Known for Acting
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?
The Abe family consists of French Toma, his Japanese wife Mikiko and their beautiful daughter Yuko. They appear like the perfect family. However, things start to change when Mikiko manages to get her daughter in show business.
In a Tokyo love hotel district, a woman is found dead in a derelict apartment. As police investigate, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To break away from the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model enacting sex in front of a camera. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade that she's still the doting wife she's supposed to be.
A part-time employee in a mahjong parlour runs across a young woman, who is unable to walk, in baby carriage. He becomes friends with the woman and begins to feel enamoured with her.
Detective Ukyo Sugishita confronts crime on the basis of his own convictions. He has a partner that works for him in the Special Task Unit. For the first 7 seasons, Ukyo’s first partner is Kaoru Kameyama. He is a good-natured, hot-tempered, straightforward and somewhat scattered detective. Beginning in Season 8, Takeru Kanbe replaces Kameyama. Contrary to his predecessor, Takeru is a lanky, cool, conceited and confident detective. From Season 11 to Season 13, Ukyo’s partner is a young detective Toru Kai. Toru is a son of Deputy Director-General of The National Police Agency. But he became a detective by his own effort. And starting with Season 14, Ukyo’s current partner is Wataru Kaburagi, an elite bureaucrat who came to the Metropolitan Police Department on temporary assignment. As the first partner without any career of a police officer, he will face challenging cases together with Ukyo.
Koizumi Kyoko stars as Asako, a 32 year old woman working for a Beer Company. She gets set up with an affable 38 year old man named Koichi (Yanagiba Toshiro) who tries to win her love against competition like a younger co-worker and off-putting best friends!
After a corporate restructuring, Mr. Ogura, an aging manager, is assigned to run La Mer, a French restaurant in Japan. Joe Satake, a very talented French Japanese wine expert, has been asked by Ms. Katagiri, Mr. Ogura's immediate supervisor, to help. Using his expertise and keen observation skills, Joe is a genius in selecting the right wine for every occasion for his customers. He is very eccentric and has high standards, demanding that the wine be properly handled and appreciated.
The struggles of a group of outcasts living in "Yentown", in an alternate-future Japan.
