Four Young Sisters

Hisako loses her home in Tokyo to Allied bombing. With her husband fighting somewhere in Asia, she and her two children evacuate to a suburb of Kobe, where they share a house with Hisako's cousin, Kyoko. Kobe is bombed and Kyoko is killed. Hisako is forced to take care of Kyoko's two children in addition to her own, but there is not enough food for everyone.

Repeatedly beat to a pulp by gamblers, cops, and gangsters, lone wolf Shoji Yamanaka finally finds a home as a Muraoka family hitman and falls in love with boss Muraoka's niece. Meanwhile, the ambitions of mad dog Katsutoshi Otomo draws our series' hero, Shozo Hirono, and the other yakuza into a new round of bloodshed.

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

The family of an older man who runs a small sake brewery become concerned with his finances and his health after they discover him visiting an old mistress from his youth.

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.

After the death of their estranged father, 3 adult sisters invite their teenaged half-sister to live with them.

Two sisters learn about the existence of their long-lost biological mother, but the younger is unable to accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.

In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.

Inspired by her grandfather's stories, young Shinko embarks on wild flights of fancy about the history of the little town she lives in. But dreams can't fend off the realities of growing up.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.