Short Story Collection: Things That Pass Away

A story of finding a place to root yourself when life’s obstacles have dispirited you. Chang-su, a former equestrian athlete for the South Korean national team, was forced to give up on his dream early. He finds himself working at a quarry in the rural town of Minawa in western Japan, where he lives with Minami and her infant daughter. Yamabuki, a teenage girl, begins to stage silent protests that blossom into community action, much to the dismay of her policeman father. The quiet surface of this rural town is gradually peeled off to reveal frustration and loneliness that, once given a voice, begin to connect people.

After a happily married couple running a hot spring resort are awakened to their sadomasochistic desires, their relationship will never be the same.

1726, Sanchu, Okayama Prefecture: farmers negotiate with the feudal domain in order to seek exemption from rising taxes. Infighting leads to suppression by the samurai class, and the farmers band together for battle. It’s a moment of injustice, setting the stage for bravery and sacrifice. However those daring characters remain largely offscreen in Juichiro Yamasaki’s brilliant film. Instead, the cowardly protagonist Jihei (Naohisa Nakagaki) faces a crisis of the risks of rebellion and its aftermath that resonates with our contemporary moment. In this rare independent jidaigeki, Kenta Tawara’s beautiful digital B&W photography channels and refigures luminaries of classical Japanese cinema, boasting rapturous animated sequences by Tomomichi Nakamura and experimental score by Ayako Sasaki.

Nami Matsushima, prisoner #701 is sent to a Woman's Prison for attempted murder. Nami is brought into Number 2 community cell, where suicides and unnatural deaths occurred one after another. In the punishment cell, Nami begins to look back in her past. After dealing with her horrible experiences, Nami seeks to escape from prison. Who will survive?

At the quiet Sirius Theater in the countryside, struggling filmmaker Fukuyama works amid mounting debts while nurturing his passion for film. The theater’s owner, Inuzuka—fearing impending blindness—sees Fukuyama as his potential successor. Meanwhile, unspoken affections complicate matters when long-time admirer Tamaki and the mysterious film star Hitomi (later revealed as Ayame Nakanishi) enter the picture, intertwining their fates in unexpected ways.

Mizawa remarries following a tragedy with his previous family. His new wife has a daughter, Mikayo. The three of them take a trip to Okinawa... [Exists in two versions : a R18+ version ("Hentai kazoku: Aoi umi ni idakarete") and a R15+ version ("Yearning no shima")]

A boy and a girl are about to graduate from high school and head off down separate paths, but they are entangled as if they are trying not to waste even a moment...

Erika works at a popular "reconciliation agency." Her main job is to help separated couples remarry or get back together. She approaches her target, blends into their life, and gradually makes them remember their ex... with a 100% success rate. However, when the client's husband turns out to be a senior colleague Erika admired, personal feelings get involved...

Kinoshita Megumi is a high school girl who lives with her man-crazed mother Yoshiko and her wheelchair-bound brother Taichi, who has a different father. One morning, Megumi bumps into a young man named Izumi as he comes out of Yoshiko's room. He attacks her, and she desperately runs out of the house. Megumi wanders the streets, and before she knows it, it's already dark outside...

Newly married Kazuo is troubled by the word "Takaraboin" that his wife Chiharu muttered in her sleep. One day, Kazuo learns from his uncle Kenji that "Takaraboin" is a sexual position. When Kazuo finds out that Chiharu had been dating Kenji before they were married, he decides to take revenge together with Kenji's wife.

The story starts off on a southern island in the near future. Yoshii has a dark past himself. He was once a detective, but he stabbed his wife when he found out she was having an affair. Now he works on the island as a landmine remover. One day, his coworker, Junichi, steps on a landmine and dies. A few days later. Yoshii and his boss, Takahashi, go to Junichi’s apartment to give their condolences. When they get to the apartment, Yoshii is surprised when Junichi’s wife greets them-it’s Mikayo. After the incident with Junichi, Yoshii decides to quit his job as a landmine remover and begins to spend his days next to a cave, fishing. One day Yoshi takes out an old paper from his belongings; the paper fugitive warrant, and on the warrant is a photo of Mikayo.

The princess was caught by a monster on her way home and was locked up in the monster's mansion for a long time. ...》 The grown-up girl, Mikayo, is pushed up by Takashi, the son of Shizue, the former leader of a hit squad. However, she continued to draw pictures in her sketchbook without a care in the world. And when she smears purple crayon on the face of the picture book, the face turns out to be the monster of the story... Meanwhile, from the TV, a news reporter woman said that '18 years ago, Mikayo Sato, a first grader at that time, disappeared without a trace on her way home from school, and the case is still unsolved....

Yuriko (Kotomi Asakura), who lost her only young daughter and divorced, became a dumb woman due to the shock. She then started a part-time job at a small lunch box shop in a provincial city where she had drifted. The owner, Sato, had a wife, Kazuko (Firefly), and a daughter, Kyoko (Rina Hatsume). It was a dumb relationship. There was a man in the store who had a dark shadow who came to buy two lunch boxes every day. Yuriko, who cares about the man, follows him, and she finds out that the man is making a woman named Maki (Kyouko Maki) prostitute in a truck parked in the open space she arrived at ...

Erotic work about the love sought by a love-struck young lady. Orica, a young lady living in a mansion, is a romantic who cannot live without the person she loves. She is undeniably beautiful and at first loves a man who is a magician, but when she loses him, Orika loses her heart too. Eventually she met a man who was a lumberman, but he also left her, and next Orika fell in love with a doctor. Orica sacrifices her ego to serve the doctor.

Oar and Miho, who live in a seaside town, go back and forth between each other's houses, and their parents are childhood friends. Oar, who was in charge of managing the canning factory, decided to go to Tokyo to receive training that looked ahead to the future. On the last night before the departure, Oar and Miho are fiercely seeking each other. The next morning, they talked about the future while walking along the beach and made a promise such as calling once a day. However, Oar who is worried about unfamiliar sales work and human relationships. Miho also discovers her father's illness, is exhausted by her nursing and long-term care, and she can no longer keep the phone once a day. Eventually, Oar was forced to leave the office after witnessing his boss's infidelity and being dressed in his embezzlement. Oars who cannot speak honestly cannot return to their hometowns, and they pass each other and become estranged.

After divorcing her husband after he murdered the woman he was having an affair with, Reimi returns to her hometown and her family home. Her younger sister Mitsuki is missing, her father has passed away, and she lives alone in the house, with only her aunt as her only relative. Her former boyfriend, Tatsuo, is dating Kanna, a hostess, but he persistently pressures Reimi to get back together with him. Meanwhile, her estranged father's twin brother, Kazuo, appears in town. Reimi suspects that there may be some connection between her sister's disappearance and Kazuo's appearance... (R15+ version premiered at the OP PICTURES+ Festival 2025).