Hamish’s Perspective | Tokyo Godfathers

The Two Gay Geeks and our Staff are taking a much needed break from Thanksgiving through the end of the year, but we still wanted to have content for you to read during that time. As such we got busy and watched all of our favorite holiday videos. Some are classics and others are off-beat and loosely associated with the holidays. We hope you enjoy our offerings and that you holiday season is safe, sane, and satisfying.
 

This is not a gangster movie.

I want to say that upfront.

I also want to say that there aren’t very many “family films” made in Japan for Christmas, because, it’s not really celebrated in the same way as it is in the west. Christmas is not even a day off work. If you have a young family, it is usually celebrated (on Christmas Eve) by tucking into a meal of KFC (big business for them now – ever since a lonely desperate expat searching for something like a roast dinner came up with the idea to have KFC for Christmas)…

This is then followed by Christmas Cake…

Which as you can see is layers of sponge cake topped with whipped cream and strawberries, or sometimes a log cake (made of the aforementioned cream and sponge). No brandy soaked bricks of fruitcake to be had here.

Dance break time:

If you are a single, adult… it is date night! Kind of like what we do for New Year’s Eve. So, if you ever wondered why Christmas love songs (especially “Last Christmas” and “All I want for Christmas”) and the movie “Love Actually” is so popular here… now you know.

via GIPHY

So, it’s pretty rare when you find a film like this:

“Tokyo Godfathers” is the is a 2003 Japanese anime film directed by Satoshi Kon loosely based on Peter B. Kyne’s novel Three Godfathers.

Synopsis from wikipedia: “One Christmas Eve, three homeless people – a middle-aged alcoholic named Gin, a trans woman and former drag queen Hana, and a dependent runaway girl Miyuki – discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage. Deposited with the unnamed baby is a note asking the finder to take good care of her and a bag containing clues to the parents’ identity. The trio sets out to find the baby’s parents. The baby is named Kiyoko (清子), based on the Japanese translation of Silent Night literally meaning “pure child”, as she is found on Christmas Eve.

So, if this sounds like something you’d enjoy this Christmas, I recommend you get thee to a DVD store or something like that!

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