Discoveries from Japan World Cinema

Daikichi is a 70-year-old man and lives on a small island. Since his wife died, he has lived with his cat Tama. Daikichi was born and raised on the small island and enjoys relaxing days with his childhood friends including Iwao and his cat Tama. Daikichi has a son Tsuyoshi who lives in Tokyo. Tsuyoshi worries a bit about his father living alone on the island, but Daikichi is content with his life. After his close friend passes away, Daikichi worries about his physical condition. His daily life begins to change. Based on manga series "Neko to Jiichan"

A Christmas Eve power outage provides a collection of troubled Tokyo denizens the opportunity to come clean on the misdeeds of their past.

Benkei, a master fighter and killer, vows never to take another life after his conversion to Buddhism. His faith in pacifism, however, is shaken and ultimately broken by the attacks from a trio of fighters known only as the demons. Taking up his sword once more, he sets out to end their murderous terror.

The Goddess Venus is jealous of the beautiful human girl Psyche and blames her pet unicorn, Unico, as Psyche's source of good luck that keeps her from the harm of the goddess' cruel intentions. Unico has the amazing power to make anyone he meets happy. Whether it's because of his personality or the powers of his horn, no one knows. Venus has Unico banished, and the West Wind now takes Unico from one place and time to the next. Taken to a heavily polluted city, Unico meets a sickly girl named Chiko who is suffering because of the pollution of a nearby factory that darkens the entire sky. Unico then is determined to cheer her up, cure her, and destroy the nearby factory.

Ever since an accident in the mountains outside town, Takuji's slept in a coma; his neighbors care for him as new events occur every day.

An entry in a series focused on "love" and "erotica," in which six creators from multiple fields - from film and TV to direct-to-video and manga - compete. The debut film by Director Ito Ippei who worked as an assistant director to Imaoka Shinji, it portrays the love between a real hottie who has the attractiveness to enslave men, and a pure-hearted man. Toda (Hiroshi) meets Haruna (Haruna Hana) who is in pain after being dumped. Toda sees similarities between Haruna and a stray kitten he saved that day, and hopes he will bump into the sad woman again someday. His wish comes true, but at an unexpected place.

As a new school year begins at Seisho Music Academy, nine third-year students in Class A of the Actor Training Department deepen their bonds as they approach graduation. They reminisce about their growth and face uncertain futures while preparing for classes. The story revolves around their determination to pursue their dreams and the challenges they encounter during the Giraffe's Revue, highlighting their growth and transition to the next chapter of their lives.

Risa Onodera, played by Miyazaki, had a groom runaway on the wedding day four years ago. Her father, Shusaku (Matsushige) and her mother, Machiko (Matsuzaka), built a large two-family house to live with their daughter and her new family. One day, Risa says that she has been proposed to, Shusaku is surprised to see that face. This is because Kotaro (Nagayama) was a former subordinate of his workplace and was now his boss. Although he wants to congratulate his daughter's marriage, Shusaku wonders if he can live with his boss. Where is the love between Risa and Kotaro? Can the two get married? Can Risa and Kotaro, Shusaku and Machiko become a family?

Riding a scooter with Seven left at home, Keita went on a solo trip. Along the way, he meets a mysterious woman. She behaves strangely and elusively. Keita's scooter broke down, and he has to stay overnight at a hot spring inn. A strong yakuza gives him mysterious advice. (director's cut for episodes 19 and 20 of the 'Cellphone Investigator 7' TV show).

Rikiya Shoda is an engineer working for the Atomic Agency in Japan. One day, his wife Nanako returns home with a lost teenager called Ayu. A man, pretending to be the father, comes to get her back; Ayu keeps telling him that Rikiya and Nanako are her parents. Through this disruption, Rikiya suddenly starts remembering his youth as a revolutionary.

A humorous wedding story fueled by a rather no-good father and son, disguised as the old and new “good guys.” The father Nobuo, and his son Tamio, are unable to mature, unable to break the parent-child roles, have no sense of responsibility, and keep holding on to the past. The pair is overwhelmed by all the colorful characters around them telling them what to do. They go to strenuous and humorous efforts to make Tamio’s wedding an event to remember.

6 25-minute long OVA episodes

The twenty-third 'Road to the Don' film.

Taking a message from Hiroshi's father to heart, Torajiro attempts to give up his wandering ways.

Yuichiro is a college student whose sister went missing 15 years ago. That traumatic event hangs over him like a pall as he wanders Japan's S&M clubs. But his younger brother claims to be able to sense their sister with his "antenna".

Japanese youth film about kendo.

A young woman is invited for a free stay at a seemly deserted seaside hotel during the off season. Too late she finds out that the manager likes to collect women for his “playing card” collection and she is next in the pack.

In pre-war Japan, Yumiko, an aristocratic lady, accompanied by her maid, travels to Tokyo to visit her brother. Unaware that her brother has become involved in anti-governmental activities and left the city, the two women are captured, raped and tortured by the military police. Two years later, during the war, the government confiscates Yumiko's estate, turning it into a torture chamber for the inquisition of prisoners. Yumiko and her maid are among those who are subjected to sexual indignities.

THE iDOLM@STER Master Movie was released on September 27th, 2006 at the price of ￥5,500 by Columbia Music Entertainment. The video features live footage of the THE IDOLM@STER 1st ANNIVERSARY LIVE (which was held at Studio Coast on July 23rd, 2006), and a documentary that includes "LESSON SCENES", "SCENE Rehearsals", and cast interviews. All of the songs performed were in their "M@STER VERSIONS". The video is split into sections that correspond with the songs, with each section focusing on the idol and performer who own the image song. While Juri Takita does not appear in the concert, she does appear in the bonus track dramas. Rie Kugimiya was featured in the interview portions of the songs she was featured in. However, her face is not shown during any concert performances due to restrictions from her management at the time. Because of this, Mahou o Kakete! and Here we go!!, though performed as "M@STER VERSIONS", only had small portions of the performances featured on the DVD.

The sixth 'Yakuza Emblem' film.

One week into newlywed Teiko Uhara's marriage, her husband, Kenichi, leaves on a short business trip and never returns. Teiko travels across Japan to search for him, and along the way discovers some surprising facts about her husband's past. With only a pair of old photographs among his belongings to go off of, Teiko tries to figure out what has happened to him.

Masami and Kasamatsu are passionately seeking each other in an apartment in a corner of the downtown area along the Sumida River. They had an affair. They declared divorce to their respective spouses and began living in this apartment in search of a love nest just for the two of them. However, there was no way that her new life after being unfaithful would go well from the beginning...

When a poor student can’t pay his bill at a snack bar a mysterious woman pays it for him. She ends up taking a room at the boarding house where he lives. With her lively personality she becomes erotically involved with all the residents living there and helps with their various sexual problems.

Tsugumi Dozono works at a large electronics company in Tokyo. She likes to spend long vacations at her grandmother’s house in the countryside. When her grandmother dies, Tsugumi Dozono decides to live in the house full-time, and to work from there as well. However, one day she encounters a middle-aged man in the house, who tells Tsugumi that her grandmother gave him a key to the annex house when he was her student. The two share the property, although Tsugumi still does not know the exact relationship that her grandmother had with this man.

Six friends, who hanged out together during their high school days, gather again after 5 years for a friend's wedding. The six friends are: Kazuki Yoshio, Tetsuya Akashi, Taku Sogawa, Taisei Tajima, Yusaku Mizushima and Kinichi Fujita. At the wedding, the friends perform an embarrassing dance routine for the bride and groom. The friends reminisce about their high school days and they believe their friendships will last forever, but...

A bored trio of high school delinquents start a rock 'n' roll band together. They have no skill, money, or even a full set of drums, but are determined to jam out and impress their only friend.

Take the characters from a number of sci-fi based animes, a stage not unlike "Wacky Races," super deformed madness, and general insanity and what you get is Scramble Wars. While Scramble Wars does include characters from the original Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force and Genesis Survivor Gaiarth, it also has a few other characters from other animes such as AD Police and Riding Bean.

What happens when an innocent 18-year-old girl has to work in the adult video industry? Find out the hilarious results in Rinko Eighteen, based on the comic by Matsumoto Taka. In her first starring role, gravure model Tashiro Sayaka stars as Rinko, an aspiring doctor who returns home to find out that her father is bankrupt and has divorced her mother. With nowhere to go, Rinko signs up for the first job she finds, which turns out to be a production assistant at an adult video production company. Naturally, nothing can possibly prepare her for the work waiting for her at her new job…

At an all-girls school, a group of girls prepare for a stage performance of Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard".

A beautiful girl, Yōko, gets lost one night during an air raid and is taken in by an orphanage. Eventually, she is reunited with her own family and goes home to live with them. But there, an unexpected fate awaits her as she is subjected to horrific brutality from these people who are tortured by a past mistake.

A Yasuzō Masumura film about a love affair starring Ayako Wakao. The literal title is The Two Who Got Wet.

Enigmatic teenager Akira Inugami is, by night, a powerful werewolf, who falls for a beautiful young teacher, and copes with a ruthless teen gang leader, whose yakuza father murdered Akira's parents years before.

[Period covered: 1595-1600] We last saw ninja Ishikawa Goemon, as he was about to be boiled alive. But a good ninja is both hard to find, and even harder to kill. With the help of the enigmatic Hattori Hanzo, Goemon lives to skulk another day, and sets his sights on bringing down the warlord who tried to turn him into soup – Toyotomi Hideyoshi. And as always, in the background, the suble hand of Tokugawa Ieyasu is pulling strings as he plots to rule all of Japan!

Settle into your chair and be transported to a place both familiar and alien; where a giant shop-girl can barely fit in her store, there's a weird green pod in every bedroom, and terrifying wood nymphs provide a heartbroken woman with the anatomically correct fruit everyone seems to covet. In the end we are left, like Alice, with the Red King's conundrum: are we dreaming them or are they dreaming us?

A remake of episode 22 of the TV series, the 999 is attacked by the pirate ship Queen Emeraldas, which forces the train to a pirate planet. There Tetsuro and Maetel are captured by the pirate Emeraldas, a caped woman who seeks to switch her body with Maetel's.

Akio's sister, Neri has separated from her boyfriend. They lived in Kamakura. She moves in with her brother. Her ex-boyfriend's sister, Eiko comes to see Neri. She wonders if the separation occurred due to her because the three of them used to live together. Eiko's brother has disappeared in the meantime.

Natsumi wants to become a photographer. She takes a bike which her late father left behind and goes to a forest to find a firefly she saw with her father. In the forest, Natsumi meets old mother Yasu and old son Jizo. They run a general store. Natsumi learns how to live in nature from them. She has happy summer days there. One day, Jizo tells her that he became estranged from his son in the past.

In 1964, Momoko came by herself to Tokyo from her hometown. She met Shūzō and married him. They raised two children together, but Shūzō suddenly passes away. Momoko is dumbfounded by being alone again. She begins to go to the library and borrows books. This changes her life.

Hanzo extracts a confession from a ghost using his assaulting methods, foils thieves, connects with Heisuke Takei a friend from his youth, offers protection to a forward-thinking physician Genan Sugino who has defamed his ruler, discovers a pleasure ring of young wives and a blind music teacher, and cuckolds a corrupt official under his very nose.

The unknown life of Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai in the Edo period, who is said to have painted more than 30,000 works throughout his life, such as "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji"

Famous for his coin tossing when capturing criminals, an Edo detective, Heiji, launches an investigation into the mysterious murder of his friend Seigoro.

A seemingly unremarkable man called “Mouse” is caught by the police. In exchange for his freedom, he goes undercover, infiltrates a drug ring, and arranges a fake deal, but an unexpected turn of events occurs.

This simple, charming series follows a young woman as she job hunts and experiences various changes in her life, all while her cat Daru remains the supportive constant.

Based on an autobiography by Hiroshi Tamura, the film follows story of the author's experience of homelessness when this father suddenly decides to abandon his family. Hiroshi and his older siblings do all what they can to withstand the trouble they encounter along their way.

Hidejirō is sent to prison after killing the boss of a rival family. After being released, he discovers that his family has scattered and he is taken in by a company of quarry workers, whose boss has a strict code of non-violence. When the rival family tries to take over the company and kills their boss, Hidejirō must choose between his promise of non-violence and his yakuza code of revenge...

Sawagura Nobuko is back housekeeping again in this sequel to the 2014 SP! This time around Nobuko, having been given some pearl earrings as a present sometime before, decides to attend an exhibition for a pearl described as being the world's most expensive one. That pearl is owned by the Iwakura family, who run a large pearl company. While looking at the pearl however, Nobuko is pulled away by a handsome man who seems to have some connection to the family. So when Nobuko finds one of her pearl earrings missing and probably taken by that man, she decides to work as a housekeeper for the Iwakura family until the man shows up again and she can get her earring back. But the Iwakura family that Nobuko is now working for has plenty of secrets beyond just pearls that she'll have to sort out if she wants her earring back...

The 25th movie in the series, Go! Anpanman: Fly! The Handkerchief of Hope. Go! Anpanman: Fly! The Handkerchief of Hope features Pao, a small elephant boy who lives above the clouds. Every day, Pao practices at the house of Saji Ojisan, who cleans the sky with handkerchiefs coming out from his nose, so that one day he will be able to to do the same. However, it doesn’t go well, and he always fails. Thinking there is nothing he can do and nothing would ever go well, he unconsciously closes himself off to the world. Meanwhile, Baikinman is organizing the “Baikin Circus.” The newest mecha called Amazing Elephant morphs into Dirty Elephant and starts polluting the town. Pao seems to break down because of his lack of usefulness, but seeing how Anpanman never gives up and faces any difficulty, he decides to go forward and hold onto hope.

Initial D Battle Stage 2 summarizes the major street races from the Initial D: Fourth Stage. Two races that were previously seen only in the manga were animated specially for this OVA. The first race is Takahashi Keisuke vs. Smiley Sakai, and the other is Keisuke vs. Kawai Atsuro.

Ryuzaki, an editor of Muscle Magazine, which features photographs of men with sculpted bodies, becomes involved with a man named Kitami; their affair soon becomes dominated by sadomasochistic games, with a horrid result. Jump ahead one year, Ryuzaki is released from jail and goes in search of Kitami, perhaps to make amends.

Drama clubs from an all boys high school and an all girls high school hold a joint training camp. The schools are set to merge the following year. At the training camp, horrific and unusual events take place. Soon, the students learn that Dorome an old mountain legend is responsible.

Yamashita Takako works in the food section of a department store. She pays frequent visits to a reputable local Chinese restaurant about opening an in-store branch. The owner of the restaurant, Wang Qingkuo from Shanghai, who does all the cooking by himself, gives Takako the brush-off. One day, however, Wang collapses due to overwork, and is left with partial paralysis. Hearing the rumor of the restaurant’s closure, Takako resigns from the department store and becomes an apprentice to Wang.

1962 Japanese movie

Teruo Ishii portrays the bitter conflict over the right to develop land in a gripping and humorous way. Nakagami, the head of the Kanto Joseikai, is ordered to acquire the rights to work to level the reclaimed land and prevent the Doshikai from expanding from Kansai into Tokyo, but the interference of the Koda-gumi, associated with the Kansai Doshikai, intensifies. Nakagami's younger brother Hayami, unhappy that the situation is moving slowly, tries to blackmail the mayor into moving forward, but... A true Toei gangster film with an all-star cast including Koji Tsuruta and Ken Takakura!

Second installment of omnibus series Deka Matsuri. 10 films made under the conditions "The main character must be a female detective" "the film must be less than 10 minutes long" "at least five gags must be included"

The story of a young prince and young princess from opposing tribes, as they struggle to deal with their lives and the hardship brought on by their position in their respective families.

Blind swordsman/masseuse Zatoichi befriends a young woman looking for her father, a village leader who has disappeared. As he helps her investigate the disappearance, Zatoichi also becomes involved with another young woman who is trying to help her brother, who has murdered someone at about the same time and place as the missing man was last seen.

Yuki is a 2nd year high school student. She volunteers at a paediatrics ward for her summer vacation, because she wants to witness the moment a person dies. She got that thought after feeling envious of a transfer student's story of seeing a friend's dead body. Yuki has friend named Atsuko. She was bullied in the past and has anxiety issues. She volunteers at a nursing home for her summer vacation, hoping that she will gain courage if she sees the moment a person dies.

The wife of a famous resident of Kamakura awakens to carnal passion . . . And when her blood cools down it's because she's been murdered!

A struggling single mother catches the eye of a rising executive and gains power and wealth as his mistress. But beware, power is fleeting.