Two Homelands

In a strange alienated world there is a secret hotel in a shabby diner called the Venus Café, harboring some unusual people where compelling secrets lie in each resident's heart. Torturing secrets that have broken their emotional boundaries in the past. In this bittersweet, heart-wrenching story, there lives a man by the name of Chonan (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) who lives in the attic and works as a waiter or handyman at the hotel. Room 1 is shared by two residents; an incapable alcoholic and an illegal doctor named Doctor (Teruyuki Kagawa) and Wife (Miki Nakatani) who used to be a nurse but now works as a hostess living in the hopes of Doctor's recuperation. In Room 3 lives a bubbly girl by the name of Soda (Jo Eun Ji), who came from a deserted town where no one flowers flourished and has a dream to open her own flower shop. Finally, Room 4, occupied by a challenging young boy by the name of Boy (Lee Joon Gi), who carries around a gun longing to become a strong man and wishes to some day.

One of the hottest selling tickets in town is to see the hugely popular rakugoka, or comic storyteller, Danshun. Danshun himself was inspired as a little boy to become a rakugoka after seeing the legendary Danshi.

Shinichi Tsuda, a Naoki Prize winning author, is working to publish his newest story. It revolves around Tsuyama, a driver for a call girl business in Toyama Prefecture, who comes across a mysterious counterfeit bill and has his life targeted by underworld kingpin Kurata. Is his story fact or fiction? His editor, Nahomi Torikai, decides to verify whether his latest work is mere fiction based on real-life experiences. She looks into a family that vanished, a post office worker who went missing, a shady load of cash, the whereabouts of the doves, and the fateful encounter from that night... A series of shocking facts are revealed from Tsuda’s stories. Why did the counterfeit money end up in Tsuda’s hands? What is the “ending” that Tsuda wished to portray?

Satoru Mizushima is a designer, who prefers traditional things like handmade items and handwritten works. One day, he happens to meet a mysterious woman, Miyuki Miharu, at the cafe named Piano. She seems to have similar values to him and he is attracted to her. Satoru asks for Miyuki's cellphone number, but she doesn't own a cellphone. They make a promise to meet at the cafe every Thursday. Since then, Satoru and Miyuki meet every Thursday and their relationship develops romantically. Satoru decides to propose Miyuki, but she doesn't show up at the cafe.

The series consists of four 3-episode chapters, each handled by a different director. The directors were given freedom in their stories, but they all share a common theme: lies. --Tokyograph

There are many things happening in Harajuku. A policewoman is the local metre maid. She is consistently thinking about her relationship with her seniors. A man is Korean and works at a stockings' shop. He is an expert in the thickness and girth of the women's stockings. The two meet coincidentally one day. A teenager is walking around hoping to be scouted. The film focuses on the different people of different ages, genders and backgrounds in the area. One day the stories begin to merge into one,

The series features Ueno taking on five roles in five episodes. As the title suggests, each episode involves a bag of some kind, such as a guitar case or a mysterious delivery package.