Former boxer Iwano, teamed up with Sada and Maru, who live in the same apartment building, makes his daily living as a punching bag for drunken businessmen in some corner of the amusement quarters. The three have continuously avoided putting themselves in a situation that could tie them down, especially Iwano, who is totally clueless about what he wants to do with his life. One day, they receive notice that their apartment building will be torn down. As a compensation for the eviction, their remaining rent is considered as settled. Having lost their place to live, the three each try to find their way.

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

Seven families are aboard a bus towards a field camp for their vacation. At this camp, it becomes clear that this is not a common trip. The parents are of the kind that abused their children or were visited by children's services, and at the camp they are offered to sell their children for a large sum of money, because there were customers that needed healthy internal organs.

Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.

Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and unique characters along the way.

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.

While pursuing his dream of having car sex, a goofy middle-aged man makes all the wrong moves and ends up enrolling in a number of crazy escapades.

Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.

A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.