Men and women caught up in a downward spiral of corruption, discrimination, poverty and death are the focus of this detective-thriller/social-drama inspired by the unsolved 1984 kidnapping of a Japanese candy company president.

Movie based on the Emergency Interrogation Room series.

In 1943, as Japan's WWII effort falters, a vice-admiral proposes training squadrons of "volunteer" flyers to crash their armed planes into Allied warships. Yarn follows the lives of kamikaze pilots, as remembered by an aging Kyushu restaurateur who cherishes their memory. Honoring the dead and multiple military anthems may stir the soul of some Japanese, but elsewhere auds will make a one-way trip for exits. Battle scenes are well-executed and script delivers some memorable scenes, but overall competent helming and thesping are powerless over writer-cum-Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishiara's repetitive storytelling. A post-war postscript adds considerable length to an already over-extended narrative. Tech credits are good quality.

Adapted from the novel "Yu-san no Nyobo ~ Mou Hitori no Ishihara Yujiro" by Muramatsu Tomomi, this NHK / BS4K one -shot drama tells a love story of a woman who continues to be the "wife" of superstar Ishihara Yujiro.

The protagonist, Shippei Iida, moves with his mother to the remote island of Origoshima. He transfers to the island's only high school, Origoshima High School (nicknamed "Oriko"). However, shortly after his transfer, it's announced that Oriko will be merged with a regular mainland school. Naturally shy and with few friends, Shippei is touched by the warmth of the islanders and his fellow students. Wanting to create a final memory at the school, he proposes that all the students perform a choral song together. But this very choir becomes the spark that drives a wedge between his friends' hearts…

A member of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, Lieutenant Kasuga, was assigned to the earthquake-stricken area. Though he had lost his wife and young daughter in the tsunami, Kasuga concealed his own grief and devoted himself entirely to his mission. At an evacuation shelter, he encountered a boy named Kazuki Yoshimura, who had also lost his family and shut his heart. As Kazuki quietly observed the Self-Defense Forces at work, he eventually began to help people around him as well. Two people who met at the depths of despair decided to believe in hope and began to move forward. A story of “rebirth”, arising from loss.