Etsushi Toyokawa

Hiroko Watanabe's fiancé Itsuki died two years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. While looking through his high school yearbook, Hiroko in a fit of grief decides to write a letter to him using his old school address. (imdb)

In the aftermath of a major earthquake under Suraga Bay, Misaki (a young girl) and Toshiro (a pilot of a deep sea submarine) are rescued from a ruined city street just as leaking gasoline ignites. Reiko Abe arrives just in time, lowered from a helicopter. Scientists predict that Japan will sink within 40 years, due to subduction of a tectonic plate to the west... (imdb)

..Town elders hope to exploit international fascination with Polynesian culture by building a Hawaiian-theme resort as bait for Japanese tourists and promoting it by training local girls as hula dancers.. Their teacher.., a hard-drinking, smart-mouthed Tokyo dancer whose very presence causes local parents to grouse that their daughters are being corrupted. In due course, the spunky teacher whips her crew of social misfits into professional artists and freethinking women. (movies.nytimes.com)

Killing her sister is just what a dreary Japanese seamstress needed to perk up her life... (offoffoff.com)

Yuko is 35 years old, single, out of work, and on medication from her psychiatrist to combat her manic depression. Living in Kamata Town, Yuko divides her time between a variety of men friends, each with his own peculiarities. (imdb)

Who is the mysterious "Friend" and how does he tie into Kenji's youth? Why are there disappearances and deaths tied into Ochanomizu University? Their memories hold the keys to the puzzle, but time and age have clouded their minds. The strange occurrences and the reach of the "Friend" conspiracy grow by the day. It will all culminate on New Year's Eve 2000. Will Kenji and the others be able to put together the puzzle and save the world? (robojapan.blogspot.com)

Shuji ... starts going to church with his cynical older brother and there he meets the orphan girl Eri, who is in his class at school. Shuji develops a crush on her and takes up running so that he can spend more time with her. However, when Eri is injured when a truck's cargo falls on her, her relatives whisk her away to Tokyo. Shuji is desperate to go after her, but his journey will not be an easy one as he encounters yakuza, prostitutes and a priest with a shady past. (www.yesasia.com)

In a nutshell, Reiko pukes up black mud as a foreshadowing of her interactions with the 1000-year-old mummy's spirit, which was preserved in the same kind of mud (and possibly drank the mud during its lifetime to preserve beauty). Makoto (the anthropologist) takes the mummy to the deserted house because it causes side-effects to those around it (Hino describes his nightmares and Makoto himself drives his car off the road). (imdb)

Picking up the story 15 years after the events of the first film, Chapter 2 introduces viewers to a Japan that has completely fallen under the fascist spell of masked cult leader "Friend" after he stepped in to save the world from the virus he unleashed. Most of the resistance fighters including Kenji..have been missing or imprisoned since the bloody New Year's Eve showdown, and are now branded as terrorists (katzforums.com)

When F.B.I. Agent Zack Grant's partner is killed during a blown-up operation, he attempts to find the person responsible. Mafiaso Frank Serlano believes Zack is responsible for his only sons death in the same operation and kidnaps Zacks son to hold as bait. The action gets wild when airline stewardess Mary is taken hostage to add what seems an another insurmountable problem for Zack. (imdb)

Every Monday at 6 pm a young woman is murdered in the subway. The psychiatrist Setsuko Suma is called in to assist the police. The trail leads to another psychiatrist - Dr Rei Aku - who Setsuko used to date. As she get closer to the solution, she gets more and more convinced that Aku's deprogramming of former sectmembers is important. (imdb)

This is the third and final film in the 20th Century Boys Trilogy. A mysterious cult leader, simply named Friend (Tomodachi in Japanese), has gained control of the world. The plot follows the actions of Kenji and his childhood friends as the book of prophecies that Kenji wrote continues to influence the course of the world.

Akari is a 14-year-old schoolgirl living in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. One day, a puppy wanders into her yard, looking lost and frightened. She is a Golden Retriever with white paw markings. Akari names her Socks. Akari's mother consents to her keeping the dog but only after she agrees to keep 10 Promises to Socks. Akari enthusiastically assents and the two begin their journey of growing up together.

Swordsman Kanemi Sanzaemon stabs and kills the Lady Renko , mistress to the Lord Tabu Ukyou. This crime is normally punishable by beheading, yet Sanzaemon is spared. Instead, he is imprisoned in isolation for a year, during which time we learn of the corruption of Renko, and the growing rift that is forming between the Lord and his cousin Hayatonosho Obiya. When Sanzaemon is released and promoted to chief attendant, things really start to get complicated. (japanesefilmfestival.blogspot.com)

Three couples are staying at a lakeside cottage with their children. They want them to prepare intensely for a prestigious high school's entrance exam with the help of a private tutor. One night, one of the wives confesses to her husband that she has killed his mistress... (imdb)

Towards the end of the war, one hundred middle-aged soldiers were sent to the frontline according to lots drawn by their superior officer. On the night of the lottery, a soldier, expecting to be killed in action, leaves a postcard from his wife with Keita Matsuyama. The card tells, "It is the festival today, but the air feels empty without your presence." The soldier asks Keita to let his wife know that he had read the postcard. (mubi.com)

Yukio brings home a couple of turtles to keep Moemi company. He drills a hole in the front of one turtle's shell so that it can be taken for walks on a leash, but Moemi spares the second from the same fate. Their lives seem reasonably happy until she has her braces removed, and Yukio finds kissing her less satisfying. She starts tying up everything in her sight with knotted twine. A psychiatrist diagnoses "Obsessive Knot-Binding Syndrome" due to deficiencies in her relationship with Yukio. (imdb.com)

Su-san must give a lecture in far-off Iwate, which serves as another excuse for the company president and Hama-chan to go fishing. Once there, however, Hama-chan is mistaken for the company president and Su-san for his chauffeur! But Su-san is delighted at the mix-up: he gets to go fishing with a beautiful woman working at a local inn.

A quirky and perplexing police thriller centered around two murderess who thrive on slicing up schoolgirls. calculated serial psycho Yasunaga (Toyokawa) and Chinatsu (Aso), his sweet female sidekick, find themselves being questioned as witnesses to a murder (Amazon)

Set in the year 2017, the Japanese government attempts to secretly control the DNA of its people.

Nearly a shot-by-shot remake of the 1935 film of the same title by director Sadao Yamanaka. (imdb)

After taking the blame for another disastrous advertising campaign, Ota Kiichiro is asked by his arrogant boss Otaki Ichiro to take his place as a judge at the world's biggest advertising competition in Los Angeles.

A young man divides his time between being an unwelcome guest in the home of a former fellow student and attempting to make lots of money by running fraudulent businesses. Something like a straight-faced take on "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." (imdb)

He is Kikuji Murao (Etsushi Toyokawa), a former best-selling novelist who has had a decade-long dry spell that has reduced him to university teaching and magazine hackery. After divorcing his wife (Reiko Takashima) and leaving behind his teenage daughter (Shihori Kanjiya), he meets Fuyuka Irie (Shinobu Terajima), a housewife and mother of three who is a longtime fan. (The Movie Database)

There are two versions of "Toire No Hanako-san." The first version, released in 1995, was set in an elementary school and centered on a boy named Takuya and a new transfer student named Saeko (Maeda Ai plays Takuya's younger brother). Takuya's classmates think that Saeko has been possessed by Hanako, the ghost that lives in the bathroom. The rumor is especially encouraged by a girl who has a crush on Takuya and is jealous since Takuya likes Saeko. (imdb)

Rei Kiriyama (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a 17-years-old shogi (Japanese chess) player. He debuted as a professional shogi player when he was in middle school. He lives by himself in Tokyo, because his parents and younger sister died in an traffic accident when he was little. One day, Rei Kiriyama meets three sisters who are his neighbors. The three sisters are Akari Kawamoto, Hinata Kawamoto and Momo Kawamoto. This is his first meeting with someone outside of the shogi world in many years... (The Movie Database)

The time spent between professional Janggi player Kiriyama and his three stories helps to heal his wounds. As he prepares to secure another win in an upcoming tournament, the father who left the three sisters appears and disturbs the peace. (The Movie Database)

An environmental analyst is asked by the police to determine if two deaths by hydrogen sulfide poisoning are an accident - or a murder. But when he meets a young woman at both sites, a scientific mystery begins. (imdb)

The story of the Battle of Midway, told by the leaders and the sailors who fought it. (imdb)

In this hypnotic noir, tough guy Shima and rambunctious Makino develop an unusual bond over their mutual exile, as they separately fled Japan to Taiwan after botching jobs for the mob. The two head to the coast to lay low where they befriend fellow lonely soul Xiao En, but can they escape their criminal past? Wonderfully elusive with a spellbinding flow, the decidedly cool Paradise Next features charismatic performances, sublime cinematography, and an elegiac score by Ryuichi Sakamoto. (imdb)

The 95-year-old director shot the film in his hometown of Ishiuchi, Hiroshima. The story is based on a teacher he had when he was a child. (letterboxd)

Ito is a high schooler in the small town of Itayanagi, Aomori Prefecture, withdrawn and still mourning the death of her mother while she was a young child. She’s disinterested in her laidback Tokyoite professor father’s research into the regional Tsugaru dialect, and rejects invitations to pick up the shamisen she once loved from her grandmother. Seeking to break out of her shell, she answers a help wanted ad in nearby Hirosaki City, and works part-time in a maid cafe. (film.japansociety.org

Mitsuki Kishida and Shoko are in a marriage of convenience. Their arranged marriage was largely to satisfy their parental wishes and the general Japanese society at large. (asianwiki.com)

A man tries to figure out who his ex-girlfriend is dating.

In a remake of a well-known Japanese mystery, a man in Kobe does not have a family. He receives a visitor who is a researcher one day who has noticed that the man has a well-off family in Okayama. This village is called Yatsuhakamura. This family has been there for four hundred years. The man decides to visit his new-found family only for a series of murders to coincide with his arrival. This family's lawyer hires a private investigator who begins working on the crimes. (imdb)

Kuzu Motohito--aka "scum lawyer"--will do just about anything if it means he can win in court. Lawyers aren't on the side of justice. The law isn't meant to punish people, it's meant to save them. At least, that's this guy's secret motto. High school drop-out, lover of money and women, rude demeanor, and a vulgar mouth. And then there's Takeda Masami (Ito Hideaki) partners with Kuzu; Takeda is a wet behind the ears lawyer who is touched by the very idea of justice (imdb)

Former childhood friends Kadoya Kaneo and Tochino Masatatsu cross paths again. Kaneo is now a yakuza member, while Masatatsu is a nightclub owner with a distaste for crime gangs. When a yakuza boss dies, a struggle for his position takes place between Kaneo's boss Awano and the young Nakahira. Nakahira's men try to extort money from Masatatsu, bringing him in between a yakuza battle.

Yu Miri is a writer who's just become pregnant by her married lover. When she decides to keep the baby without his help, her ex-boyfriend Yutaka, decides to help raise him.

In a forest, a man was murdered and his wife raped. The eyewitnesses make their statements, but they are very contradictory. Who is telling the truth and who is lying?

A seeing-eye dog (Shiro) is granted one wish by his former owner. He chooses to become a human for a short time so he can find the girl who trained him as a puppy. While attempting to get to know her (as he runs along behind her and sniffs for her around town) he eventually falls in love with her.

A team of swindlers gets wind of prime real estate worth 10 billion yen and will stop at nothing to pull off their most ambitious scam yet. (imdb)