Misako Watanabe

Adapted from a book of poems by poet Taichi Nakao, the film is a road story set in beautiful nature and tranquil landscapes about a lonely janitor who doesn't communicate well and Haru, a teenage girl who is different, who travels on Route 29, which connects Hyogo-Himeji City to Tottori City, and through their encounters with marvelous people, they gain a richness of feelings, strengthen their bonds, and become fulfilled in their hearts.

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A "Goze" is a blind entertainer who travels to various places singing stories while playing the shamisen (Japanese three-stringed lute). Becoming a goze due to her blindness at seven-years-old, Haru was strictly trained with a parent's affection by her once kind mother, Tome.

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Ryota Tanaka, a young man who was struggling to become a manga artist in Tokyo, came back to his hometown in Fukuoka, feeling the limits of his dream. It was a part-time job at the local life extension zoo that introduced Ryota, who was in the old friend's room, without relying on his parents' home. While working with the director Noda and veterinarian Aya Ishii, Ryota knew that this is a rare zoo in the world that puts emphasis on “animal welfare” that puts animal health and happiness first. However, the management of the garden is in a critical situation due to the budget reduction, and Ryota decides to draw a comic again to convey this effort with her own picture...

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Rinko and Aya, employed in the Philippines in 1944, escape one of the most gruesome battles of the Pacific War. Based on the accounts of actual women survivors, this special depicts the friendship - the joy and sadness - shared by these two women, whose lives remain intertwined in wartime and long beyond.

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Job-hunting Daisuke heads to the Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia in Kita-Kamakura with a book signed by Natsume Soseki that his deceased grandmother left behind. He asks the beautiful shop owner Shioriko to authenticate the book. However, the book in question hides an unexpected secret from his grandmother.

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The Master's late-night diner welcomes a woman troubled by funeral fans, an elderly scam victim, and a noodle delivery man struggling with love.

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A story revolves around a 26-year-old single woman Sachi who lives in Tokyo working for a pub. She frequents a show house alone as she plans to buy a home of her own. She looks around the room seriously and asks incisive questions to the attendants. Through her house hunt, we can catch a glimpse of what the modern Japanese women truly want.

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Ayane is the daughter of a karaage (fried food) store owner, but she never liked karaage. Eventually, she left home, only to return 5 years later. Her family lives in the city of Usa in Oita Prefecture, Japan. She brings with her a young girl named Shirley, who is her step-daughter from her ex-husband.

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Majime, an eccentric man in publishing company, who has unique ability of words, joins the team that will compile a new dictionary, The Great Passage. In the eclectic team, he becomes immersed in the world of dictionaries. But the team is overwhelmed with problems.

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A couple decide to relocate from Tokyo to the northern island of Hokkaido where they settle and establish a bakery and café called Mani. One cooks. The other bakes. Everyone walks out happy.

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Ohisama is a Japanese television drama that aired on NHK in 2011 in the Asadora time slot. Set in Nagano prefecture, "Ohisama" covers the life of Yoko Sudo (Mao Inoue) through World War II. Yoko Sudo with her smile is able to bring brightness to those around her & she follows her mother's motif to laugh through the hard times. During the onset of WW II, Yoko is a high school student and "Ohisama" follows her as she eventually becomes a teacher and then gets married and has a child. Yoko then opens a soba restaurant with her student. --asianwiki

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Yojin, an eccentric young farmer living in the countryside, falls in love for the first time in his life. Her name is Machiko, she teaches in a kindergarten and is from Tokyo.

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In a quiet farming village in northeastern Japan, there lives an elderly couple. One day, a notice arrives in the mail about an antique camera sale in Tokyo. This triggers the old man's memory of the time when he used to love cameras and he decides he wants to go to Tokyo. Going on this shopping trip is like embarking on an adventure for them and is is full of surprises and unexpected happenings, but through this adventure, the old couple's lives slowly get revealed. Before heading home, the couple stops by Tokyo Station, a place that holds fond memories for them. They take a photo together with the old man's camera and quietly reflect back on the long life that they spent together.

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Shun is a young man, who sells his paintings on a city corner. Kasumi is a children's story writer, living alone in a mountain in Shinsyuu. One day, they happen to meet each other in the city crowd, and they immediately connect. However, they must first deal with Shun's childhood abuse which has left him unstable.

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Adapted from the bestselling Japanese autobiography of the same title, this gentle coming-of-age drama concerns an adolescent boy, Boku - Masaya, torn between the inherited recklessness of his father Oton and the inherited responsibility, wisdom and emotional strength of his mother Okan. Following a period of intensely rebellious behavior, Boku learns that his mom has contracted cancer; suddenly, his mother comes to live with him in Tokyo the entire emotional landscape of his life is altered.

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As Haru emigrates from Japan with her family to the coffee plantations in Brazil, Natsu is left behind in the care of spiteful relatives. Losing all contact, each must make her own way in an unforgiving world. Hardships abound in the struggle to survive in war-torn Japan and in the face of anti-Japanese sentiment in Brazil, financial ruin, familial pressure, abandonment and lost love. However they also experience the precious joy of survival and success. Now, after 70 years, Haru comes back to Japan to find her estranged sister.

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Water Boys 2005 Natsu is a two-part Japanese drama series that aired in Japan on Fuji Television on August 19 and 20 2005. This is the third and final season of the series Water Boys, as its alternate title suggests, Water Boys Finale.

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Minako (TANAKA Yuko), begins her day running up and down the hills of her hometown delivering milk door to door. When that's done, she heads to her day job as a supermarket cashier. Minako is 50 and single. In one of the houses to which she delivers milk is a man with whom she has secretly been in love since high school. The man, Keita (KISHIBE Ittoku), lives with his wife Yoko, who is terminally ill. Caring for her at home, he works in the children's affairs section of the local municipal office. Though he insists that he wants nothing more than an "ordinary" existence, his life is in turmoil below the surface. The director uses a variety of narrative devises to portray the loneliness, isolation, and hope of these people who have seemingly allowed their goals and dreams to slip away, whilst keeping them agonizingly close to hand.

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Based on a true story set in Matsumoto city, Nagano, during 1960s. A stray dog wanders into a high school's grounds. The dog, named Kuro, stays at the school and becomes a special friend to everyone.

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2001 Japanese film

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Version of Proof of the Man (1977).

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Awkward and withdrawn, Masako kills her sister in an explosion of pent-up humiliation and rage that sends her tumbling into fugitive life.

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Knowing that he has only a month to live, a pianist goes back to his beloved ocean. He meets a girl with a broken leg. She is the daughter of his dearest woman who died many years ago. The relationship between them becomes closer. They rescue a man who tries to commit suicide. When the pianist is nearing his end, that man finds love in the girl's heart...

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23 animated shorts based on Nekojiru, aired as part of "Bokusho Mondai Boss Chara Ou"

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A Choice between Loyalty or Duty of the Samurai! Can the heartlessness of society crush the honor of an individual? In the spring of the 18th year of Kanei, Hosokawa Tadatoshi, feudal lord of the Higo area, died. Although Tadatoshi forbade his vassals to follow him in death before he died, they still committed seppuku one after the other. The new feudal lord, Mitsunao, Tadatoshi's son, also gave the order forbidding seppuku. Abe Yaichiemon obeyed his former lord's last wish but is now being called a coward by his comrades and finally decided to follow Tadatoshi in death in order to save his family's honor. Mitsunao, upset by Yaichiemon actions, punished the Abe family unfairly. Objected to this, the Abe family shut themselves up in their manor as the lords troops moved in. This is the true story of what happened within the Hosokawa clan in early Edo era.

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A successful screenwriter looks back on her life when she learns her husband has cancer. A year-long series, starring Narumi Yasuda.

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An illustration of the tragic lives of geishas at a popular geisha house, Shinonomero. Shortly after being sold to a geisha house at age 5, Shizu is befriended by a fellow older geisha, Tsuru. After years of living and working together, Tsuru and Shizu manage to run the operations of Shinonomero as the proprietress and assistant. Despite vows to never to let their lovers come between them or Shinonomero, moments of weakness leave Tsuru and Shizu caught up in a web of betrayal and plunged into debt. With the guilt of losing Shinonomero to Udo, a yakuza who loaned them money, it is now up to young Shizu to redeem Tsuru’s honor and restore Shinonomero as their own.

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Eriko, a 25-year-old office worker living in Tokyo, has become pregnant by her boyfriend, Ide, whom she doesn’t love all that deeply. Torn between her future and her lingering feelings for Uozumi, whom she dated in college, she travels to Shikoku—Uozumi’s hometown—with her best friend, Misato. Meanwhile, she also learns that Ide had gotten another woman pregnant at the same time, and that she chose to have an abortion…

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Two soon-to-be kamikaze pilots stop by a local school near their base to play the piano one last time, leaving a deep impression on a teacher. Years later, she seeks out the relatives of the pilots when the piano is old and about to be discarded.

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A suspense drama based on Osamu Takahashi's original work starring Shinobu Otake. The shooting location of Gunkanjima is a famous tourist attraction. When Mansako returns to her husband's parents' house, she noticed a young man named Shinji playing drums at a village festival. Shinji who felt her gaze also looked back at Mansako. Masako invites Shinji to her house to welcome her husband together, and is witnessed by a housewife who came to inform her husband of the accidental death while helping him change clothes. She is stigmatized for infidelity. They are separated, but they vow to meet again 12 years later.

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Tsugumi, who lives in a small seaside town, has been in delicate health from birth. Her parents spoiled her and she is rough and selfish. However, a few people are attracted by her beauty and unique character.

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A confessional article in a weekly magazine and the strange suspense between an ordinary housewife who sees it. A mother tries to kill her son's lover, whom she doesn't take too kindly to, and paint them into the wall of her apartment...

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The 35th NHK Asadora about a man who enters the world of popular theater.

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