Can we ever be freed from the "curse of love" that dictates "women must be pretty and fall in love"?
A humorous and at times affecting chronicle of an artistic girl’s life and loves from elementary school, through university, into young adulthood.
Elementary schoolgirl Shigusa is an only child who likes to spend time alone illustrating scenes from her life. One day, Shigusa decides she wants to experience having a boyfriend and arbitrarily asks a kid in her cram school class to go steady. Shigusa is also the target of romantic advances from her creepy teacher, raising the ire of her female classmates. Her illustrations grow increasingly distraught. Years later, Shigusa is now in arts university and living with her boyfriend Saeki, who studies modern dance. Saeki’s friends criticize him for losing his edge so he breaks up with Shigusa, whom he feels is holding him back. The episode inspires Shigusa to create an art installation based on her journals and objects from their life together. Jumping ahead, Shigusa is interning at an advertising firm, where she’s sexually and power harassed by her boss. Her boss’ soft spoken colleague Eiji empathizes with Shigusa’s situation. The pair begin a relationship, but it falls apart over the course of one memorable hiking trip. Shigusa mounts yet another art exhibition, this time absurdly staged as her own funeral. Time passes and Shigusa is supporting herself as a videographer. She reconnects with Saeki, who’s now a theatre director teaching weekly classes. Matured Saeki apologizes for their university-days breakup. Shigusa’s self-imposed pressure to get married “before it’s too late” is relieved and she has an enigmatic encounter with herself as a child. During an artistic session with Saeki, Shigusa breaks through to another side of herself through a different form of expression...

Naomi works for his father’s disposal business, picking up people’s junk day in and day out. He keeps some choice finds for himself in a private garage, where he wishes for a better life away from home. One day, he runs into a young man named Maki at the local swimming pool. Maki lives with his blind adoptive mother, Midori. After being hospitalized, Midori entrusts her dream of traveling the world to Maki, but the savings she gifts him aren’t enough. Instead, Maki and Naomi utilize an old cassette recorder to ‘visit’ famous natural wonders of the world, recreating them sonically. Like an amateur foley team, they employ makeshift items and locations to simulate Italy’s Blue Grotto, Arizona’s Antelope Canyon, and South America’s Iguazu Falls. Naomi begins spending more time away from his disappointed girlfriend and father to be with Maki. As their bond deepens, the pair’s playful roughhousing escalates into more serious physical battles of will until their relationship reaches a breaking point.

Three women of different generations cross paths in a placid satellite city of Tokyo as they excavate the memories of their pasts.
A summer day in the overgrown leafy environs of once hopeful Tokyo satellite city Tama New Town. While tidying up, unemployed 44-year-old Chizu discovers a postcard from an old friend sent several years ago suggesting they get together now that she’s moved nearby. After another unsuccessful session at the local job center, Chizu wanders Tama’s similar-looking streets in search of the postcard address, but meets an unexpected result. While on her rounds, 33-year-old gas company meter inspector Sanae spots Chizu up a tree after failing to help some kids. Soon after, she hears a neighborhood announcement about a senile elderly man who’s wandered off. Sanae escorts him home but it’s both the wrong and right location. At the town park, 22-year-old university student Natsu practices her dance steps while Chizu follows along at a distance. On the anniversary of Natsu’s childhood friend Dai’s death she visits his mother and returns a receipt for a roll of undeveloped photographs, but Dai’s mother encourages Natsu to keep them. As the three women delicately mine their pasts and ponder the nature of memory itself, connections and inspiration emerge in the spaces of their shared community.

Ichiro, a young man who rejects society and becomes his mother's pet "cat", lives with his modest mother and alcoholic father. One day, his mother meets with her ex-boyfriend. Soon after, the man and his daughter come to the house, and a strange life of five people living together under one roof begins. The music is composed by the Japanese music idol group NILKLY.

Saimon and Takashi are best friends and both are in the 3rd year at an industrial high school. Saimon will enter university but Takashi is slated to take over his father's motor repair shop. Takashi is always falling in love with girls at school, but he inevitably ends up with a broken heart, so he turns to Saimon for advice. Dull Takashi never suspects that Saimon actually loves him. During their last summer holiday at high school, Takashi decides to take a journey looking for love and Saimon ends up joining him. As Takashi plays his guitar for the woman of his destiny, Saimon is conflicted about his feelings, his love for Takashi. In the end, the two high school boys arrive at a startling conclusion which spurs them to want to move on and begin their new lives.

Tokiko, whose life in Tokyo has reached a dead end, impulsively hops on a midnight bus one summer day and heads to a rural town. Yohei, a high school student who lives in the town, struggles alone unable to accept the death of a young man he looked up to like an older brother. The two meet at a mountain hut that has been abandoned for years, and eventually Tokiko's past comes to light. Tokiko and Yohei sensitively sympathize with each other's thoughts and words as two souls who have both experienced the deaths of someone close to them, and they seize the opportunity to head towards tomorrow.

The father runs a bed and breakfast in the mountains. The younger sister is currently wandering around the world. The mother has disappeared. And 30-year-old Kenji, about to be forced to surrender their house in which he now lives alone, has just lost his job. This story could be about any of us, taking a long time to stand up on our own two feet. Each of us constitutes "homes," "families," "adults," "children," "societies," and the "world," and this is a work that gives us all a gentle boost.

In a noisy classroom, biology teacher Madoka proceeds with his lesson in a small voice.He is unable to look the students square in the face nor admonish them for talking or sleeping in class. Only Tsubura looks upon him with a smile. Very much infatuated with Madoka, she records his idiosyncrasies in her biology notebook through illustrations--tapping his hand on his chin is proof that he is annoyed; messily tugging at his hair when he is at his wits' end. Tsubara,fearful of being forgotten after she dies, only eats things loaded with preservatives so that even if she dies, her body will not rot. Believing such things, Tsubara, thinking that "combining Mr. Madoka who has no one with me who needs someone would surely be perfect,"gets the wild idea of a genital exchange with Madoka.

The story takes place in a new residential area in the outskirts of Tokyo. A family photograph adorns the living room of the Hashimoto family. It is a heartwarming shot of the three family members from when they first moved here, finally having bought their own home that they had wanted for so long.

The wife, Michiko, hangs the laundry out on the balcony in the morning to dry. While she straightens out her husband's shirts, the husband, Ken-ichi, has finished eating breakfast alone and leaves for work without a word. Their son, Hiroaki, who hasn't been able to find stable work, leaves the house everyday to go to a part-time job. He comes home early in the morning and immediately disappears into his room. The Hashimoto family members no longer eat meals together at the dining table, or spend time together in the living room. Michiko yearns for a different relationship with her family than the one they have now, and is gradually overcome by loneliness. While feeling pressured from the trifling matters that occur within the residential area community, she tries to fill the emptiness that she hides in her heart.

Although this family might appear to be a strange one at first, similar situations probably exist in many other ordinary families. This film observes such relationships in a reserved manner.

Sawako has lived in Tokyo for five years, is working her fifth office job, and is dating her fifth boyfriend, who is also her boss at the office. Her life with Kenichi, her boyfriend, and his daughter from a previous marriage, Kayoko, feels like a "compromise," and she endures each day feeling distressed about her career and love life. One day, she receives word that her father, Tadao, who runs a freshwater clam processing business in her hometown, has fallen ill. There is a reason why Sawako would rather not go back home so easily, but she reluctantly decides to return at Kenichi's insistence. But Kenichi, who had actually quit his job shortly before Sawako, uses this opportunity to come along with Sawako to her hometown with his daughter in tow. Thus Sawako's ordeals continue. Still, she takes over her father's clam processing company and begins to work there.

Manzo Ishiguro is a 38-year-old bachelor. His occupation is a fisherman. Day after day, he goes out to sea on the fishing boat that his father left him and pitches the fishing net. Manzo is lonely. "I can't stand this anymore." His deep sorrow echoes emptily in the one-storied house. One day, at the port town where Manzo lives, a party sponsored by the town office for prospective brides to meet the bachelors in town takes place. The town itself suffered from a severe lack of women willing to marry the local men, so the single fishermen frantically try to attract the attention of the gorgeous women gathered from Tokyo. Manzo also wears his best outfit and attends the party, but the result is a crushing defeat. His feelings don't connect with anybody. Then, intruders suddenly appear in the lonely house where Manzo sits dejected. They are Mitsuko and Masao, a mysterious mother and son. Although Manzo drives them away at first, he eventually warms up to the two intruders because he longs for a happy family. Thus, a strange house-sharing situation is born. However, although this pseudo-family-like relationship appears to run smoothly for a while, it does not last for long...

This is a somewhat heartwarming story revolving around an oasis in the city. The main character is a middle-aged woman, Tsuyako, the owner of a slightly worn down "love hotel". She is a disagreeable and unsociable woman, who manages a hotel on the roof of which a small park has been built for reasons unknown. There, old people and children visit this relaxing place one after the other, and amidst their daily existence in the cramped city, their feelings are healed, for a brief moment, in this "free zone" of the heart. It is a curious space, the reason for which it was built, and by whom or when, is unknown. The film looks gently upon the various wayward women of differing age groups who come to this small park and their emotional exchange with the frugal owner. This story of isolated women sharing in other people's grief, and attempting their own rebirth in a corner of the city, is a bold "fight song" raised to all women. This fantastic, moving and masterful women's film will bestow upon the viewer's heart a modest will to live.

Ryo's days teaching eighth graders should be as ordinary as any other. Instead, she spends her energy mediating a tense atmosphere between the students and faculty. Allowing the students a benefit of the doubt with her co-workers, she seeks a less authoritative relation with the students. Ryo walks this very taught rope because of an inner desire to help.
For the young teens, however, there is only the frustration of having ones ambitions crushed by self-important adults who treat them as children just as their emotions are awakening to adolescence. This tightly held bitterness uncoils in flashes of anger and when Ryo is subjected to the unique viciousness of fourteen-year-olds, her troubled past is exposed, jarring her unstable emotions.
By coincidence she encounters Koichi, a familiar face from her student days. Koichi is an average company man, working for the local electric power company. He has started tutoring a young boy in piano after his co-worker learned that he used to play as a child. Apathetically listening to the boy play with little talent but genuine desire, Koichi is taken to a moment in his youth when he decided to quit. And when the boy asks for some advice, Koichi begins to laugh.
Ryo and Koichi share a connection as adults they barely possessed as classmates. Reliving their adolescent traumas, teacher and tutor discover that the fourteen-year-old within them still smolders just beneath their "grown-up" facade, inflicting the same kind of hurt they resented as teens. They come to realize that to fight for the future, they need to make peace with the past.

A portrait of the relationship between Minako, a girl in junior high deserted by her mother when she was young, and Yu, Minako's younger half-sister who loves to ballet dance. On a whim, Minako takes Yu to the house of their late grandparents near the sea. While she spends time taking care and playing with her little sister, she reminisces on her own happy childhood. Yet as she assumes a maternal role to her younger sibling, Minako experiences the conflicted feelings between self-reliance and reliance in this work depicting the budding womanhood of a young girl.

When scattered strings of time converge,Good fortune is sure to follow

It all started one Friday night when broken hearted and lackluster businessman Miyata returned home after losing the love of his life, only to be called out again by his private investigator friend. The two meet at a restaurant, where Miyata runs into a woman and falls in love, but in the shadows something unbelievable awaits them all...Three episodes as seen from the viewpoints of five people - a devastated Miyata, a detective who is tired of his job, a yakuza boss having trouble running his organization, a woman thrown into despair by a two-timing fiancé, and a con woman who twists men around her finger-are sandwiched between a short prologue and epilogue. The relationships between seemingly simple and isolated episodes begin to surface one after the other as the story progresses, bringing friendships to light and exposing the complicated nature of human beings. While Miyata remains oblivious to the events happening around him, surely his kindness and braverywill encourage broken hearted guys everywhere to keep trying.

In a small town on the countryside, where everyone knows everyone, all the children pay their respect to the middle-aged woman who runs "Barber Yoshino". An old tradition is rooted in this town. Every young boy is forced to have the same ridiculous hairstyle to have their bangs cut straight, known as the "Yoshino-gari" hairstyle. Of course they all get their hair done at the only barbershop in town, "Barber Yoshino". Then one day, a drastic change occurs when a transfer student with bleached hair comes from Tokyo...

KUROSAWA Daigo (MURAKAMI Jun), an unmotivated taxi driver on the job, runs over MATSUDA Shuji (SAWAKI Tetsu), who comes speeding by on his bicycle. Although the accident is not serious, Shuji insists on heading north to Hokkaido with a shadowed look about him. Daigo becomes worried and decides to go along. MIYAJI Daizuke (MITSUISHI Ken), in his mid-40s, still leads a life of a good-for-nothing punk. Because of the betrayal of his follower, he ends up being pursued by a yakuza (gangster) leader. What crosses his mind when he realizes that he has no future is his daughter that he deserted when she was in junior high. For AIKAWA Misa (ASO Yumi), a house of her own is the symbol of a happy family. But her son is being beaten up at school, her husband has been laid off, and the family ties no longer exist. To protect the image of her family that is now only illusion, Misa's life begins to fall out of gear. UEHARA Haruka (MAEDA Ayaka), who has many friends, appears to be ordinary high school girl. But she lives alone in an apartment and has a secret that she never shares her friends. People who have wounds in their relationship which their families meet for a fleeting moment, show sings of making contacts, but then part away. The story of each character repeats the pain of separation and becomes entangled with each other, and eventually discovers something in the end.

KUROSAWA Daigo (MURAKAMI Jun), an unmotivated taxi driver on the job, runs over MATSUDA Shuji (SAWAKI Tetsu), who comes speeding by on his bicycle. Although the accident is not serious, Shuji insists on heading north to Hokkaido with a shadowed look about him. Daigo becomes worried and decides to go along. MIYAJI Daizuke (MITSUISHI Ken), in his mid-40s, still leads a life of a good-for-nothing punk. Because of the betrayal of his follower, he ends up being pursued by a yakuza (gangster) leader. What crosses his mind when he realizes that he has no future is his daughter that he deserted when she was in junior high. For AIKAWA Misa (ASO Yumi), a house of her own is the symbol of a happy family. But her son is being beaten up at school, her husband has been laid off, and the family ties no longer exist. To protect the image of her family that is now only illusion, Misa's life begins to fall out of gear. UEHARA Haruka (MAEDA Ayaka), who has many friends, appears to be ordinary high school girl. But she lives alone in an apartment and has a secret that she never shares her friends. People who have wounds in their relationship which their families meet for a fleeting moment, show sings of making contacts, but then part away. The story of each character repeats the pain of separation and becomes entangled with each other, and eventually discovers something in the end.

The setting is Hokkaido, where Kumakiri is from. Ichio, who works at his father's run-down drive-in located along a national road, has lived his life withdrawn into his shell, looking at things in a slanted way. Then, when his father goes away on a trip, Ichio is forced to look after the shop by himself, and he meets Taeko, a tourist who drops by at the shop after breaking up with her lover, and falls in love with her.
A man who has lived in a "hole" loves a woman by dragging her into his "hole". Meanwhile, the woman is only looking for temporary solace. Ichio's happiness eventually becomes affected by suspicion and jealousy, and crumbles without resistance. Then, when he thoroughly faces his own pitiful self, he finally makes the decision to leave his "hole".