Weekly Yoko Maki

Guinea

Yukari Nishihara, 25, earns her living as an art model and aspires to become an actress. One day, while she was out, she saw “a man's face about to jump off the roof of a building”, and since then she has been suffering from a peculiar constitution: she sees a suicide while on her period, faints, and develops a fever. The goddess of love does not smile on Yukari, who is unable to become a sweet girl with a nice boyfriend. The only things that can save Yukari now are her best friend Hana, who has a keen intuition, and a suppository that can break a fever in one shot. On the day of an important audition, Yukari has decided that this is her last chance. However, Yukari realizes that she has forgotten her antipyretic suppositories, and her eyes meet those of another soon-to-be suicide victim. She is in a desperate situation. What does Yukari do?

Hatsuko's World

Hatsuko, who is poor and has no friends, finds emotional support in Mishima, a boy in her class, who helps her with her study to go to a high school together. However, Hatsuko's brother causes trouble at the factory and gets the sack. Hatsuko gives up her dream of going to high school.

Tokyo Girl

The story follows Aya from the time she moves to Tokyo at age 23 up until she turns 40. Aya has to adjust to the different values and perceptions of the big city as she struggles with challenging situations. We get to follow Aya’s move from one neighborhood to another as she maneuvers her career and love life.

Rent a Person Who Does Nothing

The main character provides a highly unusual service by offering his companionship in exchange for the humble fee of covered transportation costs and payment of his food and beverage tab. Joining others to file legal papers, enjoy a denied icy treat, or to ride a train’s entire loop just for the fun of it, are typical of the requests he takes on. He is blessed with a young son and an extremely supportive wife. Interestingly enough, this person who does nothing, save for answering the simplest of questions, manages to warm the hearts of the people he meets.

One Million Yen Girl

A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.

Romance Doll

It was a pre-destined love and marriage for Sonoko and Tetsuo. They tied the knot and became husband and wife no questions asked. All is well then. Well, perhaps not. Each holds a secret that even the binds of matrimony cannot untie.

My Broken Mariko

Shiino one day finds out that her best friend Mariko has committed suicide. After snatching Mariko's urn from her abusive father, Shiino heads to Marigaoka Cape, a place Mariko always wanted to go.

Prism

Maejima Satsuki works part-time at a garden centre in Tokyo. While her aspiration is to be a voice talent, she is on the verge of giving up. Satsuki has never been serious about what she does. It is the same with romance. However, she meets Morishita Riku, who is a garden designer. After a terrarium that she made captured his attention, Satsuki ends up helping out with a garden project he has undertaken. Before long, the two of them become a couple. Then, the gardener, Shiraishi Yuma, joins the project, and Riku is greatly shaken. Satsuki is unaware of their reunion. The feelings of the three of them intertwine as they focus on completing the garden. Satsuki eventually makes a choice.

The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky

Based on the award-winning novel of the same name, this portrait of a group of vulnerable, variously wounded people — a depressed housewife, her high-school-aged lover, and his best friend, who is struggling to provide for himself and his senile grandmother — whose intersecting lives yield both sorrow and a fragile, yet enduring, hope for a brighter future.

Sakuran

Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.

Ain't No Tomorrows

17 year-old Hiruma is desperate to get laid and takes out his sexual urges on Anpai, a fat boy who has "boobs." His classmate Tomono, a sickly loner, is in a serious relationship with their married teacher.

My Dad and Mr. Ito

He is rejected by his sister when the brother floats the idea that their father move from his house to her apartment. The father has other ideas however and shows up unannounced at her doorstep with his belongings. She has little space, a boyfriend she lives with it and does not need a cranky father.

My Husband Won't Fit

Kumiko and Kenichi meet in college and build a happy marriage together. But over time, an unusual problem threatens to destroy their relationship.

Tokyo Bachelors

Three Japanese men in their thirties and forties are professionals working in law, dentistry and banking. These three men are close friends and they enjoy their lives as single men, but they begin to wonder about the merits or necessity for marriage.

Moon & Cherry

When an alluring young woman joins an erotic writing class, she begins a game of sexual cat and mouse with a naïve college student. As they venture into more and more unpredictable territory in the bedroom, he begins to think she might be using him as a test subject for her fiction more than anything else.

Cinematic Liars of Asahi-za

Movie theater Asahiza has existed for almost a 100 years in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture. Unlike other theaters, Asahiza plays old films and doesn't get a lot of customers. The manger of Asahiza, Yasuzo Morita, finally decides to close down the theater. When he is about to burn the old 35 mm films, a young woman named Rika Motegi suddenly appears and tries to stop him. Rika Motegi came to Minamisoma from Tokyo to save Asahiza.