Aki Asakura

Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthrals all who encounter her. But, ultimately, she must confront her fate.

21st Century Girl is an omnibus feature that is of the girls, by the girls and for the girls. The work of 15 women directors under the age of 30, each of whom contributed an 8-minute film, the package highlights a range of genres, visions and thematic concerns.

A seemingly lazy salaryman is tasked with managing a company secret.

The year is 1987 and Japan is just reaching the peak of its economic success. Eighteen-year old Yonosuke Yokomichi arrives in Tokyo from Nagasaki. Ordinary in every way possible, he lives in a suburb far from the excitement of the big city and commutes to a university in the center of Tokyo.

A cafe owner discovers that the TV in his cafe suddenly shows images from the future, but only two minutes into the future.

Just one year after opening, Hayami Rinko became the first Asian woman to be the chef of a three-star restaurant, but shortly after, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the food and beverage industry hard. "Grand Maison Tokyo" was no exception, and in order to survive, the restaurant entered into a capital alliance with a food consulting company under a major corporation and found a way forward with frozen foods for mail order and recipe sites...

Six high school students, who have finished their college entrance examinations, accidentally discover a haunted house with eerie rumors to it. Inside there, the students start to hear the whispers of death and vanish one by one, as unstoppable, extreme terror engulfs them.

For his first film in fourteen years, animation director Isao Takahata embarked on a visually sumptuous adaptation of The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter. A dream project for the director that would hopefully establish the recently formed Ghibli Studio 7, created to meet the demands of a new type of modern animation process. But, almost immediately, the epic production is faced with difficulties and falls dramatically behind schedule. In this compelling and insightful documentary, we follow Isao Takahata and his dedicated team of artists as they frantically strive against adversity to make their vision a reality and bring Studio Ghibli into a new era.

A beautiful cosmetics company employee is found dead in a gruesome state. What's more, it becomes apparent that one of the victim's colleagues, a homely woman named Miki, has gone missing. Television director Akaboshi attempts to interview as many of Miki's friends and acquaintances as he can find, eliciting miscellaneous information from them.

Kaori, an allomantic and asexual woman, is left shattered after her fiancé Takeru’s sudden suicide. Seeking closure, she embarks on a journey with Nakano, Takeru’s best friend, to the place of his death—unraveling hidden layers of love, identity, and the Takeru they never truly knew.

Four years before Silent Parade (2022), Yukawa and Kusanagi investigate the murder of a writer after a video found in his possession piques Yukawa's interest.

27-year-old Hatsumi Takimoto is a former teacher and now waitress. She holds a secret. Three years after her boyfriend died, she receives a letter from him. After meeting a former student, Hatsumi Takimoto confesses about her past.

Aki Asakura, an actress who played the voice of Princess Kaguya, travels around Japan to visit the scenery that appeared in Takahata's work. The documentary also includes an interview with Director Takahata. This documentary is composed from the fragments of a program, aired by BS Nippon Television TV station on the 1st of January 2014, dedicated to the release of The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

The love and conflicts between mother and daughter, and between husband and wife. The final chapter of Nakagawa Ryutaro's trilogy, depicting the forms of love that endure through loss and rebirth.

A young child is obsessed with learning about and drawing fish. The child seems a little odd, but if you are understanding and supportive you will be cheering in the end.

A magazine publicist investigates an unsolved murder case that occurs on Halloween every year.

There is a degree of realism when a professional in the field writes about his vocation and such is the case here. Adopted from a novel written by a doctor and set in Nagano, doctor Kuriharai is overwhelmed by the number and variety of patients he has to see due to a shortage of physicians where he practices. He aspires to work somewhere more convenient, specialize and see more of his wife, but faces a dilemma many other doctors experience.

Kato, a scriptwriter, is in love with Miho—but he can never manage to muster up enough courage to make the relationship anything more than a platonic friendship. Seemingly oblivious to Kato's feelings for her, Miho is always calling him up and spilling her guts about her own love problems. She's in love with someone else, it turns out, but Kato swallows his pride—hearing about it all is almost too much to bear, but he wants to be with Miho as much as he can.

Chief Iizuka, who works at the Cultural Center, misunderstands two chorus groups with similar names and double-books the concert hall on New Year's Eve. Although they talk to each other, neither of them gives up a step and develops into a big problem. Iizuka, who has lived his life with a "no-nonsense" attitude, finds himself in the middle of two groups and at a loss for words.

A short omnibus created by four young creators on the theme of "drawing the people of Ichii who use a certain station where a cat lives".

Following the news of a heinous tragedy, a young woman searches the streets for her missing brother, the person accused of committing the incident. Unaware of his true status or location, he finds himself in the employ of an underground fighting ring using inmates like him to entertain wealthy clients, eventually moving up the ranks of the fighters quite quickly. Eventually frustrated at the lack of information from the investigation, she turns to a detective to help him, but with a dangerous socialite also looking into the club they try to push their rescue efforts into high gear into order to save her brother.

Mariko Okano’s boyfriend Junichi Nagata leaves suddenly to become a volunteer teacher in a remote country. Mariko and Junichi’s families are both left wondering why he departed so quickly, without discussing his plans with them first. The next day, a woman’s charred body is discovered in a warehouse. The woman turns out to be Ayako Oshima, the mother of a student who was suspected of arson in a warehouse blaze 15 years ago. Oddly, Mariko had been trapped in that warehouse fire with another student, but was saved by Junichi. However, the other student died in the blaze. Soon after, Mariko receives a letter from Junichi, in which he confesses to a crime Mariko was not aware of. Are the two fires related? And what was the crime Junichi confessed to?

No description available.

Satoshi loses his eyesight completely at the age of 9 despite numerous surgeries, but grows up with cheerful spirit thanks to his mother Reiko’s unconditional love. Surrounded by affection and friendship at high school, Satoshi’s future seems bright until one day his family realizes that he is losing his hearing as well. Determined to never give up, Reiko tries everything she can to give him hope.

Inspector Totsugawa of the First Investigation Division goes to Tsuruoka in Yamagata to attend the wedding of the son of Inspector Mukai, his former colleague who now works for the Yamagata Prefectural Police. While sightseeing at Mt. Haguro after the ceremony, he notices a young woman drawing him in her sketchbook. She introduces herself as Yuka Shiraishi and says she came to draw the Dewa Sanzan. Signing the drawing of Totsugawa next to the five-story pagoda with her initial, a 'Y' in the corner, she gives it to him as a present. The next morning, the corpse of a young woman who has been stabbed is discovered in a forest in Tsuruoka. When Totsugawa, on his way back, hears that a sketchbook signed with a 'Y' was found at the scene, he follows Mukai there. However, the body is not Yuka, the woman Totsugawa had met, and while no items pointing to her identity are found, the sketchbook is the same one Yuka had the day before.

This gruesome tale depicts a fantasy-fulfilling club which houses deadly fights where winners are rewarded, and losers meet their ultimate fate.

Master thief Kinosuke arrives in Edo to pull off one final heist for a tea-server who resembles his long-lost love, while Hasegawa Heizo’s spy Kumehachi tries to stop him, only to be exposed and trapped alongside the thief by Kinosuke's own crew.

Within a mountain village, the Suijin family has controlled the village for a long time. The three sisters from the Sujin family begin to quarrel over the family inheritance. There, consecutive murders then take place in the village. The murders can only by explained by paranormal phenomenon. Naoko (Yukie Nakama) and Jiro (Hiroshi Abe) attempt to uncover the truth.

A mysterious assassin cloaked in a haunting, seductive fragrance sets his sights on Heizo Hasegawa. Hanjiro Kaneko, a master swordsman, attacks with deadly precision, leaving Heizo to uncover the truth behind the strange scent of "White Plum Allure." As Heizo digs deeper, he discovers a tangled web of deception involving Hiko-no-Ichi, a blind decoy working for the notorious bandit leader Heijuro the Snake.

Yoshinaga, a real-estate agent, has a young female customer one day. She asks him to take her to the apartment where she used to live. When he plays a videotape left in that cavant room which shows some signs of its ex-resident, Yoshinaga gets lost in another fantastic world. After a while, Yoshinaga and the girl come back to their respective daily lives... A pop, colorful, yet at times a heartaching road movie, which leads to elsewhere.