From time immemorial to the age of space colonization, there is one legend that has stayed unchanged in every history book—the tale of the immortal bird Phoenix. A being whose blood is said to grant eternal life or wisdom, the radiant figure ensures the continuation of sentient life in the universe as it oversees human civilizations and their development. Yet, mankind remains a slave to its habits; from happiness and sorrow, to wrath and love, a myriad of emotions continue to play an integral part of human life. Simultaneously, time and time again, certain beliefs and agendas persist over the centuries to disturb the fragile equilibrium of the world's preordained nature and principles. It appears that fate and its dynamic variables can manifest itself in many ways—and oftentimes exhibits a bizarre sense of humor...

Yoko, who gets a job at a nursing home, witnesses the elderly and disabled people there having their human dignity threatened.

In the age of space exploration, Romi and George flee a devastated Earth in search of a new world.

Sou Makimoto works in the "send-off" department at the city hall. The department's main responsibility is to hold funerals for people who die alone and bury them at a cemetery. Makimoto doesn't like to socialise with his colleagues or listen to them. By doing his job, he meets various people and slowly begins to change his life.

Following the ascension to power of Taira no Kiyomori, the Minamoto clan is exiled. Minamoto no Yoritomo meets Masako, the sister of Hōjō Yoshitoki and later marries her. Following this marriage, the gears of Yoshitoki's destiny begin to turn.

A comedy about how the world of politics really works! Tsutomu is a secretary for a member of the Japanese Parliament. After the latter suffers a heart attack, his daughter Yumi is chosen to fill his place in the next election because she seems easy to control. However, her unpredictable behavior soon throws the campaign out of control.

Ryōsuke Sagara is an ordinary salaryman and he works for a mid-size shipping company. He is a good-natured person. His family consists of his wife Maho, high school student daughter and elementary school student son. Maho works part-time at a supermarket. They are a happy family, but Maho and their two children suddenly disappear. There are no clues about their disappearance. Ryōsuke gets the attention of the media and public. He tries to find the truth behind his family's disappearance with the help of his subordinate Mizuho Ninomiya at work.

Kiyomi Koike is a 16-year-old girl. She has all these different emotions intertwined in her mind. One day, she suddenly blurts out "What is a woman?" She then hears a DJ's voice in her head. The voice states "Women's Songs! Radio FM999 starts." The DJ in Kiyomi Koike’s head proceeds to spin songs that matches her worries. With her eyes closed, Kiyomi Koike meets various women in the world of music and learns from them.

Set in "Byplaywood" a large film studio surrounded by forest, far from the city. The story depicts 100 days of turmoil caused by the gathering of serial dramas and movies from various TV stations at once in this remote studio. It is a drama full of battles for ratings between studios, clashes between young, mid-career, and big names, and a heartwarming story of friendship and bonding. Also, the self-deprecation and parodies are enhanced by the fact that the actors play a role of themselves.

A family asks a man to build a house he would like to live in himself. However, when it is completed, the family disappears without moving in.

In the town of Saima, when summer is about to begin, a group of six high school students intend to live a secret adventure by spending seven carefree days in a ruined mining facility.

The story of Osamu Dazai, one of Japan's most celebrated novelists, absorbed in alcohol and love; married and in a relationship with two other lovers.

Follows the rise of Tooru Muranishi, one of Japan's most notorious directors of adult video. Adapted from a biography of the man, this series depicts the character, his art, vision and his interactions with the approving and disapproving folk around him.

NODA MAP, led by Hideki Noda, broadcasts its 2017 performance of "Princess Footprints" . This work is a tribute to Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII.

A strict, but caring mother has an awakening when she is told she has cancer and it is terminal. She has a few months. She needs to complete her tasks in that short time frame.

After dying in a bus crash and falling to hell, high schooler Daisuke joins a demonic rock band so he can be reincarnated back into the mortal world.

'The Ninagawa of the world', still ill. The 80-year-old's intense run to stay alive, even after falling ill!

Hiroshi has given up on his dreams of becoming a painter and works part-time cleaning office windows. He learns that he has only 3 months left to live. During his last summer, high school student Mai appears. Hiroshi becomes attracted to her.

Daily, Rika Umezawa battles a nagging sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction. She works a tiring job, comes home to an unappreciative husband and has little opportunity to enjoy life. But things change when office gossip about affairs and embezzlement inspire Rika to do the unthinkable. Soon, Rika finds herself filling the void with a university student named Kota and the millions entrusted to her by clients. Is her newfound lifestyle the key to happiness? And if so, how long can it last?

About a lady and her cat. The lady's cat dies and she loses all inspiration to continue living, and doing her work from home job. One day when forced to get out of her house for a while she finds and orphaned kitten in the park. The kitten is sick and she takes the kitten to the vet. This kitten brings her out of her depression and gives her new hope.

Before World War II, the automobile industry in developed countries in Europe and the United States possessed formidable technological capabilities. A youth who saw this industrial might with his own eyes, returns to Japan fired up with the dream to develop the national automobile industry with his own hands. This young man’s name is Aichi Saichiro and this is the story of Aichi (Toyota) Motor Corporation.

A young girl named Kiki must leave her home for a year to begin training in witchcraft. She leaves on her broom, but first says goodbye to her friends and family. Kiki then begins her new life with her trusted cat Jiji.

Kageyama (Sho Sakurai) works as the butler for rich heiress Reiko Hosho (Keiko Kitagawa). Reiko happens to be a novice detective but lacks certain deductive skills needed by detectives. Because of this Reiko relies on Kageyamaa to help her solve cases. Meanwhile, Kageyama isn't afraid to mince words and often calls out Reiko with his sharp tongue!

"Blackboard ~ Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~," revolves around teachers in different time periods having to deal with the problems of that era. The first episode stars Sakurai as Shirahama, a junior high school teacher who taught his students about "dying for your country" during wartime. After later losing his right arm in the war, he returns to teaching but is burdened and conflicted by what he taught his students in the past. The second episode of "Blackboard ~Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~" stars Sato Koichi as a teacher during the 1980s having to deal with school violence. Shida Mirai plays a delinquent student, and Kanjiya Shihori plays another teacher at the school. Set in modern-day Japan, tackles the story of forbidden teacher-student relationships. Matsushita Nao plays a devoted English teacher who's offering personal lessons for a pupil (played by Kamiki Ryunosuke), who barely can read or write.

"Blackboard ~ Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~," revolves around teachers in different time periods having to deal with the problems of that era. The first episode stars Sakurai as Shirahama, a junior high school teacher who taught his students about "dying for your country" during wartime. After later losing his right arm in the war, he returns to teaching but is burdened and conflicted by what he taught his students in the past. The second episode of "Blackboard ~Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~" stars Sato Koichi as a teacher during the 1980s having to deal with school violence. Shida Mirai plays a delinquent student, and Kanjiya Shihori plays another teacher at the school. Set in modern-day Japan, tackles the story of forbidden teacher-student relationships. Matsushita Nao plays a devoted English teacher who's offering personal lessons for a pupil (played by Kamiki Ryunosuke), who barely can read or write.

Princess Go was the youngest of the most famous three sisters in Japanese history, who each led a remarkable life in an age of turmoil and civil war. Go loses her parents in the war, marries three times, and feuds with her own sister in competing for power. Go's husband becomes the second Tokugawa Shogun and she ensures her prominence as she gives birth to a son who later becomes the third Shogun and a daughter, a wife of the Emperor. The drama describes the age of the civil war through the eyes of Princess Go, who plays a significant part in establishing the age of peace that lasts over 200 years in Japan.

Princess Go was the youngest of the most famous three sisters in Japanese history, who each led a remarkable life in an age of turmoil and civil war. Go loses her parents in the war, marries three times, and feuds with her own sister in competing for power. Go's husband becomes the second Tokugawa Shogun and she ensures her prominence as she gives birth to a son who later becomes the third Shogun and a daughter, a wife of the Emperor. The drama describes the age of the civil war through the eyes of Princess Go, who plays a significant part in establishing the age of peace that lasts over 200 years in Japan.

Musical band "Yajima Biyoshitsu" comes to Japan from Nevada, USA to debut their CD.

The story of a photographer who becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman who lives in the apartment opposite his.

Recently appointed dean at a film school, Kimuro Hajime develops a special concern for one of his students, Daisuke. The brash, headstrong young man is fixated on with the Second World War. He feels a sense of frustration at the irrational sacrifice of young people's lives during the war six decades earlier. Daisuke finds that he can vent his frustrations to Kimuro, who experienced the war firsthand. Kimuro's wife, Emiko, is also troubled by memories of the war. She lost a loved one in the war and has never gotten over it. And Kimuro himself also has something from the past that he has yet to face. He believes that the burden of his unresolved past will eventually be the death of him. When Daisuke's neurosis causes him to quit school, life changes for all three of them.

Based on the short story from the best-selling collection "Poppoya" by Jiro Asada, "The Invitation from Cinema Orion" tells the story of a couple's undying love for the cinema and each other.

In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.

A sheltered aristocratic woman in feudal Japan, bored and unfamiliar with the world outside her estate, passes the time copying a special Buddhist sutra sent by her father who has been absent on official business for years. While gazing out her window one late afternoon, the setting sun creates a vision of a holy figure in the distant mountains.

Adapted from the successful play, the film takes place in 19th-century Japan, where a war between demons and their slayers is fought. Izumo, a kabuki actor with a demon-slaying past, meets and falls in love with Tsubaki. However, something is not right, as mysterious marks appear on her body as time progresses. At the same time, it is announced that Ashura, the queen of all demons, will be resurrected and bring destruction to the universe.

When technical illustrator Tony Takitani asks his wife to resist her all-consuming obsession for designer clothes, the consequences are tragic.

A Meiji era home drama about the great writer Soseki Natsume and his wife Kyōko. A story of love and tears of a funny couple starring Rie Miyazawa and Masahiro Motoki!

Based on a play by Hisashi Inoue, it focuses on the sufferings of the survivors of Hiroshima. The film takes place during 4 days in the summer of 1948, as the ghost of her father visits Mitsué (Rié Miyama). He had somehow learned that she has fallen in love, and tries to convince her to start her new life. But Mitsué obstinately refuses his warm and humorous encouragements : « People were killed in my place. I do not have the right to find happiness », she says.

Orphaned when he was not yet ten, Musashi grows up skilled in the martial arts. During the Battle of Sekigahara, he fights on the side of the losing Toyotomi forces, but eludes the enemy as they hunt down the vanquished soldiers. He then spends years wandering the countryside mastering the sword. As his fame spreads throughout the nation, men seek him out to test their skills against him--most notably Sasaki Kojiro who faces Musashi in the ultimate duel at Ganryujima.

Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?

A mysterious woman approaches a salaried man who leads a peaceful family life and tells him, "Your wife is having an affair with my husband." From this mysterious woman's words, the gears of a man's destiny begin to go mad.

In the 1930s, a songstress courtesan finds herself in a confusing relationship with her cousin as their marriages to men go into decline.

Mr. Takano, a company employee, announces plans to take an early retirement so he can return to his home town and spend his days fishing. Su-san and Hama-chan envy his decision, and Hama-chan conspires to visit Takano, even though he has no vacation time left.

After falling in love with a traffic cop, a cab driver commits as many traffic violations as he can in order to see her again.

The president of a large food production company combines gourmet eating and gambling into an underground eating contest, or "Food Fight," in the basement of his company. After growing up in an orphanage, Mitsuru Ihara starts working as a custodian at the large food producer. The pleasant, kind Ihara often visits his former home, pretending to be an important business man, not the blue-collar cleaner that he really is. He also has a bigger secret, which is, he is the reigning champion of the underground eating competition held at the company. In it, two contestants battle to see who can pack away more food within a set time limit. The noble Ihara, with nine consecutive wins, always donates the prize money anonymously to his orphanage, despite the fact that he wins millions. The circumstances surrounding his victories, however, are often surprising and usually unusual, perhaps unrealistic. He also wins by a very small margin, by only 1 point in most cases.

The 38th NHK Taiga Drama is Genroku Ryoran. The "Forty-seven Loyal Samurai" is one of the most enduring and best loved stories of Japan's history. Generations have grown up hearing the stirring tale of Oishi Kuranosuke, chief councillor of the Ako clan who leads his men through suffering and hardship to ultimately avenge their lord after he is unjustly forced to commit harakiri. NHK's 38th Taiga Drama "Genroku Ryoran" is the ambitious remake of this classic epic and boasts a cast that reads like a Who's Who in Japanese entertainment.

Masaki is fond of a music producer named Keigo, to get to his concert she ends up selling her body. She end up meeting him after the concert and fall in love with him, and he is interested in her. How ever Masaki has gotten HIV during the time she sold her body... How will this affect her relationship with Keigo?

The second TV movie Obayashi Nobuhiko directed based on Akagawa Jiro's Mikeneko Holmes series.

Love and ambition collide when two brilliant architects compete for the same woman and the glory of success in their highly competitive field. Kakeru, a young dreamer just entering the professional world, starts out with the goal of building a magnificent church. The story unfolds when a world-famous architect, whom Kakeru idolizes but has never seen, collapses in front of him on the beach. The skillful portrayal of the intertwined loves and professional trials of these characters makes for a suspenseful and inspiring drama.

SMAP×SMAP was an ongoing weekly Japanese variety show on Kansai TV and Fuji TV starring the members of SMAP. The show began on April 15, 1996 and it aired from 22:00 to 22:54 every Monday. The show's usual ratings were higher than 20%, which is considered high since most variety shows range from 10-20%. Each episode begins a variety of skits, comedic performances, and/or games.  These are followed by Bistro SMAP, in which the SMAP members compete against each other to impress celebrity judges with their gourmet cooking.  Last is a musical performance by SMAP which may include celebrity guests, as well.

A foreign student from Taiwan, Mr. Bell, attends language school in Japan and meets Miss Sato there. He falls in love with her, but doesn't dare to open his heart to her. Nevertheless, on Christmas night miracles do happen.

A young samurai dares to approach a castle mistress as he searches for an escaped falcon, a crime punishable by death, but escapes with his life. He is forced to return to the castle by the dying light, but the mistress has become fascinated with him...

Kon Ichikawa's retelling of the classic true story of Samurai honor. When a young clan lord is forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), his loyal followers (now Ronin, masterless Samurai) dedicate their lives to avenging his death.

Based on "Kaidan Botan Dango" by Sanyutei Encho, a rakugo storyteller who was active from the late Edo period to the Meiji era, Kara Juro was in charge of the script. A feature-length historical drama depicting a fierce and painful love story between ghosts and humans. Impressive artistic and fantastic painting with depth as if you were watching the stage. In all, this work is a beautiful, love horror fantasy.

A low-key private detective agency in Paris is run by Rie and her lover and partner Kishin, two ex-pats who tick along between cases by giving guided tours of the city to busloads of Japanese tourists. After the wealthy Okuyama hires them to trail his French mistress Lorraine whom he believes to be having an affair, feeble-willed Kishin finds himself seduced by this femme fatale and way out of his depth in a seamy underworld of rich Japanese businessmen, S&M games and huge piles of money.

There is a man who divorced his wife. He moved to rural Hokkaido from Tokyo where he lived with his family without running water or electricity. He has his son and daughter in tow and works hard for them. The folk in the area try to help. A couple of years pass and the older son moves back to Tokyo, attends school and works part-time. The daughter commutes to the city to attend school. She wants to become a nurse. To become a registered nurse she needs to study a further three years. This takes money.

Furuta Oribe is ordered to become tea master under Toyotomi Hideyoshi after his teacher Sen no Rikyū, the former tea master, was ordered to commit suicide. Princess Goh, daughter of the lord but adopted by Hideyoshi, is outraged when Rikyū's severed head is thrown in the Nijo River. She sends Usu, Oribe's servant, to retrieve the head and deliver it to Rikyū's adopted daughter.

Tsukasa leaves her hometown to work in Tokyo. While there, she is on her own facing the fascination and challenges of the working world. Her experiences gained, together with what she sees in others, gradually lead her to grow up. She is no longer in the midst of illusions and misconceptions.

A one part drama/made for TV movie starring Rie Miyazawa

Who Do I Choose? is a Japanese film directed by Shūsuke Kaneko.

A community is in turmoil when junior high schoolers barricade themselves in an empty factory to protest the draconian rules of parents and teachers. They're sick of heavy-handed teachers and iron-fisted parents. And now they're going to do something about it.