The movie was wonderful. Utterly wonderful. I’ll save you the gushing attempt at a review and simply say the characters enraptured me completely and it had complete control of my heart-strings after five minutes.

Not everyone loved it. Some people, including the club chairman, left outright or started to gossip amongst themselves and were tersely asked to leave. One rather irritating specimen gave a theatrical yawn before strutting out, adding “Well, have fun kiddies!”

I don’t remember any of these people. I didn’t have much interaction with them in the anime club or outside of it.

The people I do remember were those who remained until the end of the film. Once the credits ended and the harsh, cheap lighting came back on I sat with a core contingent of survivors, most of whom I got to know over my time in the anime club and while I was at university in general.

Sat is the wrong word however — I was hunched over, sobbing like crazy. I cry easily at films, and Tokyo Godfathers did the emotional equivalent of running over my heart. To my left was a man who looked much like a bear due to his amazing beard — he was having a hard time holding back his own tears and give me a spare tissue. This dude became one of my best friends at university and we still stay in contact as best we can. To my right was someone gently patting my shoulder and managing to remain somewhat stoic, although she admitted later that she cried once she was out of sight of the congregation. We later entered into a rather rocky romantic relationship but remained good friends to this day. The rest of the room, approximately ten people, I became at least good acquaintances with over time. Perhaps we had undergone a shared experience, although no one ever pointed it out.

The president of the club came in, said “See you next week!”, and took her DVD player home. I came back the next week and the rest of my first two years of university, my faith in animation restored by the film. I made some solid friendships, some of which remain to this day and all of which helped me through the uncertain period while I was starting university.

Satoshi Kon made my life better, and for that I am eternally thankful.

Unlike Kon's usual fare, Tokyo Godfathers cuts back on the surrealism and takes a more realistic road to reach his classic reality-fantasy split. From the get-go we are hit over the head with striking dichotomies between idealism (a church choir) and realism (a crowd of hungry homeless). Throughout the movie these themes are continued as Gin searches piles of trash under the beaming lights of Tokyo Tower (an important visual motif in the film). The only time we feel the typical Kon come through is in a brief dream sequence where he brings back his traditional identity-confusion and complex symbolism.

The major difference between Kon's other stories, however, is the focus on characters over narrative. While the central plot remains strong, with Kon's trademark narrative crescendo/subtle ending combination, the focus of the audience's attentions in Tokyo Godfathers rest very heavily on the three main characters. We are made to laugh with them, smile with them, and sometimes cry with them, as they meet new friends and battle terrible circumstances to bring a baby back home.

This central tale, the concept of three pieces of "human trash" being blessed with a piece of unspoiled humanity, is something that we can all relate to in some way. Gin, Hana, and Miyuki are all given fair time to play out their own separate dramas, but Miyuki most surely steals the show. She represents a fascinating and complex parallel in which a young girl runs from her parents, only to embark on a journey to find the parents of an abandoned girl. These sorts of deep-rooted thoughts of home and family that run through the three characters are what hold together the sometimes disjointed little vignettes that make up the story.

Gin and Hana perhaps sum up the themes of the film perfectly in one exchange. Gin reminisces about his daughter, telling Hana, "a father never forgets his child." Miyuki, shaken by a message from her father, suddenly storms out of the room. After a moment, Hana adds, "a child never forgets its parents."

As we have come to expect from Kon and his go-to studio, Madhouse, Tokyo Godfathers looks beautiful. The backgrounds (especially the snow-covered buildings and streets) are as stunning as any classic Christmas painting, and all of the characters move with a lively and often comical fluidity. Even so, the film suffers occasionally from Kon's traditional character design problem: Most of the male side characters look a tad similar, meaning that audiences will have to pay close attention to understand who's who.

Arguably it doesn't have much competition, but that doesn't stop Tokyo Godfathers from being the best Christmas movie to ever come out of the anime medium. Satoshi Kon has pulled together three pieces of garbage, and given them a light to shine their way through the cold and dark. He has engineered a film that finds beauty not in shimmering lights of Tokyo Tower, but in the hopes and dreams of two rejects, the tears of a runaway, and the shining face of an abandoned child.

great.