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A coming of age tale about Kanto, a 14 year old boy, and a descendant of Japan's indigenous Ainu people, who struggles to come to terms with the recent loss of his father. One day, he learns about the small hole in the cliff in nearby forest that Ainu people considered a path to the other side of the world - where dead people live. Kanto decides to visit the hole, hoping to see his deceased father.

An old married couple Shukichi Hirayama and Tomiko live on a small island in the Inland Sea. They go to Tokyo. The couple have 3 children. The eldest son Koichi runs a hospital. The first daughter Shigeko runs a beauty salon. The second son Shuji works in stage art. The families ask the parents to take a rest in Tokyo, but the parents do not like staying in Tokyo. One day, Tomiko visits Shuji's apartment. There, Tomiko is introduced to Shuji's fiancé Noriko, but Tomiko collapses at Koichi's house.

In Tokyo, the reckless single mother Keiko moves to a small apartment with her twelve years old son Akira Fukushima and his siblings Shigeru and Yuki. Kyoko, another sibling arrives later by train. The children have different fathers and do not have schooling, but they have a happy life with their mother. When Keiko finds a new boyfriend, she leaves the children alone, giving some money to Akira and assigning him to take care of his siblings. When the money runs out, Akira manages to find means to survive with the youngsters without power supply, gas or water at home, and with the landlord asking for the rent.

In 1993 Kanao and Shoko are a Tokyo couple awaiting the arrival of their first child. Although both have studied art, Kanao works as a shoe repairman which doesn't stretch his rather laid-back style and Shoko works in a small publishing firm. Their home life is marked by some clashes between her attempts at regimentation, including scheduling their sex life on a calendar, and his flirting with other women. Kanao is offered work as a courtroom sketch artist and becomes a witness to the most sensational murder trials of Japan through the next 8 years. He must cope with the ugliness and breakdown in civility he encounters. Shoko also re-discovers her artistic side as she confronts the dark side of life when struggling with depression over the loss of a child and the dysfunctional aspects of the lives of her mother and brother.

Six women attempt to make it in current day Tokyo, living their everyday lives the best and worst they can. For them, every little moment becomes a ritual of the ordinary and the exciting, a balancing act for their dreams and hopes as the days perpetually tug on their heartstrings.

Yuko is 35 years old, single, out of work, and on medication from her psychiatrist to combat her manic depression. Living in Kamata Town, Yuko divides her time between a variety of men friends, each with his own peculiarities. Her university classmate, Homma, suffers from impotence. "K", whom she meets on the net, is a self-confessed pervert. Then, there is a young gangster, Yasuda, who is a fellow manic depressive. Her cousin, Shoichi, is also on the scene, having left his family to pursue his mistress, only to be given the cold shoulder by her, too. Yuko seems to create a different persona depending on whom she is talking to at the time. Human contact is just as important for her as for anyone else, but sometimes her condition makes it difficult for others to relate to her for as long as she would like.

Sawa Yamagishi worked as a nursing-care helper. The family of an old man asked Sawa to sleep with him, which led her to eventually lose her job and house. Now, she has nowhere to go. Sawa finds elderly people in trouble and gets involved in their lives. Meeting them, their lives change and Sawa's own wounds start to heal.

Would you choose your natural son, or the son you believed was yours after spending 6 years together? Kore-eda Hirokazu, the globally acclaimed director of "Nobody Knows", "Still Walking" and "I Wish", returns to the big screen with another family - a family thrown into torment after a phone call from the hospital where the son was born... Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life as a winner. Then one day, he and his wife, Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital. Their 6-year-old son, Keita, is not 'their' son - the hospital gave them the wrong baby. Ryota is forced to make a life-changing decision, to choose between 'nature' and 'nurture.' Seeing Midori's devotion to Keita even after learning his origin, and communicating with the rough yet caring family that has raised his natural son for the last six years, Ryota also starts to question himself: has he really been a 'father' all these years...

The manager of a pancake stall finds himself confronted with an odd but sympathetic elderly woman looking for work. A taste of her homemade red bean paste convinces him to hire her, which starts a relationship that is about much more than just street food.

Four women. All in their 30s. Three married, one divorcee. They are able to tell each other anything. Or at least they thought. One day, after losing in divorce court, one of them gives up on a future with their partner and disappears. The three remaining women take a second look at their lives. The long night is full of questions. 'Are you really the you you wanted to be?'

Two boys, whose parents ply their trade by the mouth of a muddy river in Osaka, become close friends. The two families' "businesses" are in fact dining and prostitution. When Nobou, the restauranteur's son, loses his pocket money during the Tenjin Festival, Kiichi, the prostitute's boy, invites him home, and he learns the truth.

Suzuko is 21 years old and lives at home. A coworker offers to share an apartment with her. After they sign the lease, Suzuko discovers that her coworker has planned to share her room with her boyfriend. However, the day she moves in, the couple have broken up, leaving her with the boyfriend as a roommate. She finds a small kitten on her balcony and brings it in. She goes to the store to buy it food. When she returns, she finds out that her depressed roommate has thrown the kitten out. Finding the dead kitten in the road, Suzuko throws all her roommates belongings out. She is arrested and criminally charged. She ends up in prison. Upon her release, she finds herself dealing with the neighborhood gossip and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to a place where no one knows her and to continue repeating the process. She discovers many things about herself, as she corresponds with her younger brother, (who is dealing with bullies) and meets new people on her travels.

The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhood friend, Yu.

Frenchwoman Joan is a world traveller and chronicler. She travels, sees, experience and writes. She lands in the forest and hills near Nara, Japan and meets Satoshi. Despite the mysterious aura and eccentric personality the woodsman finds a place in the visitor's heart.

A young woman's husband apparently commits suicide without warning or reason, leaving behind his wife and infant. Yumiko remarries and moves from Osaka to a small fishing village, yet continues to search for meaning in a lonely world.

In a Japanese port town, Tatsuo, a traumatized man, spends his days drifting aimlessly and his nights drinking himself to oblivion. Whiling his hours away at a pachinko parlor, he meets Takuji, a young man on parole who impulsively invites him to a shabby house on the outskirts of town. There, Tatsuo glimpses Takuji's bedridden father and callous mother, and meets his world-weary older sister Chinatsu. While immediately drawn to each other, romance is an unaffordable luxury for the emotionally closed-off Tatsuo and the disillusioned Chinatsu, who sells herself to provide for her family and keep her brother out of jail. As Tatsuo and Chinatsu take tentative steps towards a relationship, the happy-go-lucky Takuji latches onto Tatsuo, binding their fates. Each step they take to build a better life sets off a chain of actions that have devastating consequences.

It is not strange or unusual for a couple to want to procreate and have a child. However, things are not proceeding smoothly for the couple formed by Kiyokazu and his wife Satoko. Despite steadily trying to get the wife pregnant the couple yield to reality and, exhorted by a professional association, the couple proceed to adopt a boy. They two are happily adapting to their adopted son, but a woman named Hikari Katakura shows up soon enough emphasizing she is the boy's biological mother. Satoko decides to face Hikari.

Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and failed development plans cause tragedy in the family.