is a 2003 Japanese animated tragicomedy adventure film written and directed by Satoshi Kon. The film stars live-action actors such as Toru Emori, Yoshiaki Umegaki, and Aya Okamoto as the lead voice actors. Kon was inspired by the 1948 American film 3 Godfathers to make the film. Unlike Kon's other films, Tokyo Godfathers contains no fantasy elements nor does it explore themes of the lines between fiction and reality, instead being grounded more in realism. However, as is typical of Kon's work, the film includes devices that are not straightforward, and Kon himself called it a twisted sentimental story. Tokyo Godfathers was released in Japan on November 8, 2003, and in North America on January 16, 2004. It won the Excellence Award at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival and Best Animation Film at the 58th Mainichi Film Awards. Plot One Christmas Eve after watching a children's performance of the nativity scene, three homeless people—a middle-aged alcoholic man named Gin, a transgender woman named Hana, and a dependent teenage runaway girl named Miyuki—discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage for presents. Deposited with the unnamed baby is a note asking the unknown finder to take good care of her and a key, leading to a bag containing clues to the parents' identity. The trio sets out to find the baby's parents. The baby is named Kiyoko by Hana, based on the Japanese translation of "Silent Night" literally meaning "pure child", as she is found on Christmas Eve. Outside a cemetery, the group encounters a high-ranking yakuza boss trapped under his car. The man happens to know the owner of the club where Kiyoko's mother used to work; his daughter is going to be marrying the club's owner that day. At the wedding reception, the groom tells them that the baby's mother is a former bar girl named Sachiko. He gives them Sachiko's address, but the party is interrupted when a maid, revealed to be a Latino hitman in disguise, attempts to shoot the bride's father. The hitman kidnaps Miyuki and baby Kiyoko while holding them hostage at gunpoint and takes them back to his home. There, Miyuki befriends the hitman's wife who happens to have a child of her own and they begin bonding (despite their language barrier). While looking through old photo albums, Miyuki tearfully confesses to fleeing her home after stabbing her controlling father Ishida when