Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.

On an obscure Pacific Island just north of Australia, the Japanese Empire has operated a prisoner of war camp for Australian soldiers. At the close of World War II, the liberated POWs tell a gruesome tale of mass executions of over eight hundred persons as well as torture style killings of downed Australian airmen. In an attempt to bring those responsible to justice, the Australian Army establishes a War Crimes Tribunal to pass judgement on the Japanese men and officers who ran the Ambon camp. In an added twist, a high ranking Japanese admiral is implicated, and politics become involoved with justice as American authorities in Japan lobby for the Admiral's release. Written by Anthony Hughes

After the assassination of Tokyo's Governor by Yakuza members, the CIA bureau chief for Tokyo puts out a call to an agent that had been raised in Japan and trained by ex-Yakuza. Using his former ties, he quickly determines that a war is brewing between old-guard Yakuza members and a young, crazed leader with ties to the Chinese Tong.

The body of Kazuyoshi Kawagishi, a construction company worker, is discovered stabbed to death in Shinjuku Central Park in Tokyo. Detective Masanao Ushio of Shinjuku West PD begins an investigation and finds that the murdered Kawagishi was an honest person who didn't have any troubles. Kawagishi worked for a company in Kofu City in Yamanashi, leaving behind his wife and daughter on Awaji Island in Hyogo. He seems to have started working as a laborer 3 years ago, having fallen on hard times when the company went bankrupt. Saeko Kawamura, Ushio's reporter friend, calls him wanting to talk about the case. According to Saeko, Kawagishi was one of the survivors of the "bus hijack arson case" that happened three years ago. In the bus hijack arson case, a man who was hallucinating under the influence of dangerous drugs set fire to an intercity bus going to Shinjuku and departing from Kofu Station...

A foreign university student tries to fit in in Kyoto by reading books to the blind and finds himself falling in love.

Ginko's younger brother Tetsuro, a failed comedian, is the oddball of the family. Embarrassing, loud and plain inappropriate at times causes Ginko to disown him. The two reunite when she discovers Tetsuro is terminally ill. Tetsuro’s impending death marks the beginning of love and toleration.

Hiroshi Hamano, a professor at a medical university, is found dead. Going by the results of the autopsy, it appears he committed suicide by jumping off a roof, but going by eyewitness testimony and physical evidence at the scene, Detective Kamei suspects murder. A ticket for a train trip around Japan is found in the professor's pocket. However, nobody then could have known the shocking truth hidden behind the tour the dead man was supposed to attend...

Set in a future world. Japan has created a great medical technology that controls ethics, health, and social interaction to create a perfect world. Three young girls attempt to stand up to this by committing suicide, but it doesn't work. Years later, Tuan, one of the girls who attempted suicide must prevent a crisis that threatens this "perfect" world.

Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.