It may have missed the boat on Oscar nominations this year, but the anime feature Tokyo Godfathers should find a sizeable audience when Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment releases it to DVD on April 13.
The third feature from director Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress) is a Capra-esque urban fable about human decency among the down-and-out. The story takes place on Christmas Eve in Tokyo where three homeless people–an alcoholic, a drag queen and a teenage runaway–discover an abandoned baby in a pile of garbage. Rather than turn the infant over to the police, the trio decide instead to embark on an exciting journey to find the baby’s parents themselves.
Produced by world-renowned animation studio Mad House (X, Vampire Hunter D, Ninja Scroll), Tokyo Godfathers will be available as a single disc widescreen DVD for the suggested retail price of $26.96. Bonus features will include an exclusive making-of featurette, trailers and a freestanding Satoshi Kon character illustration postcard. The film is rated PG-13 and runs 91 minutes.
Kon, a two-time Fanta-Asia Film Festival winner (Best Asian Film, Perfect Blue, 1997; Best Animation Film, Millennium Actress, 2001) was recently up for feature directing and writing Annie Awards for his work on Millennium Actress.
