Kazuyoshi Kushida
In a Japan of the near future, government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be voluntarily euthanized to remedy a super-aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a young Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.
A 3-part series of biographical dramas to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the establishment of NHK.
Ohisama is a Japanese television drama that aired on NHK in 2011 in the Asadora time slot. Set in Nagano prefecture, "Ohisama" covers the life of Yoko Sudo (Mao Inoue) through World War II. Yoko Sudo with her smile is able to bring brightness to those around her & she follows her mother's motif to laugh through the hard times. During the onset of WW II, Yoko is a high school student and "Ohisama" follows her as she eventually becomes a teacher and then gets married and has a child. Yoko then opens a soba restaurant with her student. --asianwiki
Riko Narumi plays an unpopular idol who in an attempt to boost her faltering career becomes police chief for a day. During the day a robbery occurs at a convenience store and instead of letting a real police chief deal with the robbery she decides to take the matter into her own hands.
In an alternate version of 1949 Japan in which World War II never happened, the Japanese capital of Teito is home to both an ultra rich upper class and the dirt poor masses. The city is thrown into a state of panic when a phantom thief called “The Kaijin (Fiend) with 20 Faces” (K-20 for short) begins to use his mysterious abilities to steal from the rich and give to the poor. One day a circus acrobat named Heikichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is framed for K-20’s crimes and becomes determined to clear his name. He teams up with K-20’s next target, a wealthy duchess named Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu) and her detective fiancé (Toru Nakamura), to take K-20 down once and for all.
Murakami-inspired supernatural thriller. Japanese office drone Arisu finds his own life imitating the mystery novels of his favourite writer when his wife disappears and he finds he is being pursued by a sinister figure in a rabbit suit.
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Hiroshi wakes up in a hospital room and realizes that he was in a serious car accident that caused the death of his girlfriend, Ryoko, as well as the loss of his memory. While trying to regain his memory, one of the first clues that Hiroshi finds are his old medical textbooks that he studied prior to his accident. This gives him a renewed purpose in life and he delves forward into his medical school studies.
The 13th NHK Asadora. Starring Youko Takahashi in a story about a brother and sister coming of age in Hakodate and Kanazawa.
A popular poet, Goku, becomes depressed when his editor jokingly suggests that he is a sell-out.
A young man reaches adolescence and escapes the nunnery where he survived a tortured upbringing; the world outside suddenly seems even more frightening than before.
The chronicles of Sakamoto Ryoma, a pre-revolutionary who helped shape the face of modern Japan. In order to study swordsmanship, Ryoma heads for Edo where he meets many people who influence his thinking. He becomes close friends with men like Katsu Kaishu and Saigo Takamori and later establishes a naval training school in Kobe. Ryoma's controversial political views make him a target for shogunate assassins but his fervent belief in a classless society helps forge the Choshu-Satsuma alliance which ultimately brings about the Meiji Restoration.
Writer Jippensha Ikku hears Tsutaya Juzaburo, a wholesaler of picture books, mutter on his deathbed, "Where has Sharaku gone?" He begins to figure out the true identity of Sharaku, who disappeared after about 150 portraits of actors he created came out.
Four sexually hungry high school students preparing for their university entrance exams meet up with an inebriated teacher singing bawdy drinking songs. This encounter sets them on a less than academic path.
A young leader of the Yamazaki family of Nagasaki, Takida (Ken Takakura) is an A-bomb survivor. He fiercely battles violent elements in southern Japan like there is no tomorrow.
