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Language
日本語
Formats
Description
Brash single mother Nikuko is well-known for her bold spirit, much to the embarrassment of Kikuko, her pensive yet imaginative daughter. In contrast to her mother, Kikuko wants nothing more than to fit in as she navigates the everyday social dramas of middle school. Life in the harbor is peaceful until a shocking revelation from the past threatens to uproot the pair's tender relationship.
2) Tokyo sonata
Language
日本語
Description
Story of a contemporary Japanese family torn apart after its patriarch unexpectedly loses his job. Ashamed, he keeps this a secret, but as he grows more despondent, his family resorts to drastic measures to break away from their fractured lives.
Language
日本語
Description
Three sisters, Sachi, Yoshino and Chika, live together in the city of Kamakura, Japan. When their father, absent from the family home for the last fifteen years, dies, they travel to the countryside for his funeral and meet their shy, teenage half sister. Bonding quickly with the orphaned Suzu, they invite her to live with them. Suzu eagerly agrees and a new life of joyful discovery begins for the four siblings.
4) Shoplifters
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Description
"On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft, and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love--not blood--that defines a family"--Container.
Series
Criterion collection volume 554
Language
日本語
Description
Every year, the Yokoyama clan gets together to honor the life of eldest son Junpei, drowned 15 years earlier while saving a man from drowning. Retired physician father Shohei still mourns, while his wife Toshiko has become a passive-aggressive domestic goddess, the two bicker continually. Surviving son Ryota has married at last-his new wife Yukari is a widow with a young son. Daughter Chinami and her car-salesman husband have their two kids in tow....
Series
Criterion collection volume 1125
Language
日本語
Description
"It's death, Japanese style, in the rollicking and wistful first feature from maverick writer-director Juzo Itami. In the wake of her lascivious father's sudden passing, a successful actor (Itami's wife and frequent collaborator, Nobuko Miyamoto) and her husband (Tsutomu Yamazaki) leave Tokyo and return to their family house to oversee a traditional funeral. Over the course of three days of mourning that bring illicit escapades in the woods, a surprisingly...
Series
Language
日本語
Description
The Sohma family has a curse they've kept hidden for generations. Whenever a member of the clan is hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac! Now Tohru Honda must never reveal their secret or her most cherished memories could be lost forever.
Series
Language
日本語
Description
"In a secret world hidden beneath the floorboards, little people called Borrowers live quietly among us. But when tenacious and tiny Arrietty is discovered by Shawn, a human boy, their secret and forbidden friendship blossoms into an extraordinary adventure"--Container.
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Description
"Secret agent Twilight has a difficult mission, become a family man! Maintaining cover will be tricky, but he's not the only one with secrets. His wife happens to be an assassin, and his daughter is a telepath. Welcome to a world of intrigue and parenting"--Container.
Language
日本語
Description
Eleven-year-old Hiromi's parents are hardly ever home because of their demanding careers and they are not getting along very well. Junkers, the Schnauzer is the only one Hiromi can talk to about her family's problems. Not only can Junkers talk like people talk, but he has the power to make three wishes come true...
13) Summer wars
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
"Kenji is your typical teenage misfit. He's good at math, bad with girls, and spends most of his time hanging out in the all-powerful, online community known as OZ. His second life is the only life he has--until the girl of his dreams, Natsuki, hijacks him for a starring role as a fake fiancé at her family reunion. Things only get stranger from there. A late-night email containing a cryptic mathematic riddle leads to the unleashing of a rogue AI...
Language
日本語
Description
The Harunos are a rather unconventional, but happy and loving family. Eight-year-old Sachiko is bothered by her own giant-sized double, who hangs around sitting on buildings staring at her. Her older brother, Hajime, privately wrestles with raging hormones and a love-struck crush on a pretty new classmate. Mom struggles to come out of retirement as an animator and Dad is a professional hypnotist who occasionally plies his trade on his own family....
Language
日本語
Description
Affluent architects Ryota and his wife Midori face a terrible dilemma when they learn that their six-year-old son, Keita, was accidentally switched at birth and is not their biological child. In the wake of this revelation, Ryota's sense of fatherhood is shaken to the core as he witnesses both his wife's enduring devotion to Keita and his own conflicting feelings of nature versus nurture. Now his decision on which boy is truly his son will change...
16) Harmonium
Series
Language
日本語
Description
With his highly perceptive attention to character, director Koji Fukada creates an explosive family drama. Intended as a companion piece to the black comedy Hospitalite, Harmonium returns to the domestic sphere as it captures the collapse of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. Life for Toshio, his wife, and their younger daughter Hotaru carries on as usual until he hires the mysterious Mr. Yasaka, an old acquaintance dressed in white who has just...
17) Hospitalité
Series
Language
日本語
Description
Hospitalité : Mikio Kobayashi lives quietly with his wife, daughter, and divorced sister in downtown Tokyo, where xenophobic neighbors insist they attend community watch meetings, and the only recent excitement is the disappearance of a pet parrot. One day Kagawa appears, claiming to be the son of a financier who once helped Kobayashi's company. Kagawa soon ingratiates himself as a live-in employee and proceeds to comically turn the Kobayashi's monotonous...
Language
日本語
Description
"Every day with the Somas brings new surprises, and Tohru's resilience shines through it all! Her mother's beautiful lessons slowly reach everyone, from Yuki's self-absorbed sibling to a tiny, timid tiger. Even Tohru's childhood friends were changed by the kindness of the Crimson Butterfly. But for Kyo, is any heart big enough to accept his deep, dark secret?" -- From container.
Language
日本語
Description
The film tells the story of young Ramen Chef Masato who leaves his home and family's shop in Japan after his father dies in search of his mother's family and the recipes she left behind in Singapore. There he traces a culinary path of delicious signature dishes to find his estranged family across the sea. With the help of food blogger Miki, he learns the recipes of his mother's homeland and the way to his grandmother's heart.
20) Ran
Series
Language
日本語
Formats
Description
"Akira Kurosawa's brilliantly conceived retelling of Shakespeare's 'King Lear' magically mixes Japanese history, Shakespeare's plot and Kurosawa's own feelings about loyalty in the epic masterpiece, 'Ran.' Set in 16th century Japan, 'Ran' relates the tale of how an aging ruler, Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), announces his intention to divide his land equally among his three sons. Hidetora's decision to step down unleashes a power struggle among...