Sōji Shibata

In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.

Shinnosuke is introduced to Shizu as a prospective marriage partner, but he falls in love with her widowed sister Oyu. Convention forbids Oyu to marry because she has to raise her son as the head of her husband's family. Oyu convinces Shinnosuke and Shizu to marry so that she can remain close to Shinnosuke.

When the wife of a 17th-century Kyoto scrollmaker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves truly falling for one another.

In one of Japan's most frequently-told ghost stories, a murdered wife returns in an act of vengeance.

Blind masseur and master swordsman Zatoichi finds a robbed and fatally wounded pregnant woman, whose baby he delivers before she dies. He takes the baby in search of its father and finds the child's aunt, who is about to be forced into prostitution for want of a payment the dead mother was bringing. Zatoichi determines to save the woman from her cruel fate.

By day, he is a young master whose beauty melts women’s hearts. By night, he is the elusive “White Hood.”

Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko's interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner—a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.

Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.

A comedic retelling of the legendary encounter between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamato Musashi.

This is the story of a blind masseur who tricks people, steals, and kills; he is the anti-Zatoichi.

Hikaru Genji, the haunted romantic hero of Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s “Genji Monogatari” (Tale of Genji) comes to life in this new tale of his further romantic adventures. Young Genji, the emperor’s illegitimate son cuts a swath through the women of the imperial court, while still mourning the spirit of his late mother who died while he was still a child. Driven to an obsession with the emperor’s new concubine, Lady Fujitsubo, whose resemblance to his late mother originally caught the eye of the emperor, young Genji embarks upon a reckless affair with her that could cost him his life.

Itarō abandons his life as a hatamoto to become a yakuza.

After finding a winning lottery ticket, the daughter and wife convince their father who’s been acting like a millionaire that it’s all just a one-night dream, hoping to cure his gambling habit.

[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!

Tonii is a salesman at a mortgage company, and although he is in a romantic relationship with Haruko, a typist at the company, they cannot get married because they have nowhere to live. Growing impatient, Haruko declares, “As long as he can support us, I’d even marry an old man,” leaving Tonii deeply troubled.

A thrilling detective period drama set in the streets of Edo—a world of intrigue, conspiracy, romance, and turmoil—where a thief as agile as a flying monkey runs rampant.