Tomoko Yamaguchi
Detective Goro Nanase and his colleagues of "Akatsuka Detective Office" are based in Shimo-Akazuka of Itabashi-ku, Tokyo. The detectives take on a string of challenging cases that no one else wants to take on.
Ryota, a timid salaryman who has difficulties fitting in at home and work has his average life changed after his estranged father falls ill. Along with his wife Sae and their only child Moe, he travels to his father's country town, where he begins to uncover his father's mysterious past spent searching for a mythical creature.
The son of a sailor, 5-year old Sosuke lives a quiet life on an oceanside cliff with his mother Lisa. One fateful day, he finds a beautiful goldfish trapped in a bottle on the beach and upon rescuing her, names her Ponyo. But she is no ordinary goldfish. The daughter of a masterful wizard and a sea goddess, Ponyo uses her father's magic to transform herself into a young girl and quickly falls in love with Sosuke, but the use of such powerful sorcery causes a dangerous imbalance in the world. As the moon steadily draws nearer to the earth and Ponyo's father sends the ocean's mighty waves to find his daughter, the two children embark on an adventure of a lifetime to save the world and fulfill Ponyo's dreams of becoming human.
The main hero of this film is the spirit of the once very popular wooden statuette called Billiken. It's a small god with a pointed head, a fat belly and a characteristic smile. When the casket in which the statuette was found is broken, the spirit of Billiken is free. After that he tries to fulfill the wishes of all those who had prayed to him, but it doesn't always works.
A music school graduate, Sena worked part-time teaching piano after failing to move on to graduate school. One day, an older woman named Minami comes to visit Sena’s apartment, dressed in a bridal gown. Minami explained that she had been engaged to Sena’s roommate, but that he did not show up for the wedding. Minami then decides to stay in the apartment to wait for her fiancé. And so this is how Minami and Sena begin their strange life together. Sena tries to cheer up Minami by telling her that “when life isn’t going your way, just think of that time as a long vacation, given by God.” However, Sena also has his share of problems and is finding it hard to believe in himself. He is also dealing with frustrations in his relationship with a girl at school, which seemed to be going nowhere. With their own sets of problems, Sena and Minami slowly grow to be indispensible to each other. The story follows the heart of a man so pure that he has difficulty expressing himself, and his relationship with a woman who is inspired by his innocent soul to retrieve the emotions she had forgotten.
In love for the first time, cases booked solidly for months and a brand new fax machine prodding his office into the nineties, down-on-his-luck private eye Maiku "Mike" Hama has the world on a string at last. Or does he? In The Trap, things are not what they seem. When a hooded stranger appears in his office with the cryptic challenge "I want you to look for me," Hama is drawn into a string of bizarre serial murders that have Yokohama's police baffled and the city terrified.
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.
Noriko is approaching 30 and is still unmarried. She is a fashion designer, dreaming of success and a Paris Collection. On her 29th birthday her world falls apart. Her boss transfers her from design to managing a bar. Her boyfriend betrays her for another woman. Shocked, Noriko decides to leave home and to move in with her best friend, Aya. The story of one woman's struggle to find happiness and love.
One night, as pub owner Sotaro is caring for his sick wife, Shizuko, she asks him to promise that if she dies, he will never remarry. Thinking she is just being dramatic, he promises and tells her to go to sleep. When he wakes the next morning, however, Shizuko is dead. Sotaro keeps his promise, until one day he meets Satoko. The two quickly fall in love, and agree to get married. Their first night together, however, is interrupted by Shizuko, who is angry over her husband's broken promise. Sotaro and Satoko must find some way of appeasing the spirit before she drives them from their home.
Moemi is not overly pleased when Yukio brings home a couple of turtles to keep her company. Their lives seem reasonably happy until she has her braces removed, and Yukio finds kissing her less satisfying. She soon starts tying up everything in her sight with knotted twine, starting with the turtles. A psychiatrist diagnoses "Obsessive Knot-Binding Syndrome" due to deficiencies in her relationship with Yukio. Moemi continues to expand her activities, tying herself in knots with cords stretching across the apartment. The doctor tells Yukio that her illness has reached a critical point, and that he should tie her up that evening. This he proceeds to do, with her encouraging him to bind her more and more. Where will this end?
A heartwarming situation comedy about a newlywed couple sharing a house with the husband's parents in a suburb of Tokyo. Ordinary situations become hilarious cross-generational battlegrounds, as the wife and her mother-in-law pursue vastly different images of the ideal family. --TBS
