00:01
Also, co-writer is by Keiko Nobumoto, known as the screenwriter of TV anime Cowboy Bebop.
What?
Yeah, and the creator of the TV anime Wolf's Reign. Do you know this?
Oh man, she wrote Wolf's Reign and Cowboy Bebop?
Yeah.
Okay, one, it's clear she really likes snow. But also, that's so cool. Those are all really, really, really good anime series.
Konnichiwa! I am your host Mayu for 2AM OTTACK! In this podcast, we talk all about anime, manga, movies, music, and history through our distinct perspectives.
As a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, that's me, and an American 30-plus year anime otaku, Cisco.
Oh, way to out my age. That's me.
People still can't tell how old you are.
They can tell how old I'm not. Whatever, it's not like I haven't been super clear that I've been watching anime since the 90s yet on this podcast.
Yeah, people probably have a good idea of how old we are.
Yeah, really good point.
We don't care.
Never mind.
So, it's almost Christmas.
It is.
Are you excited?
I'm pretty excited. I think when I was like a kid, right, I was very excited about Christmas.
Now, when I think about Christmas break, I think about the work I'm going to have to do during it.
And, you know, we're traveling and it's going to be busy.
So, I'm excited. It's going to be good, but it's also going to be busy, you know what I mean?
Super busy.
I think many people start watching Christmas movies at this point.
That's true.
In December.
And we are one of them.
We are.
And if you're looking for a good Christmas anime, you came to the right place.
Hell yeah.
Because we have the best Christmas anime movie rack for you.
Yeah, I think I've only watched one Christmas anime movie.
Can you think of?
Okay.
I mean, we already did My Onigirl, which is about...
It's not about Christmas, but it is...
Oh, it's set in the summer, but it starts snowing.
It's got like some winter vibes at least, right?
That's okay.
So, I remember it as like a wintry type thing, but...
Yeah, not necessarily Christmas though.
Yeah, true.
Today, we are going to talk about...
作品の概要
Tokyo Godfathers.
Okay, before we start, please subscribe and follow 2AMOTAC on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
We talk about new and not-so-new anime and manga for you to explore.
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So, check them out.
All right, Cisco, could you explain the plot of Tokyo Godfathers super simply?
Yes.
Three homeless people find a baby and try to return it to its parents. The end.
Perfect.
That was, yeah, exactly what the movie is about.
Nailed it.
Yeah. I mean, there are a lot more stories in it, but the plot is that.
The reason why it's a perfect Christmas movie is because it happens on Christmas Eve.
Right. They find the baby Christmas Eve, and the movie ends on New Year's Day.
And the baby was named as Kiyoko.
Like a pure, holy child or something. And like a miracle keeps happening.
Yeah, the Kiyo, like the translation of silent night into Japanese is...
Kiyoshi Kono Yoru.
Kiyoshi Kono Yoru.
Yoru, meaning this pure night, but or holy night, essentially.
So, there's a Christmas tie in the baby's name, too.
So, tell me about your thought.
So, this is an older anime. Did we look up what year it's from?
2003.
2003. So, it's 21 years old this year. And you feel that in watching it.
It's also done by a pretty small production team.
I think the number of people who worked on it is comparable to a regular anime series.
It's got a very distinctive visual style that fits with the other Satoshi Kon movies like Perfect Blue.
映画の魅力とテーマ
Which I watched when it was released. And I think there's another one.
Millennium Actress, I think is also Satoshi Kon.
So, he was a big director around like the turn of the millennium.
And I remember seeing Perfect Blue.
I was aware of this movie coming out, but I had never watched it until this year.
I think you can feel its age in how it treats some of its subjects.
Especially gender relations.
One of the three main characters who is gay.
And also the sort of treatment of the unhoused in general.
But it's not disrespectful in any way.
So, although it's got some product of its time feel to it,
I think it's actually a really positive movie about marginalized groups.
And it's also just sort of like a fun action movie.
Which is weird to think of it that way.
But I think it is actually more than anything else an action movie.
That has a lot of really good character development.
And some very interesting attention paid to groups that don't get a lot of screen time.
In anime or in Japan in general.
Yeah, it's funny. It kind of keeps saying, I can't be like an action star.
It keeps happening.
Right, right, right.
Especially towards the end.
I thought the movie was fantastic.
It was fun to watch.
It's about love and family.
And then it's comedy.
Yeah, about mental health.
It's really like a crossover.
It's not easy to classify into just one genre.
And I loved each main character.
Yeah, the three characters are very different from each other.
They have really different stories and backstories.
And their differences really help each character shine in their own way.
And they're very believable.
They're all kind of deeply flawed human beings.
That makes them, I think, more endearing than if they were less flawed.
Yeah, and each of them have their own story.
Right.
And how they became homeless.
Right.
And they ended up being together.
You get a very good sense of their humanity in a full way.
Not in a reduced, trite, either stereotypical or lionized way.
It's really nice that they're portrayed as complex, difficult people.
アニメーションとキャラクター
I also love the face expressions.
And then the characters' movements.
They were really good.
Yeah, they're not really fluid.
They're clearly animated.
And a lot of times the faces are hugely exaggerated.
Yeah.
And it sort of reminded me of GTO in that way.
That the faces are often kind of over the top.
But it's extremely expressive.
It allows the characters to have a lot of differentiation and express emotion really thoroughly.
And so I think the animation style is not what I would usually call an anime style.
I don't want to say it's more realistic or more lifelike.
And it's also not more cartoony.
It's a really specific Satoshi Kon style.
If you have seen his other work, then you can probably guess what I'm getting at here.
But I think the faces look just different than most other animated work.
And those differences allow it to be, I don't know, richer.
And I think those expressions matched with the acting.
And there were a lot of characters played by actors.
So that was really, really good.
For example, Gin was by Toru Emori.
Now he's a little bit older.
I don't know if he's retired, but he was a really famous actor in Japan.
He did plays, he was in Taiga dramas and everything.
He's great.
And he also did voice acting in another Kon's movie, Paprika.
Oh, interesting. Okay.
And this person, Yoshiaki Umegaki as Hana.
He was great.
Yeah, I agree.
He was amazing.
Also, he did a voice for Big Gay Al in South Park.
Do you know the character?
The Japanese version of that?
Yeah.
Interesting. Okay.
Okay. I've never watched it.
Yeah.
東京ゴッドファーザーズのパフォーマンス
In the Tokyo Godfathers, there's a scene Hana sings Rokudenashi when she was still working at a club.
I remember the song as someone who is dressed as a woman.
The person is a man and then singing.
That was my image.
So that song always associated with...
A drag performer?
Yeah.
Okay.
And I didn't know why, but I did my research and I understood why.
The original song is by Fubuki Koshiji, a woman.
She sang this song.
Yoshiaki Umegaki, he is a comedian.
Okay.
Actor slash comedian.
He often dressed like a drag queen.
Okay.
And then singing the song as he put beans in his nose.
And then he stuffed quite a lot of beans.
And then he like sprash out.
How do you say?
Shot the beans out of his nose?
Shot the beans from his nose.
And that was his most famously known comedic act.
Okay.
So that was in my memory my entire life.
Okay.
So I thought that song was by the person.
Oh, I see.
That he had been the original composer?
Yoshiaki Umegaki.
Yeah.
Now, is that performer...
Is Yoshiaki Umegaki, I don't know, actually into drag in real life?
Well, I don't know.
Is that part of just his persona?
Or is it part of his...
I think that's part of his comedy.
So it's just an act.
It's not really who he is?
No.
I guess in some ways, I think that's hard to tell in Japan.
It's so not okay to be out, or at least for so long, it was so taboo to actually be out
that I kind of wonder sometimes whether performers who performed in drag were doing it just for laughs,
or if the only way to safely express that side of themselves was to cover it with,
oh, this is just comedy, you know what I mean?
Anyway, he is the person who made the impression in me.
I see.
And made me believe that's his song.
Got it.
It was funny to find out because he was singing exactly the same song in Tokyo Godfathers.
And there are a bunch of famous people in the voice acting, like taxi driver was Koichi Yamadera.
Oh, okay.
Remember?
No.
I know he's a famous voice actor.
I've heard his name before.
He's the legend.
The legend.
The legend.
Yeah.
Recently, he did a voice for Ryoga in Ranma 2.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Who did Ryoga?
He's not the original.
Both.
Oh, both.
Both.
Okay.
Yeah, they have really great actors in this anime.
So like a little bit about Satoshi Kon, the director.
Kon is also known for anime films Perfect Blue in 1997, Millennium Actress 2001, and Paprika 2006.
After I watched this anime, I was trying to see if there are more of his work.
And then there are no more of his work.
I mean, there are a little bit more.
After Paprika?
After Paprika because he passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Oh, geez.
He was like 40 something.
Oh, so young.
Yeah.
So that was sad to find out.
Yeah, that's devastating.
I'm curious to watch his old works.
Other movies?
Yeah.
Other movies.
Yeah.
I think this one really also...
I had liked Perfect Blue always from the time I first saw it.
I mean, it's a very different movie than Tokyo Godfathers.
It's much less positive.
It's kind of a...
I don't want to say it's horror, but it's a thriller.
It's scary and it's disturbing, but it was really good.
And this was much more lighthearted and sort of fun.
I now regret that I haven't seen the other two, Millennium Actress and Paprika,
制作背景とインスピレーション
to be able to compare them.
Also, Co-Writer is by Keiko Nobumoto,
known as the screenwriter of the TV drama series Hakusen Nagashi.
Do you know about this?
Nope.
This was such a huge hit in Japan.
I've never watched because I was...
I think I was too young to understand the drama.
Okay.
So I didn't watch it, but it was a really big hit.
And the TV anime Cowboy Bebop.
What?
Yeah.
And the creator of the TV anime Wolf's Reign.
Do you know this?
Oh, man.
She wrote Wolf's Reign and Cowboy Bebop?
Yeah.
Okay.
One, it's clear she really likes snow.
But also, that's so cool.
Those are all really, really, really good anime series.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Wolf's Reign is kind of like a sleeper hit.
I feel like not that many people know about it.
But it's very cool.
It's really weird, but it's cool.
And Cowboy Bebop's amazing.
And you can kind of...
I think actually you can really see the influence...
Or not the influence, but like the commonalities
between this and Cowboy Bebop in terms of like
who the main characters are,
the way that they interact with each other,
the sort of comedies and drama
and sort of action mix that's going on in both.
And until you said that,
I definitely would not have thought about them being alike.
But now that I know that one person worked on writing both of them,
it's really easy to see some similarities.
That's very cool.
Interesting.
Oh, good.
Rotten Tomato reported that 92% of critics
have given the film a positive review.
That makes sense.
Kong, the director, was inspired by the 1948 American film
Three Godfathers to make this film.
Have you heard?
I don't know Three Godfathers.
I was thinking maybe Three Men and a Baby.
What is that?
It's a comedy from, I think, the 80s.
That's about...
I mean, they're like middle-class yuppies or something, right?
Like they're not unhoused people,
but they try to raise a baby together.
And I think it's mostly like...
God, I haven't seen it forever.
But I think its main comedy is about men suck at childcare,
which is a very 80s idea, right?
Today it would be like not that funny, I think.
Yeah, we can do this.
But I don't think the baby talks in Three Men and a Baby.
I think that's a different movie that I'm thinking of.
But anyway.
So Three Godfathers is an American Western film
in technical art directed by John Ford
and starring John Wayne,
Okay.
and Pedro Armedes...
Yep.
Don't know who that...
I don't know what name you're trying to say.
I can't help you.
And Harry Carey Jr.
So three half-hearted outlaws
who go to the run with an orphaned infant
they find in the desert.
I wonder if this was also the inspiration
for Three Men and a Baby
and they just remade it in the 80s.
There's a book.
Okay.
So this movie, like an old movie, is based on the book.
And then Kon was inspired by watching this film,
Three Godfathers.
Interesting.
Got the idea, I guess.
I like that Kon decided to have one of the three fathers
be like a teenage girl in the remake
and that rather than focusing on just the father aspect
that Hana, who is an Okama, right?
Like a sort of femi cross-dresser
is also one of the fathers
but really relates to the baby the most
like a mother of the three of them.
Yeah.
I kind of want to watch this old film.
The John Wayne one?
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't really watch old, old movies.
Yeah, you sure don't.
I don't even know where to find it.
Yeah, we'd probably have to get cable or something
or Amazon Prime.
Okay.
I think we should talk a little bit about
日本のクリスマスの祝い方
how Japanese people celebrate Christmas in Japan.
Ooh, okay.
Yeah.
Can you list some weird stuff people do in Japan
during Christmas?
Sure.
So not very many Japanese people are Christians.
Japanese Christians probably celebrate Christmas
similar to Christians elsewhere in the world,
you know, going to church,
singing praises about baby Jesus,
like maybe some present giving.
But non-Christian Japanese people
have decided to interpret Christmas
as a lover's holiday,
which is really interesting
because it doesn't have anything to do with babies.
I don't know why it's supposed to be romantic,
but it's a date holiday in Japan.
It's sort of closer to what Valentine's Day is in America.
You mean like Christmas Eve?
Yeah, I suppose that's true.
Christmas Day isn't even the holiday, right?
Christmas Day is like, so what?
Christmas Day is like time to spend with your family, I guess.
Is it?
Yeah.
Even for non-Christians?
Yeah.
If you have like, especially little kids.
What if it's not a weekend?
It's not a day off, right?
Yeah, no, it's not a day off,
but you know, you still get, you know, cake, Christmas cake.
My favorite Christmas tradition in Japan by far
is Kentucky Fried Chicken.
It's so competitive.
Right.
And the reason for this is
Kentucky Fried Chicken got to Japan pretty early
as fast food restaurants go,
and decided one of the ways it was going to market itself
to Japanese people was by associating itself
with what were perceived to be American holidays,
like Christmas.
And they somehow convinced most people in Japan
that the most Christmassy thing you could do
is eat fried chicken.
I mean, we don't have turkey, I think.
Turkey is not a common food in Japan.
Yeah, but ham is, right?
Ham, like, yeah.
But fried chicken is something similar to turkey by its look.
I think I'm going to take issue with that, actually.
I don't think fried chicken and fried,
I mean, one, you can fry a turkey,
but that's not the way most people prepare it for holidays.
It's usually a roast turkey in an oven.
Okay, we don't have ovens like America.
No, yeah, exactly. Okay.
I think a lot of Japanese people can agree with me
that chicken tastes better than turkey.
I'm not even in a position to dispute this.
A lot of Japanese people say this,
like turkey tastes kind of dry.
That's just because you're preparing it wrong
because you don't have an oven.
No, chicken is more juicy.
I'm vegetarian, by the way.
All right, well, we'll leave matters of taste aside
and just say somehow KFC convinced Japanese people
that it was a Christmas tradition to eat fried chicken.
And I think for some families, it probably is.
I bet there are families out there
that do eat fried chicken for Christmas.
It just isn't most, well, I don't think it's most people.
And I think it wasn't that the KFC representatives in Japan
were legitimately trying to be like,
some people eat fried chicken for Christmas.
I think they were totally cynical
and like Japanese people don't know the difference.
We'll just sell them this and they'll believe us.
And they succeeded.
So yeah, we have to make a reservation
like a few weeks before Christmas.
Otherwise you can't get like a family size fried chicken
on the day of Christmas.
日本のクリスマス文化
It's like a very, it's the same as Christmas cake.
You have to make a reservation.
I just think that's so funny.
The phrase mostly, we have to make a reservation
because yeah, I get that it's like for picking up the takeout
but it sounds like people are making reservations
to eat Kentucky fried chicken on Christmas
which is just like impossible on so many levels in America.
Also, like, I don't know if you remember this
but Kentucky fried chicken in Japan,
they have like a ceremony every year
to pray for dead chickens.
Do you remember this?
Yes, I remember learning this and it blew my mind then
just as much as it's blowing my mind right now.
A lot of employees like dress in suits, like super serious
and they get like, you know, oharai.
Like pay for a Shinto priest to purify them
from the grudges of the dead chickens.
Yeah, like a thank you chickens, like giving us your meat.
This is simultaneously like so impressive
and like very hard for me to take seriously.
Yeah, but it's true though.
Okay, I don't know if Chick-fil-A was even around
or whether KFC saw them as a competitor
but from a really cynical perspective,
what if KFC's plan to make Japanese people
eat fried chicken on Christmas
was a way of preemptively blocking Chick-fil-A
from ever finding success in the country
because they knew Chick-fil-A wouldn't work on Christmas.
Dun, dun, dun, right?
Doesn't it seem like a really good like evil plan
to like Chick-fil-A would never compete with us
on this holy day.
They refuse to work then.
I don't know the history of like those corporations.
Like anyway, so Japan has Christmas cake
because it's Jesus' birthday.
Okay.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, come to think of it,
why don't Americans celebrate Christmas with a cake?
Yeah, why not?
Cheesecake or chocolate cake.
Yeah, I don't know.
Santa likes cookies and milk.
I've never heard that Santa likes cake.
But for Jesus.
Yeah, but Jesus isn't like coming to visit your house
through your chimney
and like eat the stuff you leave out for him, you know?
It's his birthday.
He's in heaven.
Maybe Jesus is getting a cake somewhere else.
Yeah, I don't know.
But like America, like people give a lot of presents
for one person, especially family.
It's true.
Well, I think it depends on your means, you know?
Like and how much you can spare.
But I think modern American culture
has really leaned towards like give more, buy more,
as many presents as possible.
Like that kind of, you know,
maybe that was a thing even before the 80s.
Maybe it goes back to like the 20s
and like the rise of materialism
in American culture generally.
But I feel like especially when I was a child in the 80s,
the number of presents you got at Christmas
was like a tangible sign of how much your parents loved you.
Just like Harry Potter's Dudley.
Just like Dudley from Harry Potter.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think the more materialist America's become,
the more important it has been to show your affection
for other people at Christmastime
via a huge number of presents.
Yeah, like my image of Christmas present
is like home alone, Christmas tree, and then presents.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, but in Japan I think it's common to give just one.
Right.
Like one kind of big present.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
What is today's word of the day?
Okay, so I used this word earlier
and I'm starting to feel like more self-conscious
about saying it even.
Although, well, whatever, we're about to break it down.
okamaの意味とその使用
The word of the day is okama,
which means, it's translated as a lot of things,
some of which are like slurs in English.
But it generally means like an effeminate,
cross-dressing man.
And I settled on like defining it that way
after really thinking about it a little,
because I think a lot of times it's used to mean just gay.
But I don't think that's a good translation
because if you're a really like masculine gay person,
then okama probably does not describe you
and it wouldn't be used to refer to you in Japan.
It's only if you're really feminine,
and especially wearing like female identifying clothing,
dresses, skirts, I don't know,
big hoop earrings or something, lipstick,
like other things that are associated with
dressing like a woman
or sort of performing femininity
that this term really applies.
And I don't think it actually is about attraction.
I think you can be an okama
and be attracted to men or women,
and I don't really think that's what it's about.
So I think it really means just a man who is cross-dressing.
Or just, not even dressing,
but like how they talk.
Oh, okay.
Who is feminine regardless of dress.
Okay, then so maybe it's just like
expressing femininity in any way.
But if you're not expressing femininity,
then I'm not sure,
I mean like I think there's probably people
who do not distinguish
and would use okama for any gay person.
But I think it is most often used
to describe like particularly
sort of like a feminine gay person.
Or maybe, yeah, maybe not gay,
just feminine person.
You hear okama, the word okama,
a lot in Tokyo Godfathers
because Hana calls herself, calls himself.
Himself, because I don't think,
well, I don't know.
I mean this is one of the things
that I think is actually kind of tricky
about both the term
and about like queerness in Japan in general
is to what extent people who identify as okama
think of themselves as either men or women
or non-binary or something else.
In a weird way, I think like
just being a regular gay person in Japan
is like less socially acceptable
than falling into like an identifiable
pre-existing category like okama.
Let's say like conservative Japanese parents
are any more accepting of the idea
of their son being an okama
as opposed to being quote-unquote gay.
Or are those things synonymous?
Like they're the same?
Probably kind of the same.
The same, okay.
So a son who dresses like a man
and behaves quote like a man most of the time
but is not interested in women
is not more or less desirable
than a son who dresses like a woman
even if he's also married to a woman.
I think it doesn't really matter.
It doesn't matter.
Either way, like you're too far away
from the socially expected norm
and it's like it's going to be a problem
for the parents.
I think so, yeah.
Well, so there goes my theory.
But that's okay.
Would you like to add anything else
about Tokyo Godfathers?
I think this is just echoing
some of my sentiment from the beginning
but I think it did a really nice job
東京のホームレスの描写
of portraying unhoused people in Tokyo
in a sympathetic way
that isn't often expressed.
Although the other place
where this is sort of true I think
is actually the Yakuza series of games
which include some unhoused characters
who are given like a, I don't know,
a bigger role or a more like holistic
or humanized role
than in other sort of like games
or media in general
where I think usually just unhoused people
are just invisible.
Like they're not shown in anime series
or in movies very often at all.
It's like they're just sort of ignored.
And here you have a whole movie
about three people
who have like really different circumstances
of how they became unhoused
and how sort of like permanent their status is
and everything else
but that are all treated sort of lovingly
and with respect.
And I think that's true of Hana
and there's a part where they go to a club
that's like all Okama characters
that are also treated
in sort of like a respectful full way
that's really nice to see.
And I think there's some connections there
to the way One Piece addresses this as well
although One Piece does sometimes a better job
and sometimes a worse job
of handling this material.
視聴方法とエンディング
Check your local library
because we actually watched Tokyo Godfathers
for free on Hoopla.
That's right.
Which you can watch it free
with your library card.
On your computer.
On your computer.
I checked LA Public Library
and they have physical disks you can borrow.
So no ads or no interruption.
Cool.
So yeah.
Try it out.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.
If you like this week's episode
please give us how many stars?
Five stars.
Please.
If you liked it.
If you liked it.
Yeah.
Five stars would make a Christmas gift for us.
Oh my God.
Shameless.
Okay.
You can give us five stars if you liked it.
No pressure.
Okay.
Jeez.
Just sing.
It's just one click.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
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