Mom’s Shoulders

One night, Jiro and Reiko fell in love at first sight, and on the seventh day he proposed to her, and three months later they were married. However, the difference in upbringing between Jiro, who was born and raised in a farmhouse in Shinshu, and Reiko, who is a city girl by nature, sometimes causes small ripples in their sweet newlywed life.

The Tsuru family is a family of nine, headed by Kamejiro. Kamejiro is the president of a construction company that has made a fortune in its first generation, but he is a one-man family. His wife, Aiko, is a typical good wife and wise mother type. Kamejiro gets angry and thunders down every week, and the children are afraid of him, calling him "Oyaji Daiko", but he also takes advantage of this.

A businessman runs afoul of the law and commits suicide, leaving behind a wife and five children. The eldest son takes the family to Tokyo and labors to restore its name and fortune

From 1928 to 1946, the lives of 12 young people and their school teacher in a poor Japanese village are profoundly affected by historical events and personal circumstances.

In a remote village where food is scarce, elders who reach the age of 70 are carried by their children to the top of a nearby mountain to die in solitude. Orin, a vibrant 69-year-old grandmother, has accepted her fate — but struggles to prepare the rest of her family for the ritual.

A young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through three decades of bitter conflict which engulfs their children and those around them.

After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble.

On a Tokyo dump’s shantytown edge, interwoven vignettes follow residents scraping by: a boy who “drives” an imaginary trolley, a homeless father and son designing a dream house, a young woman brutalized at home, drunks, schemers, and saints of small kindnesses. Kurosawa crafts a ragged mosaic of hardship, fantasy, and flickers of grace that keep people moving forward.

On the way back to his childhood home, a septuagenarian man recalls his childhood and adolescence, in particular his love for a young woman.

A Tokyo family escaping the war relocates to a Hokkaido village; their daughter is set to marry the local leader's son, but her siblings disapprove.

After surviving the double suicide pact she made with her lover, a woman gives birth to their child.

Five years after the end of the Second World War, Reikichi, a repatriated veteran, translates love letters for Japanese women to American GIs, while searching for his lost love, Michiko.

Though plagued by ill health all his life, a young Japanese man is obligated to fulfill his family's longstanding military tradition.

A lighthouse keeper and his family follow work from town to town, each time making new friends and receiving a visit from his troublesome father.

A matchmaker looks to unite a young woman from a wealthy Tokyo family with the humble owner of an auto garage.

When the future of his construction company falls into danger, a controlling father pushes his children into unsatisfying marriages and careers in order to regain financial stability.