Kenji Kohashi
Natsuki, a young woman working for a publishing company, receives an anonymous postcard with a picture of Mt. Everest printed on the back. It reminds her of her brother Kenji, a well-known mountain climber who went missing 2 years ago attempting to climb Everest, who she hasn’t seen in 10 years. Why did Kenji ever go to the mountain? What kind of person was he? Natsuki realizes she doesn’t know her brother at all, but she believed the postcard to be sent by him, and decides to got to Everest to find the answers to her questions.
In 2008, an indiscriminate killing which shocked the whole world was carried out in the street of Akihabara. Director Yûsaku Matsumoto was inspired by the Akihabira killing to look at random acts of violence occurring in Japanese society and exploring the aftermath of one such occurrence, and the building-up to another one. By following several people—perpetrators, victims and family of both alike, he tells a human story about inhumane acts.
In Fly Me to Minami, Lim’s fourth feature film and follow-up to his Stateless Trilogy, two transnational love stories intersect. The first of these stories is between Sherine, a fashion magazine editor from Hong Kong, and Tatsuya, an amateur photographer in Osaka. The second is between Seol-a, a Korean flight attendant, and Shinsuke, a married Korean-Japanese shopkeeper in Osaka’s Korea Town.
Follows the final days of the shogunate and Shinsengumi's Vice-Comander Hijikata Toshizo along with his fellow anti-imperialist group.
A Japanese street racer looks to track down a legendary racer for revenge.
In the year 2011 the greatest tectonic disaster in the history of mankind has occurred. As a result of the catastrophic earthquakes North and South America, Eurasia, Africa and Australia have sunken underwater while the Japanese islands remain untouched.
As Haru emigrates from Japan with her family to the coffee plantations in Brazil, Natsu is left behind in the care of spiteful relatives. Losing all contact, each must make her own way in an unforgiving world. Hardships abound in the struggle to survive in war-torn Japan and in the face of anti-Japanese sentiment in Brazil, financial ruin, familial pressure, abandonment and lost love. However they also experience the precious joy of survival and success. Now, after 70 years, Haru comes back to Japan to find her estranged sister.
The 64th NHK Asadora Renzoku Drama is Churasan, a story of a young woman, Kohagura Eri, who was born in Kohamajima Island, Okinawa on May 15, 1972, the day when Okinawa was returned to Japan from the U.S. Eleven years later, Kamimura Shizuko and her two sons, Kazuya and Fumiya, from Tokyo come to stay as the guests of a small inn run by Eri’s family. Eri’s fun-loving, yet eccentric family welcomes them warmly. However, Eri is shocked to hear one of the sons, Kazuya is terminally ill and Shizuko and her sons came to Okinawa to spend his last moment together in beautiful nature. Fumiya, Kazuya’s younger brother, and Eri promise to marry each other someday. However after Kazuya’s death, Fumiya and his mother leave the island to go back to Tokyo. Years later, they are reunited, Eri as a nurse and Fumiya, a doctor, working at the same hospital in Tokyo.
Misaki decides to join the Brass Band Club having heard of its prestigious past from her father, a former member. However, Misaki finds that much has changed and the club is now full of dull and inactive students. Misaki determines to do her best to return the club to its glory days, but she must help many of the students overcome their personal problems.
Abandoned by his mother and having had to fend for himself, Ryuu is one of many Japanese youths that have turned to a life of petty crime in order to survive in Japanese society. Life on the streets has given him a tough exterior, but it is his kind heart and his dislike for what he has become that wins over a local beauty and helps him take his first steps towards a better life. When an overzealous and less than ethical police inspector fingers Ryuu for a crime he didn't commit, he is resigned to accept his fate. However, help emerges from an unexpected source to give him the strength to fight for his freedom: a victim of one of his past crimes.
Swallowtail Butterfly takes place in an alternate Japan, in a ghetto where immigrants from all over the world have come to live and make their fortune. The city is called Yentown, and it is much like Tokyo. Sixteen-year-old Ageha (Ito), a young girl whose mother has just died, is passed on from person to person until a prostitute named Glico (Chara) finally takes pity on her. Under Glico's care, Ageha has many experiences with the other poverty-stricken immigrants in Yentown. Eventually, due to a sudden twist in fate, the immigrants are given a chance to realize their dreams. But in doing so, they destroy their solidarity, and have to face their problems separately.
One summer day a group of sixth-grade boys have an argument about whether fireworks are round or flat when viewed from different angles and embark on a journey for the answer during the annual firework festival. Meanwhile, one of their classmates, Nazuna, is troubled by her parents' separation and decides to choose one of the boys to run away with.
