Tokyo Godfathers was my Secret Santa for the year. I had intended to watch this for at least five years so this recommendation was the perfect excuse. I was also recommended Blazing Transfer Student, which looks awesome and which I had never even heard of before, so I’m looking forward to watching that eventually. The third and final choice was Ergo Proxy, which I have heard great things about. However, I’ve tried several times and have never been able to get past the first episode.

Anyway… Tokyo Godfathers. It was great. And a perfect movie to watch just before Christmas. In summary, three homeless people find an abandoned baby. They take care of it and search for its mother, and in the process undergo a journey of self-discovery and reconciliation. Great stuff.

To overgeneralize broadly, anime deals poorly with poverty. It’s usually treated as either a joke or the result of some comically evil tyrant. But in Tokyo Godfathers the homeless are actually human. It’s very nice. Sad that it’s actually a luxury worth commenting on…

Human characters, great animation, humorous, touching and memorable. This is the kind of movie where there’s not much to say about it except that everyone and his second cousin should hurry up and watch it already.

• Storytelling – A – Tight and enjoyable, with not a moment wasted.
• Voice – A – Perhaps the only anime I’ve ever seen that handled poverty non-insultingly.
• Characters – A – Superb.
• Attention Grab – A – Movies are shorter and tend not to have issues with this.
• Production – A – Looks great. Satoshi Kon’s unique style.
• Overall – A

Recommendations – Paprika