The story of the tender love between Junki, the son of a wealthy landowner, and Kayuki, the daughter of a forester, who decided to unite their destinies against their parents' wishes. Neither war nor years of separation could kill this love. It was only cut short by Kayuki's tragic death.

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.

A school was built on one of the Gates of Hell, behind which hordes of demons await the moment they will be free to roam the Earth. Hiruko is a goblin sent to Earth on a reconnaissance mission. He beheads students in order to assemble their heads on the demons' spider-like bodies. Hieda, an archaeology professor, and Masao, a haunted student, investigate the gory deaths.

A young Japanese-American comes from California looking for a bride, going on blind dates with three candidates from Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya.

School teachers responsible for the lives of their students work to evacuate Allied bombings near the end of WWII.

It is based on the story "The Lawyer" by attorney Hiroshi Masaki and his account of Japan's "Headless Murder Case" in which a police officer beat a suspect to death during the Pacific War.

Aspiring to an easy job as personal physician to a wealthy family, Noboru Yasumoto is disappointed when his first post after medical school takes him to a small country clinic under the gruff doctor Red Beard. Yasumoto rebels in numerous ways, but Red Beard proves a wise and patient teacher. He gradually introduces his student to the unglamorous side of the profession, ultimately assigning him to care for a prostitute rescued from a local brothel.

Three young boys drunkenly rape a woman named Emiko, the wife of a man they've developed a friendship with. She dies of heart failure during the attack. Her chicken farmer husband, incapable of dealing with her death tends to her corpse as though it were still alive completely unable to accept her demise.

After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.

Set in Japan during the bubble era, this unique home comedy cheerfully and humorously depicts the daily life of a strange family that works together to accumulate a small amount of money, while mixing irony and satire.