Ken'ichi Matsuyama

Two young guys work in a plant that manufactures oshibori (those moist hand-towels found in some Japanese restaurants). Their weird bond is based on uncontrollable rage--something neither can articulate or control--and the strange jellyfish that they keep as a pet. (imdb)

A chance encounter between two girls of the same name, "Nana," triggers a series of events and relationships. (imdb)

Light Yagami finds the "Death Note," a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to create a Utopia by killing the world's criminals, and soon the world's greatest detective, "L," is hired to find the perpetrator. An all out battle between the greatest minds on earth begins, the winner controlling the world. (imdb)

A music group of girls need to learn to play a song before the school festival. (imdb)

Shinigami own notebooks called "Death Notes" which are used as killing devices. Whoever's name they write down in a death note will die within 40 seconds. Shinigami Ryuku accidentally dropped his Death Note in the human world where it's found by honor high school student Light. With the death note actually having directions in it for its use, Light discovers he now has the power to discreetly kill people... (imdb)

The film chronicles the final 23 days of L's life, as he solves one final case involving a bioterrorist group that aims to wipe out much of humanity with a virus with ten times the infectiousness of Ebola, taking a boy, the sole survivor of its use in a village in Thailand, and a junior high schooler named Maki Nikaido under his wing. (wikipedia.org)

Detroit Metal City (デトロイト・メタル・シティ, Detroit Metal City) is a 2008 Japanese movie based on a Kiminori Wakasugi manga and directed by Toshio Lee. The story involves a normal guy named Soichi who becomes the lead singer of a death metal band after failing to become a Swedish-pop style star. (idmb)

Laconic thirteen-year-old piano prodigy Uta has been in a detached slump ever since her father disappeared. With her mother struggling to make ends meet, Uta was forced to leave her old house and piano behind - ..the only piano she wants to play. Much to her mother's dismay, she keeps skipping her piano lessons, distancing herself even more from the people and places around her. She starts to open up when she meets 19-year-old aspiring pianist Wao, with whom she develops an unlikely friend (avistaz.com)

Mirume (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) is a 19 year old college student who falls in love with Yuri (Hiromi Nagasaku), an almost 40 year old art teacher at his university. Yuri isn't your typical college professor, having a quirky sense of humor and unpredictable personality. When Yuri invites Murume to her studio, she playfully seduces the still naive 19 year old student. Things become more complicated when Murume discovers that Yuri is married to a much older man... (AsianMediaWiki)

Kamui Gaiden..tells the side story of The Legend of Kamui,..a ninja who leaves an organization that pursues him. Through his journey as fugitive, he clearly sees the true nature of the Edo period and the discrimination that existed in the feudal system. (gigazine.net)

The 25-year-old Yojin (Matsuyama Kenichi, also starring in Kamui) lives with his grandma in a village in Aomori Prefecture. He's training himself to grow vegetables with the help of audio tapes left by his late grandpa and tries to organize his days systematically... but Yojin's head is wired differently. "Not broken," he says, "just different." Yojin's life changes the day he meets Machiko, the primary-school teacher newly arrived from Tokyo. It's love at first sight. (viff.org)

Kaiji Ito moves to Japan after graduating from high school. Unable to find a job and frustrated with society at large, Kaiji spends his days gambling, vandalizing cars and drinking booze. Two years later and his life no better, a debt collector named Endo arrives to collect money, offering two choices to Kaiji: spend 10 year paying off his loan or board a gambling boat for one night to repay his debt and possibly make a whole lot more. (film.com)

Makiko Uchida arrives in a southern Japanese port hoping to find a boat that will take her to the final resting place of the Battleship Yamato on the 60th anniversary of its sinking. She is rebuffed by all until she reveals to Katsumi Kamio that she is the daughter of Petty Officer Uchida. (imdb)

Upon hearing the song "Norwegian Wood," Toru (Matsuyama) remembers back to his life in the 1960s, when his friend Kizuki killed himself and he grew close to Naoko, Kizuki's girlfriend. As the two try, in very different ways, to contend with their grief, Toru forms a bond with another woman, Midori. (imdb)

After trying to rescue a man on the subway tracks, two teens wake up in a room dominated by a mysterious black sphere that sends them to hunt down and kill aliens hiding on Earth. (imdb)

Before finding out the "Perfect Answer", discover Another Gantz. This film is an alternate perspective version of the 1st Gantz film from the same writing-directing team of the two-part theatrical film. In addition to condensed scenes from the Gantz film, Another Gantz features a new subplot that follows an investigative journalist not included in the theatrical film. Delving deep into the mystery, Another Gantz offers another piece towards solving the complex puzzle that is the world of Gantz. (myasiancinema.com)

Kei Kurono (Kazunari Ninomiya) and Masaru Kato (Kenichi Matsuyama) are summoned by the mysterious black globe GANTZ. They continue the fight against extraterrestrial beings and, as they continue to battle, they become stronger. Kei Kurono opts to keep fighting to survive, but Masaru Kato hates the world which is controlled by violence and refuses to fight. As the two friends finds themselves opposing each other in a continuous game of violence, a critical last choice is to be made ... (asianmediawiki.com)

Eight school friends innocently join together to play a game that, if played well, promised to make their greatest dreams come true. But, they soon discover that mistakes may cost them more than even their dreams could tell. (imdb)

27-year-old Daikichi is a single young man who is trusted by his peers at work. At his grandfather's funeral, the attendees learn that Daikichi's grandfather bore an illegitimate daughter with an unknown mother. Everybody in Daikichi's family looks at the girl as an embarrassment and wants no part of her. Daikichi, annoyed by his family's attitude, decides to raise Rin by himself. Daikichi has no experience in raising a child. He learns the difficulties in raising a child as a single parent. (asianwiki.com)

You could think of My Back Page as a (very different) companion piece to United Red Army. It's based on a reputedly autobiographical novel by Kawamoto Saburo about his days as a rookie journalist from 1969 to 1972 and specifically about his closeness to a highly charismatic radical activist who preaches violent revolution. (Tony Rayns, Vancouver Film Festival site)

Based on Kiyuchi Kazuhiro's popular manga series which ran in Weekly Young Jump from 1983, the story revolves around the lives of two rough-and-tumble high school friends Kato Hiroshi and Nakama Toru, who seemed to make a habit of getting into trouble and starting up fights. In keeping with the spirit of the manga, Toru and Hiroshi sport slicked back 50's style perms and adopted exaggerated swaggers that made them comical and yet also oddly cool. (wiki.d-addicts.com)

Diving to save a camera from a fall down a flight of stairs, high school junior Naomi Sukuse wakes with no memory of the last four years. Naomi must remember who she was and figure out who she wants to be in this story of love and second chances. (imdb)

The juvenile delinquent, Yoshiie Hirouki (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) transferred to Kitahosi Institute, the one and only school which is admit dropping out student entire country. In here, he not only met friends who lived on as same environment as he was in the past, but also the adults including the teacher, Atachi, who give him kind attention with sincerity. Because of them, this true outsider of society's mind start to changed and decided to have dream that he want to be a teacher like Atachi.

A fantasy love story that drifts between this world and heaven. Chasuke is in charge of making tea in heaven. He has feelings for a human woman named Yuri whom he has seen from a writer who is scripting her life from heaven. He knows that Yuri is condemned to die in a car accident. To save the woman, Chasuke goes down to this world. (imdb)

After the forced suicide of Nobunaga Oda at the Incident at Honno-ji, powerful figures Katsuie Shibata, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Nagahide Niwa and Tsuneoki Ikeda meet to decide on a successor. The conference would become Japan's first group made political decision. The meeting was known as the Kiyosu Kaigi. (imdb)

2500 years ago, in India, Siddhartha was born as a prince of the Shakya clan, but he gives up his position as a prince to see the world. He meets a strange boy named Assaji, who can predict the future, a monk with only one eye and Depa. Siddhartha continues traveling. Siddhartha is overwhelmed by the sufferings he witnesses around him. Meanwhile, Prince Ruri of Kosara begins his attack on the Shakya clan. (imdb)

A grisly unsolved murder links three seemingly unrelated stories in three different Japanese cities. (imdb)

An update to the "Death Note" series in which a mysterious notebook contains deadly powers. (imdb)

Adapted from a 2011 novel by author Mahokaru Numata, Yurigokoro has Ryosuke's father, who is stricken with advanced cancer, as a man with a diary. When the family discovers the father's diary in the latter's office leafing through it reveals notes written by a murderer. Are these fictional accounts or the memoirs of the diary's owner? (imdb)

A comedy about a train-loving young business man that ventures from Tokyo to Kyushu to help his company (IMDB).

Story depicts the conflicts and growth of families who live at co-operative houses. Nana Igarashi is 35-years-old and works as a diving instructor. She is married to Daiki who is 32-years-old and works at a toy company. They live in a small apartment, while saving up to buy a house. They enjoy their life. Nana and Daiki decide to buy a co-operative house. They also try to have a baby. Nana and Daiki realize it isn't easy to have baby. (themoviedb)

In July 1945, the war condition deteriorates beyond measure. Even civilians who were told that they would not be picked by the military if they joined settlement groups are drafted into the army. Many women as well as children are left in these groups. In a change of course, the Japanese army is made to move its line of defence southward. (myanimelist)

The 51st NHK Taiga drama recounts the life of Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181), a general of the Heian period, who established the first samurai-based government in Japan. (imdb)

A futuristic firefighting mecha service is created to protect the world.

A second prequel set one day before the events of the Promare: Puromea (2019) film. (imdb)

A prequel set one day before the events of the Promare: Puromea (2019) film.

For the invincible and basically happy punk lads Hiroshi and Toru, what they care about every day is to get a lot of attention from girls and to win the fights against the lads from other schools. Whenever provoked, they just go out fighting and settle the situation no matter what it costs. The kids at Aitoku's are challenged to a duel by Junichi Kikunaga, the number one in Tachibana commerce.

In the present day, the local government of Katori City is in the process of sponsoring a taiga drama about its famous historical figure Tadataka Ino, who is known for being the first person to make a map of Japan in 1821. During the process of of making the drama series, a surprising fact is discovered about the first map. That fact is that Tadataka Ino was not the person who made the first Japanese map.

Takeshi Yamada arrives in a small village in the Hokuriku region. There, he begins to work at a small factory which makes shiokara (salted fish paste). Through the introduction of the CEO of the factory, he begins to live in at an old and cheap apartment building. One day, his apartment building neighbor Kozo Shimada visits Takeshi and asks to take a bath in his bathroom. Since then, Takeshi begins to make relations with the residents at the apartment building and he becomes friends with Kozo. L

Following the manga series and the subsequent television serial of the same name, and featuring the same cast, a young and relatively inexperienced man comes across a woman during his working day and sparks fly. (imdb)

The story of a 15-year-old high school student, Ikeuchi Aya, who soon discovers she has an incurable disease that affects the cerebellum of the brain. Aya lived her life to the fullest until her death at 25.

In 2023, with the Kanto region threatened by catastrophic sea level rise, bureaucrats and reporters are caught between corruption, panic and the truth. (imdb)