Episode #29

Tokyo Godfathers

The Best Looking Trash You’ve Ever Seen

Intro

You’re listening to episode 29 Tokyo Godfathers, the best looking trash you’ve ever seen where I’ll be covering the 2003 Japanese Christmas film by famed director Satoshi Kon

This is where the intro would go if I ever actually sat down with Deftstroke to create it

Welcome

Yo! Welcome to the World is My Burrito, a podcast where I provide your wandering ears with a comfy home in the domicile that is my voice. As always this is your host Kory T. comin’ at ya from the wilds of Tampa, Florida on this lovely December 11th, 2024

If you’re coming from The Wait For it Podcast, thanks for tuning in! That was the easy part. Now, welcome to the gun show! If you’re not coming from there, well then go check out Phil & Eric’s much more entertaining review.

It’s a big player later but as serendipity would have it, our podcasts decided to cover this at the same time completely independent of each other. So this is like an impromptu two-parter with them that just so happens to make my life easier.

Let’s clean this place up with some

Dish Duty

I have made some guest appearances despite my disappearance here. If you want to hear some great content check out:

• Podcasters Assemble episode of The Boy and the Heron
• Cinema Villains Jason episode
• The Neatcast’s 12 Rants of Christmas and keep an eye out for the upcoming Milk & Cookies sequel

I am a little sorry for not having more content out this year. Parts of this year were crazy but parts were very controllable. I don’t know if it was Carole & Tuesday or the Mars Madness thing or just picking a topic I couldn’t sink my teeth into, but something kinda burnt me out in the “bored” way. Then hurricanes, work, Brooklynn Nine-Nine, and other stuff got in the way. I also kinda screwed myself over on a Podcasters Assemble episode that I took charge of, which still needs to be completely restarted. Really hoping for a Christmas Miracle on that one…

As a reminder, one of the most important parts of podcasting is writing the first sentence, which I haven’t done in a while and it really felt nice to do that for today’s topic.

Enough mopey recollection bois let’s go!

Synopsis

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of  Shinjuku, Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

Hot take

It’s an amazing movie based in a sad reality yet isn’t sad, humanizing characters who would be overtly marginalized in reality. You should watch it. Especially if you’re in the LGBTQ community. Especially especially if you aren’t.

Why did I choose this topic?

It’s Christmas Time and this movie features a lot of Christmas spirit. I hadn’t actually seen it until 2023 or 2022, despite being very aware of its existence since young adulthood. While part of me regrets not seeing this much younger, I think adult me got a far more important journey out of this.
 
  One of the big sparks to the fire that became this episode was learning that this used the framework of an old American western movie, which we’ll very lightly get into.

Let’s take this wagon right into

Creator History

If you don’t know of the legendary Satoshi Kon then I don’t know what to tell ya… which is a lie because this whole thing is scripted. You are a beast of the earth. Educate yourself. Or let me do it…

• Born October 12th, 1963
• Wanted to become an animator so he
• Took the graphic design course at Musashino Art University from 1982-1987 where
• He published short stories and serialized manga, eventually getting recognition in ’84 by Kodansha’s Young Magazine - awarding him runner up for his short piece Toriko
• During his tenure Katsuhiro Otomo occasionally brought him in to work on the AKIRA manga serialization, then layout and art setting for Roujin Z, and even used one of Kon’s ideas to create the live action film World Apartment Horror, finally bringing him on to head the Magnetic Rose story in the anthology Memories

Director of:

• Perfect Blue
• Millenium Actress
• Paranoia Agent
• Post TG: Paprika

Other roles:

• Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
• Patlabor 2: The Movie
• Master Keaton
• ’94 JJBA OVA episodes 5-6

Unfortunately he passed in 2010 leaving unfinished the film he had been working on for a few years. Damn shame.

One of the execs at Madhouse saw his work on JJBA and was like “Hey you wanna make a movie of your own?” Can you imagine being invited to create one of the greatest psychological thrillers that still impacts the film industry all because you worked on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure? I’m telling you, folks, it’s good content.

World History

Future me is really interested in how this is gonna pan out.

Before getting into this, I am trying my damndest to be as respectful and accurate as possible but have long-accepted the difficult reality that comes with speaking about not just another culture but the very foreign-to-me lifestyles of peoples I can’t even personally relate to in America. These are not my reality, but they are someone’s.

Homeless History

in Japan is a great place to start because it’s at the forefront of this tale. Some of these points and problems are identical to the US, so keep that in mind.

The blanket struggle of not having a fixed address means you can’t get a job, driver’s license, passport, or be part of the national healthcare registry.

The Origin

• Due to the economic bubble bursting, there was a steady increase of homeless in the 90s caused by a loss of an informal day labor system that had been strong since post WWII. Basically, dudes would line up outside of construction areas or maybe a particular area of town -this description was a little flimsy and some of the definitions have been adopted elsewhere now- and job brokers from construction companies would hire them to work.
• Imagine building the metropolis of Tokyo then being pushed onto the streets overshadowed by the very buildings you built and judged by the people who occupy them.
• One of the papers I read stated that most landlords demand six months’ rent up front so once you become homeless it’s difficult to secure a place. This sounds wild at first but we are talking about Tokyo, so I could totally believe that.

Research

One of the better articles I found was a study on Ueno, located less than 5mi or 8km from Shinjuku, so this is not specific to the film’s location 

• In ’98-’99 Ueno Park had roughly 300 blue tarp tents with a non-descript quantity of residents. There were roughly 1,000-1,200 homeless on benches, under awnings, or on streets
• First national government survey of Japan’s Homeless Population was conducted in 2003 listing 25,296 homeless persons in Japan with 5,927 living throughout Tokyo’s 23 wards. 
• Most were men over 50 with an average of about 50% living in tents, train stations, parks, riversides, and on streets for an average of about 49 months. This does not account for the nomadic homeless
• Depending on the study group, women make up between 3%-10% of the national population. Why this discrepancy? Because of the patriarchy. The national survey views homelessness as a male problem
• One of the leading causes of women ending up on the street is broken marriages

You can’t have homeless without some good old fashioned prejudice

Prejudice

• Japan as a whole has measures in place to attempt to help the homeless but are not a requirement. Tokyo -and other metropolitan areas- intentionally try to keep them separate.
• Aggressive architecture - wood nailed onto benches to prevent sleep. Water fountains turned off so they can’t gather or bathe
• TV News and articles referred to them as “the other Japan”, “other side of Japan”, or “un-salaried man”
• This blatant misrepresentation makes them targets of violence. School children and others would verbally harass, strike with rocks, throw firecrackers, stab, or set them on fire.
• On the realistic end, homeless may in-fight but rarely is there a headline of them attacking non-homeless - they don’t make an area less safe despite news outlets doing a little bit o’ fear-mongering.
• In Ueno Park, State and Local officials would boot homeless out of the park once a month on an announced date. The homeless would pack up and leave for that day then return that night.
• The final little bit here is that some areas require the homeless to pack up every day
• This leads to a very weird lifestyle and relationship called

ホームレスをする

• Hōmuresu o suru - “doing homeless” 
• “Doing homeless” was the means through which homeless people rejected their social marginality and displayed their morality, hard work, determination, honor, perseverance, and manliness.
• On one hand it involved recycling, scavenging, day labor, and resale.
• On the other hand it involved their cooking with stoves, hygiene and clean laundry.
• These two were combined to maintain neighborly relationships. They could coexist with businesses, people, and shine a positive light on other homeless
• Ueno residents prided themselves and pushed their neighbors to live up to a standard of virtue
• Earlier I mentioned officials kicking homeless out of parks, which became a point of pride for those who could quickly and neatly pack up. Those who had it down would scoff at those disorganized and cluttered.
• There’s some fluidity about how this lifestyle came about. One article made it sound like a conclusion the homeless arrived at, while another makes it sound like it’s prompted by activists. Honestly, it could be both depending on tons of factors.

Classism

• It shouldn’t surprise anyone that classism exists within classism.
• For context, Tokyo Godfathers takes place in Shinjuku, about 1,800ft or 550 meters beneath Ueno
• Ueno is up on a hill and they would call themselves 山の人間“Yama no ningen” or “people of the mountain”, referring to those in the valley as 下の方 “Shita no hō” or “down there” 
• A few of the things that separated them were: 
• don’t cook with stoves 
• Don’t make an effort to bathe
• Don’t do laundry
• Make no effort to properly do homeless 
• And they would deign to line up for soup lines offered by churches. Very relevant: the reason for this is that 山の人間 felt like the church insulted them by making them listen to long sermons just to feed them soupy rice. This was perfectly displayed in our film’s intro
• One last distinguishing factor were the “kojiki” 乞食 or bums; the ill-mannered ones who rifled through rather than doing things in an orderly manner, and generally messed with the reputation built by those who practiced doing homeless.

And we ain’t done yet! Now we gotta talk about

Trans History

Hana is exclusively and jokingly referred to as a homo if subtitles are to be believed, though her words elicit a trans woman. Most articles and papers will refer to her in kind. There weren’t a ton of interviews or English studies going on around the time this movie was made, so some of the points to come may be slightly more modern takes. While I generally like to keep things in line with the time period, this needs to be addressed somewhere. And if there’s one thing you can learn from this, it’s that Hana grew up in a world less accepting than what I’m going to describe.

I did goof in search term so this is from an article about trans men when it should have been trans women as referenced in the film, but it is still enlightening and there is likely some crossover. To stop you from goofing: Trans men are those who were assigned female at birth then undergo surgery to become male. Swap some of those words around for “trans women”.

Final disclaimer: don’t view the opinions, lifestyles, and struggles of every LGBTQ community through the lens of Western European societies. In fact, just assume that if you ain’t living in that country, you have no idea what it’s like. Could be better. Could be worse. Could be weird as shit by your standards.

Much of this is coming from a 2017-2018 study by Shu Min Yuen of a trans male crowd in Tokyo. Clearly this is not law and everyone’s experience can vary - a point Yuen upholds.

Daily Life

• Trans hide in plain sight as gender-normative but attend private events where they are very open
• While Japan has those who fight the political status quo, the magazine Laph and many interviewed push the ideology “I am normal” without a desire to fight what “normal” is.
• The choice to live normally and not fight the system while attending private events is a strategy to adopt and gain self-validation and social membership as both trans and men.
• Deadnames and images of past identity aren’t viewed as a bad thing and are freely told and shown

History

• In 1996 Gender or Sex Reassignment Surgery became recognized as the legal and appropriate medical treatment for the condition of Gender Identity Disorder.
• A year after this movie, trans people gained the right to change their gender in the Koseki family register, the official Japanese registry system, after fulfilling sex reassignment and a few other conditions. One of these conditions is that they be without child.
• The Japanese term sei-dōitsusei-shōgai (性同一性障害) was adopted from our term Gender Identity Disorder straight from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by American Psychiatric Association

Weird oppression

Japan is weird, mmkay? We here in the US are definitely not without our faults and as a nation feel the need to proudly advertise them. But some of this might sound familiar.

The nation does this thing where it tries to convince its people that it is homogenous and has no minorities, resulting in the belief that ethnic and cultural differences do not belong in Japanese society. The country that “liberated” an entire writing system, forced its way into a ton of nearby nations, and mostly uses the word miruku or milk instead of “gyunyuu” (牛乳) has somehow remained culturally pure!

They also have a social construct in place to live harmoniously with quote “foreigners and ethnic others” -this is like recognizing their existence but reminding them they’re not an influence- but this excludes dealing with people inside their perfect society with disabilities and gender variance. Does that sound confusing? Because it is. It’s what some here in America would call “fucking stupid”

The Exceptional Treatment Law was promulgated in 2004, signifying the state’s recognition of trans people as “ordinary” citizens who are deserving of rights, but also renders them governable, abiding by the policies of people who do not and will not understand trans realities. There is now a “correct” way to be trans. This is also where they are forced to accept the medical classification of Gender Identity Disorder.

That’s not all bad, right? Just a little mental disorder on your public profile.

Well, public universities -funded by the same government that accepts gender reassignment- don’t allow for name changes on certificates, meaning that not only are certificates rendered useless but everything is connected, meaning you can be traced back to your former self, possibly leading to the exclusion it attempts to avoid. There was an anecdote in this study about someone who got rejected because the university knew its students would treat the person like shit when they inevitably, easily discovered their change.

All this info and I still have no idea what the relationship is between gay and trans people.

This is a good point to get off the depressing train. There’s so much more discussion and research to be had here but I think you get the gist.

Moving on to

Anime History

The primary reference for this movie is John Ford’s 1948 Western retelling of the Biblical 3 Wise Men titled 3 Godfathers starring Pedro Armendariz, Harry Carey, Jr., and some guy you’ve probably never heard of by the name of John Wayne.

The synopsis goes as such: Three bank robbers on the run risk their freedom and lives to return a newborn to civilization. It’s set in Arizona within 10-years of 1862 and runs an hour and 48 minutes. I didn’t care for it. It starts strong by never saying the quiet stuff out loud -the exact time of year, the exact Biblical reference, and more- then pivots about halfway and won’t shut up about what it’s referencing. Apparently studios in 1948 also thought viewers were stupid. There’s also a painstakingly long section where the guys are trying to figure out how babies work that feels like a bad SNL skit. Kinda wanted to remove this bit but here we are. Now you know.

Kon wrote a blog post about his ideas for Tokyo Godfather four months before Millenium Actress had even released. In it he mentions how the budget, studio, and director of the next movie were all set in stone before there was even a story.

The original idea was going to be titled Tokyo Ghost and it was either going to be about a homeless man meeting a ghost, or a post WW2 film where defeated Japanese soldiers teams up with Indonesia to assist in their fight for independence, thus helping the Japanese regain their reason to live. As it happens, that film had already been released 2 years prior as Merdeka 17805. You would never guess in a million years but a film glorifying their oppressors as heroes did not go over well with the Indonesians.

Fast forward to the early 2000s when Kon felt like departing from his previous storytelling that blended dreams and reality as exemplified in Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress. 

His adaptation of 3 Godfathers picked a very different member of society: the homeless. 

In his words from a few interviews, Kon, “noticed the increased number of homeless people in Tokyo, and that was the reason I wanted to focus on them this time as the main characters. As I am an animation writer/creator, I wanted to send my message to viewers throughout this feature, to make them feel relieved from their troubles, worries, and discontentment from everyday life by using the 'homeless' characters who are a socially disadvantaged people that are living their lives vitally and lively with warm and kind hearts.”

“I wanted to examine how someone separated from mainstream society would once again rejuvenate society.”

“the important thing wasn't to just present the homeless problem in the script, but to focus on the mindset surrounding things we ‘discard’."

Tokyo Godfathers is a Tragicomedy out of Studio Madhouse that released in Japan on November 8, 2003, and in North America on January 16, 2004.

Satoshi Kon directed and wrote the original screenplay but had a dope right hand woman in the form of Keiko Nobumoto, screenwriter from Cowboy Bebop, creator of Wolf’s Rain, and scriptwriter for Space Dandy and Carole&Tuesday

Animation director was Kenichi Konishi who worked on a bunch of Studio Ghibli stuff, several of Kon’s other projects, Evangelion, 

Music by Keiichi Suzuki and the band he co-founded, Moonriders

A lot of great artists worked on this film and I highly encourage you to watch the behind the scenes YouTube video in my show notes.

For the cast there are only 3 main characters:

• Yoshiaki Umegaki as Hana
• Aya Okamoto as Miyuki
• Toru Emori as Gin

I dug through the remaining VAs and basically the entire cast has minimal voice work even after this film. However, one actor’s work stood out like Wayne Enterprises Tower in the middle of Smallville; the dang taxi driver whose list is loaded! 

Before Tokyo Godfathers, Kouichi Yamadera was Meier Link from Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, Kaji from BOTH Evangelion series, Zaberu or Lord Raptor from Vampire Hunter, Ryouga from BOTH Ranma 1/2 series, Tien Shinhan from DBZ (not DB), he also had roles in Bubblegum Crisis, City Hunter, Dirty Pair, and his first listed role is in Megazone 23 from 1985.

Some of his modern work includes Gentle Criminal from My Hero Academia, Togusa from the GITS:SAC_2045 series and movie, North #2 from PLUTO, Miguel from JJK 0, many characters across several generations of Pokemon and Lupin the IIIrd, and homeboy IS The God of Destruction himself, BEERUS

This guy is dope as hell.

Accolades

2003

• Excellence Award at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival
• Best Animation Film at the 58th Mainichi Film Awards.

2004

• Domestic Feature Film Tokyo Anime Award

Spoiler Warning

Hey y’all, a high quality Burrito in the back alleys of Shinjuku is akin to a winning lotto ticket, so if you don’t want it spoiled you best wrap this in foil and bury it in the snow outside your tarpaulin house.

The Topic

There’s not really a better spot to put this so let’s lead off with Kon’s intent: It was not written to make you laugh out loud, but to chuckle.

Themes

Synchronicity

Before production Kon wrote on a piece of paper the phrase: 意味のある偶然の一致にあふれた世界 Iminoaru gūzen no itchi ni afureta sekai - “A world full of meaningful coincidences”

Kon was a fan of Carl Jung’s synchronicity: “synchronicity events are chance occurrences from a statistical point of view, but meaningful in that they may seem to validate paranormal ideas.”

In this case, the catalyst for what seems to be a densely packed series of miracles is in the form of the infant which was made to represent unconsciousness. By determining to help the child they stepped out of their comfort zone, forcing themselves to reconcile with the decisions that lead to this point. Had they put in no effort by taking the child to the police or ignoring it entirely they would still be in the same spot and no problems would be addressed.

There are obviously a lot of goofy small miracles in here as you watch the gang constantly avoid death. Things constantly fall or pass by Hana. The entire gang leaves the convenience store right before an ambulance bashes in.

Classism - Everybody struggles

The gang was made to be symbols of the weakness, fragility, self-blame, and regret that everyone has, but the film perpetually shows the balance and imbalance in life.

• Gin chose this life voluntarily and feels like he’s in a better place than the abandoned infant.
• The only place Hana knows to return to is the bar welcomes gay, trans, and apparently homeless people who were beat to shit.
• The foreign Spanish residents seem equal to the homeless with just slightly denser walls.
• Sachiko and her husband had money and toxic traits in spades and only wasted one of those. Despite the financial loss they still having the capability to quote “live better” than the homeless, yet Sachiko sees no option other than suicide and the husband lives in literal filth - even worse than the old homeless dude who was likely physically less capable of keeping a neater abode.
• The middle class citizens on the train visibly acknowledge the gang’s smell while the very rich attendees and servants at the wedding never pay them any mind.

The whole tale displays every angle of life, good or bad.

The Human Element

Kon’s intent was to capture an entire life in this short film. We have motifs of birth and death played by the infant and the old homeless man, with extra death by murder. We have genuinely problematic teenagers who beat Gin and confused but well-meaning teenagers in Miyuki. The literal loss of a child and successful motherhood. It is intended to show the entire flow of life, both good and bad. 

This movie never feels like it’s shoving anything into your face which makes it a lot easier to rewatch.

Hana

Hana cannot have children and is determined to understand why a mother would give up a child. There’s no specific ages but Hana comes off as the oldest to me and is still seeking to better understand the people around her.

Her desire to have a child is juxtaposed by Sachiko as both are biologically incapable of having children - and I get Sachiko had a miscarriage but this seems like her conclusion- but while one becomes criminal and suicidal the other is perfectly willing to not only give up the child -a gift from god- but safely deliver it to its home. And to kinda turn down the possibly insanity of Hana she was also willing to give Kiyoko to the police if she was actually sick. 

It’s not brought up anywhere but the assassin being a man who’s able to pull off a woman has to be intentional. He totally passed, then there’s Hana who is still socially unaccepted Hana.

Gin

We learn over time that Gin was an alcoholic and I guess got off the wagon until the wedding party. Seeing the man who swindled him started his process of reconciliation with a downward spiral into regression. The scene where he goes to the local police under the guise of dumping trash then admitting he is the trash is kinda hilarious but is maybe the first sign of him publicly showing weakness by admitting he is the problem. The tough guy facade is gone.

He did bad things in his prior life but has clearly seen improvement. His kindness as a man who has nothing towards another man who has nothing and is dying lead to them getting a winning lotto ticket.

In that same vein he had been saving every yen for a long while -a mere $30 dollars- to give to his daughter to help her with whatever she needed and maybe make amends, then when a friend needed it most needed he gave it up. Sadly, but not begrudgingly. 

Miyuki

In the pre-film creation interview Kon mentions that Miyuki needs to be cute but have lost some of her girlish charm. Nailed it.

Miyuki had the nicest life of the three before choosing to become homeless and has a rough exterior similar to Gin. She’s lost weight and a comfy bed but doesn’t complain. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when she doesn’t want to get water for the baby and Hana says “Them’s that works, eats”. And she does get up. Still, not begrudgingly. To me her face always shows embarrassment, not disgust. 

And now that I’ve learned about “doing homeless” the scene where she trades food for the baby book sticks out so much more. Those dudes were never going to use that book -let alone the entire encyclopedia Brittanica set they’re carrying- but she still can’t just take. A debt is owed and she pays it in food.

As a quick overall observation, all of these characters do a marvelous job of talking mad shit to each other in the beginning then when the chips are down, they all display more and more respect.

The final character we’re gonna talk about is

Tokyo

How does one make a character out of a city? 

Kon admits “Tokyo in the title is uncool and looks arrogant”, but he wanted that to be the setting. He himself was only familiar with Shijuku because of the Chūō line train stop there. The main approach taken to make this a unique experience was by making our crew wander in and out of the back roads, not staying in the neon lit city that has been synonymous with Tokyo since the 70s at least.

In 3 Godfathers the characters are in a new world to us but new world to them, while in Tokyo Godfather the characters are in a new world to us but familiar to them. - Toss?

I think reviewer Mary Ma best describes this final character: “In the mountains of trash bags left in back alleys and outside apartment buildings, the night is forced to remember the day. After the garbage trucks come along at the rising of the sun, the day need not remember the night.”

Tokyo isn’t alive but in reality the more well lit a place is, the more life is in it and vice-versa.

Most of the film is overcast and the homeless encampment is 50 shades of blue gray until we get inside their home where it’s warm and inviting. The Spanish housing and mansion also take us from the dreariness. There isn’t even a ray of sunshine until the kamikaze saves Hana and Kiyoko in the final act.

The two color schemes intersect when Gin ends up in the alley after his beating; cold walls on either side and Tokyo Tower beaming with warmth in the background. Kon really utilized animation to pay great respect to the darkness, not letting anything detail get lost. Live action at the time could never capture the balance of Gin’s scene. Either the darkness would fade to black or Tokyo tower would be blown out.

Some of the other accoutrements of this sprawling character were the signs and trash. The intent is to convey “ordinary people with ordinary lives”. They could have been left to squiggly lines but the detail kept it real.

The trash itself was a painstaking process to give reverence to an inescapable part of the city, made possible only by the animation software that allowed them to use multiple layers in a single frame.

Character arc conclusions

This feels like a typical Japanese Journey film but we get all these arcs wrapped up.

Hana addresses her past after Gin’s beating. It sucks that she lost her man and maybe someday that’ll be rectified. The looming issue was her poor health due to this rough lifestyle. We don’t get to experience it, but it’s nice to think that that arc is wrapped up after the film.

Gin doesn’t get any resolution with his wife but he does his greatest and dying wish: to reconnect with his daughter. There is still just a touch of sadness in this. It’s difficult to have a Japanese movie with a 100% purely positive ending.

Miyuki’s parents missed her like crazy and clearly still loved her. I think the final scene in the film is perfect because, kinda like the lottery ticket, we can deduce what’s going to happen next.

Before we leave we have to address the kamikaze. This whole movie has been pretty realistic. Not real. But realistic. Out of nowhere the third act gets real dark real quick. I mean, a guy was murdered earlier but it was done in such a chill manner that there’s no real impact on us or the characters. Even Gin’s becomes just another part of life. Where the movie begins with the discovery of a proposed “divine child”, it is neatly wrapped up with a divine wind. The downward spiral is uplifted by a gust and that single ray of sunshine, lowering Hana and Kiyoko to safety in the least believable part of the film. But its inclusion is like a pallet cleanser. The smartest directorial move is that it’s never addressed. Everything just keeps going.

As do we.

It’s a Christmas Movie

The final point to make is: Phil. It’s a Christmas movie. It’s a magical child born on Christmas Eve and the entire tale is about the strenuous yet magical journey life takes us on to better ourselves, grow relationships, and reunite with family. You need more colorful  lights or something? A snowman? C’mon. Just… c’mon.

Trivia + Pop Culture References

• Was only familiar with the Chūō Line in Tokyo…. Which begins west of and passes well beyond Shinjuku
• Said he couldn’t film this live action because he doesn’t see things like that
• Thanks to all this research I noticed a funny little joke. The billboard where Miyuki is spitting from is “Angel of tears”. So people feel a drop, look up, then see a crying angel. Attention to detail baybeeee. 
• In order to properly grasp how the many layers of clothing would move on our main 3 characters they held a cosplay for photos and film. Satoshi Kon played Hana. His wife played Miyuki. And the producer Satoki Toyoda
• The number "12-25" (Christmas day) appears throughout the film: the number on the key ring, the cab fare (12,250 yen), a stopped alarm clock, the address in the newspaper ad, the cab license plate.
•  Toward the beginning of the movie, when the trio passes by a convenience store, in the background you can see the theatrical posters for Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), and Tokyo Godfathers itself.
•  In this film, buildings that look like faces appear in over a dozen scenes, sometimes representing the feelings of the characters. Satoshi Kon describes this in his "Tokyo Godfathers Miscellaneous Notes" as follows: "When I bought my new digital camera, I started taking pictures of such 'faces of the buildings' for fun, but I thought it would be a shame to let it end up as just a hobby. so I decided to use them in this film as symbols of the pantheistic gods, the eight million gods that have existed in Japan since ancient times

What did I learn

• Aya Kamikawa is the first trans elected municipal official, back in 2003.
• “Tokyo Godfathers” is also the name of a very entertaining Japanese band. Check out the song Coffee Rumba from the album Bandidos. I think anyone could find something enjoyable from them.
• The band Moonriders -listed as providing the music for this film is still recording! Their 2003 album Don’t Trust Over Thirty is somewhat Experimental. They’ve been very active since the 70s so I Ain’t that deep into their catalogue
• Katsuhiro Otomo’s World Apartment Horror exists and I’ve never heard of it. It has never come up in anything I’ve ever seen or read. 

References

• From Marginality to Possibility: Doing Transgender Studies in Japanese Studies - Shu Min Yuen (if you check this out cut to the section titled RETHINKING TRANS THROUGH THE LENS OF JAPAN)
• Project Muse - Performativity of Gender in Speech: Life Experiences of Japanese Trans Women - I only perused this one because I am low on time.
• Austin Chronicle - Upping the Anime
• AnimeNewNetwork interview
• Down But Not Out: Homelessness in Japan - by Abby Margolis who holds a PhD in Anthropology and Japanese Studies from Harvard.
• 1998 French Interview on Kon’s Tone dot com - There is no interviewer or paper name
• “Making Of” Tokyo Godfathers - Kon’s Tone dot com
• Cityscape of Trash : The Nocturnal Tokyo of Tokyo Godfathers by Mary Ma, 2024
• Park Dweller’s Fight in Osaka - Marie Bailloux, 2009
• Animation Process Video
• Animation Process Article by Animation Obsessive

Kon’s References

• “Dream from a Cardboard House: Shinjuku Homeless Story" by Nakamura Satoshi, published by Soshisha Sanzen
• Movie “Johns” by Scott Silver

Inspirations

Humano Sound and My Analogue Journal (MAJ) on YouTube

Nacho Business

• Little Nightmares
• All of Brooklynn Nine-Nine
• DragonBall Daima
• Ranma 1/2
• DanDaDan
• No more Pokemon Unite
• Maybe over halfway through Prey from 2017
• Started Cyberpunk 2077

Call to action/Goodbye

So what did YOU think about Tokyo Godfathers? Have you seen any of the movies it was based on or referenced? Didja learn anything particularly cool?

If you enjoyed this episode be sure to share it to ya friendos. I’m not a Patreon kinda guy and have literally no idea how many people are subscribed to me. But it is motivating to open my Buzzsprout email on Monday morning and see that -for some unexplainable reason- I just got a ton of listens on an old episode. 

Before we head out I once again encourage you to check out The Wait For It Podcast’s episdoe on Tokyo Godfather as well as Cinema Villains, The Neatcast, and Podcasters Assemble

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and I’ll see you next year

This is where the outro will go. But I still do not have one.