Tomoka Hasebe

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.

Two boys beg their parents for a television set, nagging them until all patience is lost. The parents order the boys to be quiet and the boys do exactly that--refusing to utter a word. The boys' silence ultimately puts the whole neighborhood into turmoil.

Two sisters learn about the existence of their long-lost biological mother, but the younger is unable to accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.

A young salaryman and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he embarks on an extramarital affair.

In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.

A young reporter falls for a beautiful waitress, but fate conspires against their burgeoning romance when the latter is involved in a car accident and loses her memory.