Post by Teahouse Keeper on Oct 11, 2006 1:23:40 GMT -5
WHOA! You gotta see this. It's just fabulous. The Americans loved it when it was shown to them for the first time. It's simply a very, very unique creation from Satoshi Kon, a director whom I did not know till I watched this movie.
Apparently, he is famous and well-known for his unique ideas and stories. I saw the making of it and the interviews and the director is simply very cool in a....calm genius sort of way. Hahahahaha!! I was surprised by how young he looked. How...well groomed
Usually, geniuses like that tend to....need grooming.
During the interviews, it was said that it is rare or rather, not the norm, to have protagonists who are homeless people and middle-aged at that. It is not marketable. But Satoshi Kon made a beautiful story with them, bucking the prevailing mindset.
It's about 3 homeless people--a runaway teenage girl, a gay man and a bum--and a miraculous baby girl.
The kid Miyuki (voiced by Aya Okamoto) runs away from home on the assumption that her dad is a bad guy, the ex-drag queen Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki) dreams of being a mother, the bum Gin (Toru Emori) just wants to wallow in self-pity and sake. On Christmas Eve, while digging around for a present for Miyuki, the trio come upon an abandoned baby girl in the trash.
They look upon her with wide eyes, shocked at their discovery. Accompanying the baby is a bag with an assortment of stuff, including a birth document and a note that says, "Take care of her".
The question is: How do 3 homeless people take care of a baby when they can barely take care of themselves?
Gin and Miyuki insist they take the baby to the police, while Hana--seeing it as her chance to be a mother at last--wishes to keep her.
With Hana holding the baby--now called Kiyiko for "pure" on the purest of nights--they return to their cardboard home and bicker some more about what to do.
Next morning, they find Hana and the baby gone. Following her tracks in the snow, Miyuki and Gin find her sitting at a spot hugging the baby close. With sadness, Hana confides that she sees herself in the baby. Abandoned, unloved, left to grow up on the street. She does not want the baby to become like her, never knowing a mother's love. They must find the baby's mother and ask why she abandoned the child. If the mother can make her understand the reason, then perhaps, she might be able to forgive the mother....as well as her own.
So, their adventure begins!
Searching the whole of Tokyo, they are assisted by strange and miraculous coincidences that preserve their lives and bring events together.
At one point, they are sitting in a convenience store when the cashier comes over to ask them to leave. A drunk customer who happens to be there shouts that they stink. All of them step out of the store, standing at the curbside to settle matters when all of a sudden, a vehicle (that turns out to be an ambulance) rams right through the store. Had they stayed in there, they would've all been killed. Looking stunned, but otherwise unhurt, the driver of the ambulance comes out and says, "Call an ambulance" HAHAHAHAHA! The cashier then runs to make the call.
That is just one of the many uncanny things that happen ever since they find the baby which curiously, has a mole on her forehead (which reminds me of the Goddess of Mercy).
The colours and details of the anime are simply superb and absolutely stunning. The visuals are really incredible. In the Making, the guy doing the graphics say that they do each scene with multiple planes and layers. Multiple layers allow them to move each one at different speeds and so create greater realism. Indeed, the lighting alone is simply fabulous. The red cones on the road give out a beautiful red glow that is unbelievably realistic.
The team's studio is Mad House which is famous for producing famous anime.
The characters are really solid people. Real. They are like family to one other.
It doesn't matter whether a person is gay or not, and Hana proves this wonderfully. Man or woman, Hana is someone you can respect as a person. As her Japanese voice-actor says, she is someone who has self-respect.
More than self-respect, Hana is brave, bold, honest, practical and humourously cynical in her own way At the temple on New Year's Day, after she and Miyuki have prayed and were passing by the long queue of people outside, Miyuki said, "God must be busy." And Hana replied, "Better once a year than never."
Hana is also noble and self-sacrificial. She is very loving, very full of life, with fighting spirit and a generous heart. A mother in her bearing and ways. Very giving and forgiving. She is someone you can love even though she is not attractive.
On a psychological level, the need to forgive her own mother for abandoning her has made Hana into the perfect, ideal mother figure. And she is perfect in every way except for the fact that she is not a woman (even though in her heart she feels she is). In a resigned way, she admits that God made a mistake and accepts it with admirable grace and humour.
Incidentally, she used to work in a drag queen club called Angel Tower. After her Ken died, she just lost her will to sing like she used to. When asked if he died of AIDs, Hana replied, "No, he slipped on the soap." Hahahaha!!
That's the way Tokyo Godfathers is. Funny because it is so unexpected.
Somehow, some way, the characters find hope and home again. Miyuki stops running, Gin wakes up to his mistakes and Hana shines.
Watching the movie, you can tell the director Satoshi Kon, is someone who believes in coincidences. This is indeed the case when he was interviewed in the Making. He even believes that projects cannot do well if there are no coincidences that suggest that they should be done. Whoa.
His choice of the Japanese voice actress for Miyuki was cemented (even though he had seen her movie and felt her voice was right for the part) when he coincidentally saw her face on the front cover of a magazine while wandering a bookstore. She had never done voice-acting before and this would be her first time. When he saw her face, he knew his hunch about her was right and he had made the right choice. Hahahaha!!
In terms of story, visuals and humour, Tokyo Godfathers way surpasses any Disney animation film. In many ways, the movie is more for adults rather than kids. A reviewer in the Making said it is a movie made for an adult audience.
Satoshi Kon's aim was to push the boundaries of Japanese animation, challenge the current trend of cute anime characters and explosions. Advance anime to a higher level.
That's precisely what he has done and it is truly a marvel.
Apparently, he is famous and well-known for his unique ideas and stories. I saw the making of it and the interviews and the director is simply very cool in a....calm genius sort of way. Hahahahaha!! I was surprised by how young he looked. How...well groomed
Usually, geniuses like that tend to....need grooming.During the interviews, it was said that it is rare or rather, not the norm, to have protagonists who are homeless people and middle-aged at that. It is not marketable. But Satoshi Kon made a beautiful story with them, bucking the prevailing mindset.
It's about 3 homeless people--a runaway teenage girl, a gay man and a bum--and a miraculous baby girl.
The kid Miyuki (voiced by Aya Okamoto) runs away from home on the assumption that her dad is a bad guy, the ex-drag queen Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki) dreams of being a mother, the bum Gin (Toru Emori) just wants to wallow in self-pity and sake. On Christmas Eve, while digging around for a present for Miyuki, the trio come upon an abandoned baby girl in the trash.
They look upon her with wide eyes, shocked at their discovery. Accompanying the baby is a bag with an assortment of stuff, including a birth document and a note that says, "Take care of her".
The question is: How do 3 homeless people take care of a baby when they can barely take care of themselves?
Gin and Miyuki insist they take the baby to the police, while Hana--seeing it as her chance to be a mother at last--wishes to keep her.
With Hana holding the baby--now called Kiyiko for "pure" on the purest of nights--they return to their cardboard home and bicker some more about what to do.
Next morning, they find Hana and the baby gone. Following her tracks in the snow, Miyuki and Gin find her sitting at a spot hugging the baby close. With sadness, Hana confides that she sees herself in the baby. Abandoned, unloved, left to grow up on the street. She does not want the baby to become like her, never knowing a mother's love. They must find the baby's mother and ask why she abandoned the child. If the mother can make her understand the reason, then perhaps, she might be able to forgive the mother....as well as her own.
So, their adventure begins!
Searching the whole of Tokyo, they are assisted by strange and miraculous coincidences that preserve their lives and bring events together.
At one point, they are sitting in a convenience store when the cashier comes over to ask them to leave. A drunk customer who happens to be there shouts that they stink. All of them step out of the store, standing at the curbside to settle matters when all of a sudden, a vehicle (that turns out to be an ambulance) rams right through the store. Had they stayed in there, they would've all been killed. Looking stunned, but otherwise unhurt, the driver of the ambulance comes out and says, "Call an ambulance" HAHAHAHAHA! The cashier then runs to make the call.
That is just one of the many uncanny things that happen ever since they find the baby which curiously, has a mole on her forehead (which reminds me of the Goddess of Mercy).
The colours and details of the anime are simply superb and absolutely stunning. The visuals are really incredible. In the Making, the guy doing the graphics say that they do each scene with multiple planes and layers. Multiple layers allow them to move each one at different speeds and so create greater realism. Indeed, the lighting alone is simply fabulous. The red cones on the road give out a beautiful red glow that is unbelievably realistic.
The team's studio is Mad House which is famous for producing famous anime.
The characters are really solid people. Real. They are like family to one other.
It doesn't matter whether a person is gay or not, and Hana proves this wonderfully. Man or woman, Hana is someone you can respect as a person. As her Japanese voice-actor says, she is someone who has self-respect.
More than self-respect, Hana is brave, bold, honest, practical and humourously cynical in her own way
At the temple on New Year's Day, after she and Miyuki have prayed and were passing by the long queue of people outside, Miyuki said, "God must be busy." And Hana replied, "Better once a year than never." Hana is also noble and self-sacrificial. She is very loving, very full of life, with fighting spirit and a generous heart. A mother in her bearing and ways. Very giving and forgiving. She is someone you can love even though she is not attractive.
On a psychological level, the need to forgive her own mother for abandoning her has made Hana into the perfect, ideal mother figure. And she is perfect in every way except for the fact that she is not a woman (even though in her heart she feels she is). In a resigned way, she admits that God made a mistake and accepts it with admirable grace and humour.
Incidentally, she used to work in a drag queen club called Angel Tower. After her Ken died, she just lost her will to sing like she used to. When asked if he died of AIDs, Hana replied, "No, he slipped on the soap." Hahahaha!!
That's the way Tokyo Godfathers is. Funny because it is so unexpected.
Somehow, some way, the characters find hope and home again. Miyuki stops running, Gin wakes up to his mistakes and Hana shines.
Watching the movie, you can tell the director Satoshi Kon, is someone who believes in coincidences. This is indeed the case when he was interviewed in the Making. He even believes that projects cannot do well if there are no coincidences that suggest that they should be done. Whoa.
His choice of the Japanese voice actress for Miyuki was cemented (even though he had seen her movie and felt her voice was right for the part) when he coincidentally saw her face on the front cover of a magazine while wandering a bookstore. She had never done voice-acting before and this would be her first time. When he saw her face, he knew his hunch about her was right and he had made the right choice. Hahahaha!!
In terms of story, visuals and humour, Tokyo Godfathers way surpasses any Disney animation film. In many ways, the movie is more for adults rather than kids. A reviewer in the Making said it is a movie made for an adult audience.
Satoshi Kon's aim was to push the boundaries of Japanese animation, challenge the current trend of cute anime characters and explosions. Advance anime to a higher level.
That's precisely what he has done and it is truly a marvel.
