Naoko Iijima

54-year-old Mikawa Meiko is a single woman who quit her office job to run a small donut shop. One night, she picks up a wallet that has fallen at her feet and takes it to the police station, but the handsome young man who owns it says, "Thank you, Auntie," and she is shocked by the power of those words. Faced with the reality of being an "auntie," Meiko confronts one wall after another of "aging."

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Tsutsumi Takeru is a 4th year university student. He worries about finding a job after graduation. He currently works part-time at a bar called Double at night. He begins to write down his thoughts in a notebook that is used for work at the bar. During the day, the bar turns into the Cafe Double. Murakoshi Miyu works part-time at Double during the day. She is studying to become a nurse, which has been her dream. She communicates with Takeru through the notebook that is used at Double. While conversing about their hobbies and worries, they become closer and fall in love.

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A body found in the mountains of Tohoku, where Muroi has moved, is linked to the Rainbow Bridge incident. Muroi is asked to return to work, and he ponders whether he can keep his promise to his former colleagues. As the investigation progresses, each of the children Muroi has taken in grows up.

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Muroi, who retired from the police early, took in the children affected by the incident and moved to Tohoku. Although he was told cold words from those around him, he lived quietly while protecting his children. However, the body of the perpetrator of the special fraud and robbery was found deep in the mountains, and the village fell into chaos.

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Ijuuin Shou is the leader of the Grand Cross, a gang of delinquents with over a thousand members. Yamada Tatsuhito is a perennial errand boy with no presence in class who is the bottom of the school hierarchy. When Shou ends up hospitalized, he proposes that Tatsuhito take his place as his body double for a month while he recovers to prevent the gang falling into disarray. Tatsuhito, who goes from a life of being bullied to a life as a delinquent leader, struggles to get through each day without others finding out his true identity. Takahashi Fumiya takes on a dual role of both characters.

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Shingo Kawasaki is a master carpenter with consummate skills. He looks somewhat scary but he is full of human warmth and has a weakness for women. Living happily with his wife and daughter, he is known as a hard-worker. One day he encounters an insurance saleswoman, a single mother with a withdrawn son. Shingo becomes attached to the fatherless boy and eventually he decides to build a house for him and his saleswoman mother. Understandably, his wife, daughter and his apprentice are not very happy with his behavior. He seems unable to read the air around his home and business. While devoting himself to build the house, the boy’s father suddenly appears, wanting to come back into his child’s life.

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Shiwasu's mother left their home when Shiwasu was a little girl. Shiwasu does not understand why. She is a woman now and working at a Shinto shrine as a shrine maiden under her father who is a priest. She is listless until she finds a little boy alone on the shrine's grounds. The boy's mother shows up and retrieves her son a couple of days later. That is not the end of it however. The boy is back soon and has marks and bruises on his body. In the meantime, there was petty theft going on.

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In order to conceal past corruption by the government, the Kyuryu group proceeds on a plan to destroy a street and build a casino. To stop the Kyuryu group, members of SWORD begin to move.

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Kenta Sakaguchi was a yakuza member and he spent 13 years in prison for killing a rival yakuza boss. Hidehiko Hirohashi was a secretary for a politician. He took the blame for the politician’s act. Isao Okawara was a self-defense official, but he took in arms against the government. Kenta Sakaguchi, Hidehiko Hirohashi and Isao Okawara gather under retired ex-detective Gonzaemon Mukai. Kenta, Hidehiko and Isao get even with people who betrayed and deceived them.

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Sakura is a single 39-year-old woman who works as the assistant manager at a beauty salon. She spends her days making her customers look beautiful but doesn’t pay much attention to her own appearance. All of that changes when she goes to a party and meets Hiroto, a much younger man who is a biker. Will Sakura revel in the attention of the handsome but dangerous Hiroto or notice the constant interest of her hard-talking and hard-drinking salon manager, Rintaro?

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Hako was senteced to 7 years in prison on a robbery charge for the host she loved. Ayaka killed her husband to protect their son from domestic violence. These two women became acquainted in prison and forged strong bonds. After they are released from prison, they stay together and begin new lives in the old district of Yanaka in Tokyo while carrying pasts that no one must not know.

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When Koichi Takahasi (Miutani) is transferred from Tokyo to a small village in Iwate Prefecture, they set up hoe in a two-hundred year-old farmhouse. The family is split between those who hate the move and those who are happy. Fumiko (Yasuda), the wife, is unhappy at the change and doesn’t get on with her elderly neighbours, Azumi (Hashimoto) is sad about having to transfer to a new school. Koichi’s mother, Sumiyo (Kusabue), rather likes the new community while young Tomoya Takahashi (Hamada) really enjoys the new move because he can play outdoors. Koichi takes note of the split in the family but finds himself struggling at his new job. Thankfully the house has Zashiki Warashi (yokai) living there who will unite them with their antics. Judging by the poster these antics won’t be terrifying.

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Chiaki Yoshino is a TV producer. She is 45-years-old and single. Chiaki Yoshino worries about her health and her later years rather than dating. She hopes to buy an old house and live there with a friend when she gets older. Chiaki then goes to Kamakura, Japan to look for a house. There, she meets a 50-year-old single man Wahei Nagakura. Wahei's first wife died and he has one child. Their love story begins ...

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National tax investigator Matsuko Matsudaira is transferred to Tokyo office for chase Tax evaders. Her new style of chasing the taxe evader with going undercover make some problems with her colleagues and boss.

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The 78th NHK Asadora is Hitomi. The series takes place in the old shitamachi area of Tokyo, and in these most recent episodes, 20-year old heroine Hitomi becomes the force around which her divorced mother, long estranged from her own father, is forced to reconcile and renew a sense of family camaraderie. This is not particularly easy, given the trifling issues and problems of modern day life that beset each of the characters, and the drama unfolds with a light comedic touch. Hitomi's upbringing is the issue that is constantly brought into focus. The family reconciliation is made possible, ironically through the death of Hitomi's grandmother. Hitomi seizes the opportunity to travel to her funeral from Sapporo. Once there, she sets out to realize her dream of becoming a dancer, all the while interfering with and disrupting her grandfather's life.

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There are three kinds of swindler. One, called the "WHITE SWINDLER", finds a mark and steals money. The "RED SWINDLER" preys on the other sex and steals a mark's body and soul. Then there is the "BLACK SWINDLER". Ignoring ordinary marks, targeting only the white and red swindlers, and preying on their flesh grown fat and corrupt with the money they have stolen, he is the worst of them all. There is a boy who once became a victim of a swindler and lost his family. Later, he turns into the most hideous "black swindler" to deceive only other swindlers. His name is Kurosaki. This time, he is requested by Reiko, whose daughter is sick, to hunt down a swindler named Ishigaki, who has defrauded her of money. But, behind Ishigaki, there is actually a bigger swindle which has even destabilized the Japanese economy…

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Heartwarming human drama about a former tap dancer who trades in his tap shoes to woo a figure skating instructor. But by a twist of fate, he finds himself coaching a local ice hockey team of hapless youths and leading them to a championship

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A forty-year-old man has married a pretty woman 20 years younger than he is. However, with their marriage as a turning point, his fate dramatically changes. The mother of his newly-wed bride is his old lover! What is worse, the mother voluntarily moves herself in with the newly weds. Their newly married life, which would have been honey-sweet, is becoming a roller-coaster ride. This is a comical drama portraying the triangle with reason of these three people. --TBS

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The young daughter of Keizo Tsujiguchi, a respected physician who runs his own hospital, is found murdered. Keizo secretly blames his wife Natsue because he suspects her of having an affair with his colleague Murai, and having been too distracted to keep proper watch over the child. Being a proud man, he does not accuse her directly, but concocts, instead, a twisted revenge against her. Pretending it is to comfort his devastated wife, Keizo arranges for them to adopt a baby girl. What he hasn't told Natsue, is that the baby is the orphaned daughter of the murderer, a tragic day-laborer who has hanged himself while in police custody. He plans to reveal the child's origins after Natsue has given her heart to the child-- when it will cause the greatest possible hurt.

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Five years have passed since Kuryu Kohei's transfer from Tokyo to Ishigaki, and then to Sapporo. He ends up in a small town of Nijigaura in Yamaguchi Prefecture. There, he investigates a murder case involving a local enterprise, Kamoi Group, and the people related to it. Everyone in town thinks he's innocent except Kuryu, whose unorthodox investigation methods perplex not only the townspeople, but his colleagues as well.

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World Wat II broke out shortly after diplomat Chiune Sugihara was assigned to Lithuania. Nazi Germany occupied the western half of Poland and began persecuting the Jews. Lithuania was then annexed by the Soviet Union, and the Japanese consulate was ordered to close. Meanwhile, Jewish refugees who had fled Poland flocked to the Japanese consulate, requesting the issuance of Japanese transit visas. Chiune repeatedly sent telegrams to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting permission to issue visas to the Jewish refugees, but received a final notice that the visas could not be issued. However, with only a month left until the departure deadline, Chiune decided to defy the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' orders and issued visas to the Jewish refugees...

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Wagura Yusaku unwillingly broke up with his first love in high school and became a policeman after years of struggle. Ten years later, the suspect of a murder case appeared to be his previous rival, Uryu Akihiko, who peculiarly had became the husband of his first love, Uryu Misako. The detective and the suspect, childhood rivals, carried out the confrontation of fate and are tossed about in destiny, accepting their "fate"...

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The older sister who had set backs in Tokyo, and her younger sister who wants nothing more than to move there. The two sisters, who were born and raised in a teahouse called Juicchome Chaya halfway up Mt. Takao on the outskirts of Tokyo, seek for happiness while living in a beautiful natural setting and experiencing different love affairs in this pure and heartfelt story. But one thing they can't get around in their search for happiness is the family. First there's the father, a pigheaded guy with an artisan spirit who pushes his weight around as father, and then the mother who's a tricky customer in her own right. And it's not only the family, the whole village seems to be following the love complications of our two heroines with bated breath and spreading the word around.

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Hosted by veteran comedian Tamori, "Bizarre Tales 2003 Spring Special" presents five tales. 1. Kao wo Nusumareta (My Face was Stolen) - starring Inagaki Goro 2. Rental Love - starring Iijima Naoko 3. Oikaketai (I want to Chase [Him/Her]) - starring Kyono Kotomi 4. Chozeikin Taisaku Satsujin Jiken (Countering Excessive Taxation Murder Case) - starring Nishimura Masahiko 5. Kage no Kuni (The Country of Shadows) - starring Sakurai Sachiko

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Detective Ukyo Sugishita confronts crime on the basis of his own convictions. He has a partner that works for him in the Special Task Unit. For the first 7 seasons, Ukyo’s first partner is Kaoru Kameyama. He is a good-natured, hot-tempered, straightforward and somewhat scattered detective. Beginning in Season 8, Takeru Kanbe replaces Kameyama. Contrary to his predecessor, Takeru is a lanky, cool, conceited and confident detective. From Season 11 to Season 13, Ukyo’s partner is a young detective Toru Kai. Toru is a son of Deputy Director-General of The National Police Agency. But he became a detective by his own effort. And starting with Season 14, Ukyo’s current partner is Wataru Kaburagi, an elite bureaucrat who came to the Metropolitan Police Department on temporary assignment. As the first partner without any career of a police officer, he will face challenging cases together with Ukyo.

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This is a love comedy that takes you behind the scenes of the latest bridal businesses, as well as the human drama of engaged couples, seen through the wedding planners' eyes, as they help to put on weddings. Toru Oomori works in the accounting department of a medium-sized firm. Unable to escape restructuring by his company, he gets sent to work at an affiliated company, "Sweet Bridal," as its president. Toru realizes his days as a salaried worker are numbered. That's why he's determined to increase sales, and regain lost ground. But there's just one major problem though... An incident that happened one year ago makes work here, very miserable.

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Yuko, Mayumi, and Sakiko have all been married for some time, and are all reasonably happy. But they share their troubles, secret hopes, and dreams whenever the meet at Mayumi's beauty salon. This story highlights the lifestyles of women today--housewives in particular.

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