things that you wouldn’t know about unless you lived there, for example the huge amount of Brazilian slums that are in this country. There are a lot of things in Japan that We Don’t Talk About and the movie does a good job of poking at that mentality, but in a low key way. It is judgmental, but softly so and never misses that the point of the movie is the story. The social commentary is properly in the background and seeps through the viewers peripheral.

It’s a good, solid story. I would recommend this movie to anyone. It might be made by the same gentleman that did Perfect Blue, but there is no horror in this one! It is especially interesting if you have an interest in Japanese society beyond animated high school love stories. As I said before, the story could have been told in any medium, so I think even non-anime lovers would get something out of it too. It’s touching, moving and-I won’t lie- it made me tear up in places. Just a little bit, mind.