The main characters are Gin, Hana and Miyuki. All of them are hobos and all have contrasting personalities. Gin is an alcoholic who doesn't want to face reality, so he makes up stories and lies a lot. He wants to shift the blame of his failures onto someone else instead of changing for the better. Hana is an okama, which is the Japanese version of a crossdresser, but is associated with homosexuality. Okamas are seen as weirdos in Japan and are not accepted by the mainstream. Miyuki is a bratty young girl who wants to be left alone, but also wants to be cared for. She is short-tempered and gets frustrated by Hana and Gin when they start arguing. The "colourful" personalities each bring something relevant to the story. Gin is practical but has no self awareness, Hana drives the trio forward but is very dramatic and Miyuki brings the other two back to reality when she's not being a pain in the ass. The characters are forced to work together in order to return the missing baby to its parents, which results in a lot of entertaining conflicts.
Family plays a big role in Tokyo Godfathers. Each of the three homeless protagonists has their own character arc revolving around their family, covering the issues faced by the family that lead to it breaking up, and resolving the family matters in a cathartic and believable way. The three protagonists also have a familial bond between each other, which is noticed more and more as they look after the baby. The story is fundamentally family-based because it revolves around finding the baby's mother and returning it to its home. In Christmas season, watching a family movie can put you in the right mindset for when you see all your family on Christmas Day, or over the New Year. Tokyo Godfathers doesn't just vaguely relate to Christmas using the holiday season as a front for Christmas; there are biblical roots to the story. After a church service, the homeless trio find a baby in a garbage-manger with no parents, representing the Virgin Birth, and embark on a journey to keep the child safe. Gin, Hana and Miyuki could represent the Three Wise Men, or perhaps Gin and Hana could be Joseph and Mary. The amusing implications of two men being Joseph and Mary aside, the biblical foundations of the story are clear.
A major theme in Tokyo Godfathers is coincidence. The movie begins with three homeless individuals finding a baby abandoned in the trash. Along their journey to try and find the baby's mother, the homeless trio coincidentally run in to just the right people at just the right locations, find members of their family just when they needed to see them most, and happen to save the day in the nick of time in an absurdly unlikely way. An example of a common coincidence is Hana narrowly avoiding being hit by a skidding motorbike. It's quite coincidental that so many characters happen to be named Kiyoko. All of these small coincidences show that coincidence is integral to the narrative. These coincidences don't work against the film's narrative and are never used as a convenient "out" in the circumstance of the script reaching a dead end. There were no dead ends, no mistakes requiring asspulls to fix and none of the coincidences undermined the family and Christmas messages of the film. The coincidences make for a far more interesting movie than if it was perfectly realistic. A realistic movie would result in the baby being given to the authorities immediately and the homeless people staying unhappy, filthy and poor. All good movies use some form of convenience and coincidence to make the story more interesting.
The reason it's possible to focus so much on the themes, roots and narrative of this film is that the presentation is excellent. It would require a great deal of effort to find any technical flaws. The animation is as good as you can find, the backgrounds and character design are detailed enough to look real, the voice acting is of a much higher caliber than your usual anime so it sounds like people, not mediocre voice actors, and the soundtrack is appropriate for the scenes, working well to set the right tone. Satoshi Kon was primarily a visual storyteller and he always excelled at making beautiful films. This is a must watch any time of the year, but especially during Christmas season. Have a Merry Christmas.
