Miyuki

Miyuki is one of the three main protagonists of Tokyo Godfathers. She's a runaway girl with a past she can’t talk about. And although she thinks of herself as an independent woman, Hana and Gin have been taking care of her so that she can survive life on the streets.

Appearance
Miyuki is a teenaged girl, perhaps around 15-16 years of age. It is speculated that she is around 15 following Gin stating that Miyuki is about 6 years younger than his 21 year old daughter, also named Kiyoko. She has brown eyes and black hair. She wears a dark, wide brim hat with cotton headwear underneath along with a red-brown coat. Underneath her coat she appears to wear dark jogging trousers, and a grey-yellow sweatshirt over a collared white shirt, with a brown pleated skirt over the top of her trousers. These are perhaps part of her original school uniform that it is speculated she ran away in. She additionally wears grey leg warmers over her lower legs and upper part of her footwear, a green scarf, and brown, possibly leather, gloves.

In the past, Miyuki was slightly overweight, but after 6 months on the streets, she has lost a substantial amount of weight.

Personality
Miyuki's backstory deals with her fear of returning home. She is a runaway girl who leaves home because she hated her father's over-controlling ways, which comes to a head following Miyuki's belief that he may have killed her cat, leading to a distraught Miyuki having a violent outburst towards her father. Miyuki believes that her father would never forgive her, and that if he found her, he would have her arrested and imprisoned. Her strained relationship with her parents appears to have made her feel quite isolated in her home life, furthering her belief that she has more freedom being homeless, despite how dangerous it is.

Miyuki considers herself to be a very independent young woman, however at her young age, she greatly relies on the support and safety that Hana and Gin provide for her in order to survive on the streets. Miyuki appears to be a very headstrong individual, which can sometimes lead to revealing her more stubborn and short-tempered nature, however she is still very playful, often joking, teasing, and making sarcastic comments with Gin and Hana, who appear to act as surrogate parents. Miyuki is a very nurturing and kind-hearted individual, having previously rescued an abandoned cat, which she later adopted and named Angel, and being willing to take care of Kiyoko, with whom she takes a role somewhere between mother and older sister. She is very protective of those she cares about, stabbing her father when she believed him to have killed Angel, keeping Kiyoko close to her body during the hostage situation, as well as chasing Sachiko down to rescue Kiyoko.

It is shown several times that Miyuki has a brave streak, not hesitating to risk herself during both of Sachiko's suicide attempts, physically fighting with Gin over her beliefs, and willingly running head first into danger to protect Kiyoko. She has lived on the streets for over 6 months, which for many would be terrifying, especially as a teenage girl, however, the biggest challenge for her bravery has been the times where despite her great fear, she has attempted to reconnect with her parents.

When Kiyoko is reunited with her parents, Gin, Hana, and Miyuki are made her godparents, although Kiyoko is renamed to be given the name her parents had originally chosen for her.

It appears that Miyuki has an affinity for cats, as shown when a group of feral cats gather around her, and later react in anger towards Gin, following Miyuki's anger towards him joking about wanting to eat the cats.

Home Life
Before she ran away from home, she lived with her policeman father and religious mother. Miyuki was overweight, but after living on the streets for 6 months, she had lost a significant amount of her weight, which is noticeable between flashbacks and the present. She once rescued a cat and named her 'Angel', because of the markings that resembled wings on her back. However, Angel went missing and Miyuki attacked her father, believing he had something to do with it, possibly killing the cat. Although unclear, it seems as though Miyuki's father was a fairly absent from her life and doesn't notice or pay any attention to her. We can assume that this is due to his job as a high-ranking police officer, or because he's simply a neglectful father. When she stabbed him, she called him selfish and threw a scarf at him. She had made that scarf for him as a gift, which went unappreciated, yelling at her father "Why don't you wipe up your blood with the scarf I made you? At least then you'd use it!"

Her father does seem to care for her, but perhaps has struggled to show it in the past. When he saw Miyuki on the train, he tried to gain her attenhern, banging on the train door and yelling out to her. During this, he is seen wearing the scarf Miyuki made for him. Later on when Miyuki phones, despite her not speaking, he immediately knows it's her, and asks with a tone of desperation if she is okay. It doesn't seem that her father holds any resentment towards her over their fight, although Miyuki is still ashamed about the incident, and afraid he'll never forgive her.

Homelessness
Miyuki ran away from home after the attack and refused to go back. She then met Gin, a middle-aged hobo who is an alcoholic with a history of gambling and Hana, a caring trans woman who fell into homelessness after her partner Ken passed away. She began to live with them in their tent and did whatever she could to survive being homeless, such as searching through bins for discarded food. It was during a search for books through discarded paper recycling that baby Kiyoko was found, beginning their fateful journey to reunite the baby with her parents. Through their journey, each of the three is reunited with their past families, Gin with his daughter, and Hana with her foster mother, however Miyuki was almost reunited with her father more than once, with the third time being a success. Firstly they pass by on opposite trains, seeing each other, secondly Miyuki tries to phone him, but becomes too upset to speak, and finally, after her 6 months of living with Hana and Gin, and her adventure with Kiyoko, she reunites with her father at the hospital. It is presumed that Miyuki likely returned home with her father and resumed a normal life with her family, while keeping in contact with Gin, Hana, and Kiyoko (although now renamed to her true birth name)'s family.

Trivia

 * Miyuki has been mistaken for being Kiyoko's mother twice.
 * There are many possible kanji readings for Miyuki however the two that fit surprisingly well for this movie are 三幸 (three and fortune) and 三雪 (three and snow). These can be read as "the fortune of three", or "three in the snow".
 * Miyuki's father is known only by his surname Ishida (石田) meaning Miyuki's full name is likely Miyuki Ishida (Ishida Miyuki 石田 ミユキ)