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The Christmas season is traditionally a time of cheer and celebration, of gifts and gift giving, of love and romance. Trust the late anime auteur Satoshi Kon to sideline these tropes and instead craft a fireside tale that takes us beyond the bright lights, the Christmas carols, and the starkly superficial. Read on, and you’ll discover why Tokyo Godfathers, this reviewer’s serendipitous holiday find in the clearance shelves of a dingy video store, attests to what it really means to get into the Christmas spirit.

To most anime fans, Tokyo is dazzlingly beautiful – a multifaceted jewel reflecting the myriad lights, sounds and colors of a capital city teeming with activity. From the busy street crossings of Akihabara, to sakura-lined pathways in Ueno Park, each rendition of Tokyo evinces an almost idealized, even romanticized, way of life.

Yet the late Mr Kon decides to delve into Tokyo’s seamy underbelly, into a shadow world of street bums and seedy alleys. The picture he paints is bleak – a stark, startling contrast to the Tokyo anime fans have come to recognize and love, yet there is beauty here. Beauty and, in true Christmas spirit, the chance for a truly miraculous ending.

Tokyo Godfathers is the tale of three marginalized individuals – a “family” of homeless people thrown together through luck and happenstance. Miyuki is an angsty teen with a history of family abuse, Hana is an okama (transvestite) with delusions of grandeur, and Gin is an aging liar with a chronic drinking problem. Their lives are changed forever when they discover a baby abandoned in the trash on Christmas Eve, and they decide, against all odds, to track down and return the baby to her family.

Three Bums and a Baby... well, something like that

The plot, predictably, strings one happy misadventure after another, from subway escapes to foraging in a graveyard, to a Yakuza shootout and kidnapping. It’s a happier coincidence still that it all makes sense!

The greatest triumph of this movie lies in the characterization. Kon takes three archetypes – the teenaged runaway, the has-been drag queen and the classic hobo, and paints them as so much more. There are layers here that peel away as we weave through the narrative and delve into the backstories of these seemingly flawed individuals, making their selfless act all the more poignant.

Visually, the film’s presentation is strong, and Kon’s masterful hand in terms of stylistics and art direction is evident from the outset. Sets are beautifully drawn; characters rendered in detail. There’s nothing stylized here.

Dissolution and loneliness in downtown Tokyo: So much for the festive season

There’s truly very little to "Bah! Humbug!" about this animation, save the “happily ever after” moment in the denouement when everything just falls conveniently into place. Still, it’s the Christmas season, and there’s reason enough to believe in a little Christmas magic right?

After all, this is more than just a tale about "Three Bums and a Baby". It’s an especially evocative study of the concept of family, and a celebration of the unadulterated, unconditional love between parent and child.

And this valuable insight, I believe, is Mr Kon’s gift to us this Christmas.

Happy holidays!