Nobuko Miyamoto

Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthrals all who encounter her. But, ultimately, she must confront her fate.

Nobita travels to the future to show his beloved grandma his bride, but adult Nobita has fled his own wedding.

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

Intrepid tax investigator Ryoko Itakura sets her sights on the mysterious and philandering Hideki Gondo, a suspected millionaire and proprietor of a thriving chain of seedy hourly hotels, who has for years succeeded at hiding the true extent of his assets from the Japanese authorities. Itakura and Gondo soon find themselves engaged in a complicated, satirical battle of wits.

When Wabisuke's father-in-law unexpectedly dies, the family goes through a series of random events and occurrences as the funeral unfolds over three days in their home.

An upscale Japanese hotel hires Mahiru Inoue, a lawyer adept at dealing with the Yakuza, to help them rid their hotel of the local gangsters so they can get a contract for a meeting of important foreign officials.

A love story written by an ordinary housewife is going to be broadcast as a radio drama and almost everyone among the crew insists on changing various parts of the play to their liking.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) was the Japanese Naval commander who was given the order to attack Pearl Harbour, an order he was duty bound to obey which went against his own personal beliefs. While this infamous attack is a low point in Japanese and US history it wouldn’t have happened if the Japanese government had listened to Yamamoto in 1939 and searched for a more peaceful way to end their war campaign, proving his many ominous presages of the outcomes of the attack to come true.

Yohei, a punk rocker, becomes a Buddhist monk in order to inherit a mountain temple. Though initially rebelling against the tough monastic discipline, he learns to adjust. Then his girlfriend shows up, enticing him to return to his rock 'n' roll roots.

The relationship between Tetsuro, a university student from a disgraced, burdened family, and Shino, a waitress supporting her impoverished relatives. The couple decides to marry despite the significant emotional and social hardships each faces, viewing their love as a means to overcome the shame and despair inherited from their pasts.

Ulysses Jenkins composed "Dream City" from documentation of a twenty-four-hour performance he organized in collaboration with David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, and Senga Nengudi. A discordant, absurdist, and poetic montage, the video weaves together jazz and punk shows, recitations by Jenkins, and shots of the Los Angeles skyline and oil wells to comment on power and nation in the early years of Ronald Reagan's presidency.

A struggling Japanese neighborhood supermarket manager chances upon an old classmate, who has plenty of ideas for revitalizing his business.

Vain, middle-aged actress Biwako is placed in witness protection while authorities investigate the brutal murder she witnessed. Under the watch of two dedicated cops, Biwako struggles to maintain her career, her public image, and her personal life as she prepares for her new role on the witness stand.

Working on a documentary about infamous painter Mamiya Ichiro, a TV crew filming at his old home come under attack from the ghost of the painter's wife.

Four sexually hungry high school students preparing for their university entrance exams meet up with an inebriated teacher singing bawdy drinking songs. This encounter sets them on a less than academic path.

A successful Japanese movie director in his sixties becomes increasingly ill while working on his latest film. Though his family, friends, and doctor try to keep the secret of his terminal cancer from him, Buhei gradually comes to realize the truth of his condition, leading him on a journey of despair, anger, and – ultimately – acceptance.

An introverted bookstore employee and a widow living in isolation develop a cross-generational friendship through their shared love of BL manga.

"Hankyu Densha" follows the lives of various people who commute on Hankyu Railway's Imazu Line - connecting the cities of Nishinomiya and Takarazuka in Hyogo prefecture. One of the commuters is Shoko (Miki Nakatani), an office worker in her 30s who lost her boyfriend to a younger colleague. There's also a college student (Erika Toda) who is so easily persuaded by her no good boyfriend. Other commuters include a grandmother & granddaughter, a house wife, a female high school student, and a female otaku college student. Although the train ride takes only 15 minutes between two stations, the lives of these commuters are changed as they interact with each other...

Ryōko Itakura returns as the tough-as-nails government taxing agent. This time she must figure out a way to expose a fanatical religious cult lead by a corrupt sociopath.

A young woman breaks off her long-term relationship with her boyfriend to move to Tokyo in search of new experiences.

Deaths in Tokimeki tells the story of a nondescript hitman, in a remote country villa, waiting to carry out a job: the assassination of the leader of a religious cult.

The story centers on a man who loves movies, having once worked at movie studio in pursuit of his dreams, surrounded by great directors and famous actors. In this tale of love and friendship spanning a lifetime, the "god of cinema" that Go has worshipped since he was young will transcend time, and work a miracle in the lives of one family.

Nayoko, a good-hearted geisha, brings luck to the men she sleeps with, even though most are scoundrels who don’t deserve it.

A man and a little girl meet in a bicycle parking in Tokyo. The little girl says she wants to watch the sea, and their travel begins. The man does not intend to be a kidnapper – he asks the girl to phone her mother and tell her she's with him. During their trip they meet various people, but they always must continue on, lest the man be arrested.

The 17-year-old Yatabe Mineko grew up in a family of seven in a mountain village in northeastern Ibaraki Prefecture. Her father Minoru has gone to Tokyo to work in order to earn extra money. However, her life completely changes when her father does not come back for the New Year. Mineko asks her family to let her go to Tokyo to find him and promises to send money home. In the autumn of 1964, she and two childhood friends Tokiko and Mitsuo are hired to start working at a small factory in Tokyo’s working class neighborhood. After work each day, Mineko searches for her father and gets disheartened at times. Mineko overcomes challenges and starts to lay down roots in Tokyo as she experiences many meetings and farewells amid the laughter and tears with regulars, people of the shopping street, friends, and colleagues. But will she be able to find her father?

Aki Amano, a high-school girl from Tokyo moves to the Sanriku Coast in the Tohoku region to become a female diver. She becomes a local idol, then returns to Tokyo to try to become a real idol, and finally returns to Tohoku to help revitalize the area after the Great East Japan earthquake.

Katsuragi Motoko started as an NHK announcer, became a reportage writer after the war, and then an author. This story is about a woman's struggle to find her life's purpose and to survive. The 28th NHK asadora, set in the Showa era and location included Tokyo.

Years after retiring from their formidable ninja lives, a dysfunctional family must return to shadowy missions to counteract a string of looming threats.

Natsumi is the 23 years old daughter of a master baker in Yokohama and in training with her father to become a pastry chef. She lives with her parents and younger brother in Yokohama. One day she travels to Iwate Prefecture with her boyfriend Masaki for his grandmother Katsuno's 77th birthday. While they are there, Katsuno, head okami of a famous ryokan in Morioka City, becomes ill and asks Masaki to return to run the ryokan. Natsumi returns to Yokohama and later Masaki visits, asking her to disregard their earlier plans to get married because he will return to Morioka as requested by Katsuno. However, Natsumi surprises him with a vow to become the ryokan's okami. Is Natsumi in for clear skies as suggested by the series name?

The 36th NHK Taiga Drama is Mori Motonari. This series chronicles the life of Mori Motonari, a warlord of the early 1500s who stood at the vanguard of the Warring States era. All Japanese school textbooks contain the Mitsuya no kyokun, Mori's famous lesson to his three sons that teaches that while one arrow is easily broken, three arrows together cannot be broken. In 1997, 500 years after his birth, NHK dramatizes Motonari's rise from a chief of the region of Aki (now Hiroshima) to a daimyo who rules over ten provinces of the Chugoku region. Motonari was 64 years old and already the patriarch of a powerful dynasty about the time Oda Nobunaga and Takeda Shingen appeared on the scene. And even after his death, the Mori family figured prominently in Japanese history. His grandson Terumoto became a loyal Toyotomi vassal. Defeated at the Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu confiscated most of his lands, leaving him only with Suwo and Nagato, later known as Choshu. But 260 years later, the Mori got their ultimate revenge, leading the imperial forces against the Tokugawa in the Meiji Restoration.

Set on Hashima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture during the coal industry's rise in 1955, this story follows themes of family, friendship, and love. It contrasts the post-war era, where people had little but were full of dreams, with present-day Tokyo, where abundance prevails, but young people struggle to find their dreams.

18-year-old Urano Suzu marries Hojo Shusaku and moves from Eba City to Kure City in Hiroshima Prefecture in the middle of the Pacific War. As Japan slides into a war it cannot get out of, the townspeople go on with their “ordinary” lives. Supplies are short, and family and friends get sent to the battlefield. Suzu and the Hojo family battle such anxieties as they try to live positively.

Old apartment complexes, rented houses in the suburbs, and cabs running through the cities. These scenes may look ordinary but each has a different story to tell. A daughter who works part-time to support her disabled mother; a woman who has been cut off from her family and continues to work as a cab driver; a granddaughter who lives in a rented house and works at a factory with her grandmother. This is the story of three women, who live far apart from each other and do not know each other's existence until a fateful encounter through a radio program.

Why did an abused solitary boy become a murderer? A sad but powerful gut-wrenching drama portraying the destiny of humans seeking love, starting up-and-coming actor Yuma Nakayama.

Based on the novel of the same name by Jirō Asada. Three adult children visit their mother living in the countryside, each at separate times, but things aren't really what they seem to be.

In 1993, the economy is in the doldrums. Fuyuki Aki works in a big electronics manufacturer as the first female in its main career track. But unlike the male employees, she is not even allowed to test her ability and feels frustrated by her current situation. Meanwhile, Aki learns that her colleague and ex-boyfriend Sato Yasushi is marrying Otsubo Arisa, a junior who works in an administrative position, and she feels unsettled. Aki is favoured by Yasushi’s mother Sachiko, but she tells her that they broke up two years ago. She feels a void for not being able to spread her own wings in the male-dominated world, along with an anger at the male species. So she could not accept the feelings of the straightforward Yasushi. On the morning of the wedding ceremony, Aki receives a letter from Sachiko...