Hiroshi Noguchi

Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.

Rising pop star Mima Kirigoe quits singing to pursue a career as an actress. After she takes up a role on a popular detective show, her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered. Harboring feelings of guilt and haunted by visions of her former self, Mima's reality and fantasy meld into a frenzied paranoia.

In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.

One summer night, officer Kojima is lured away from his police box by a thug, then drugged with a juice; when he wakes, a murder has occurred nearby, the victim's missing money is found in his pocket, and his own gun is the murder weapon. Though released without charge, Kojima is forced to resign. Vowing to catch the real culprit, he tracks the thug to a cabaret, but the thug is shot dead, followed by a nude dancer who might have known the truth...