Smoke

Hiroshi Tanaka sports an intense perm which looks like the afro hairstyle favored by some African-Americans back in the 1970's. He doesn't get his hair done at a hair shop, he was actually born with his hair like that. For freedom, Hiroshi moves to Tokyo. He works hard there and, even though he turns 24, he still doesn't have a girlfriend.

A samurai from the Edo Period time travels to present day Japan where he meets a divorcee and her son. Soon, he discovers a passion for making pastries.

Daikichi learns that his recently deceased grandfather has an illegitimate daughter with an unknown mother. The girl's name is Rin and she is just 6 years old. 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. Even though Daikichi himself has no experience raising a child and is still single.

On board at the boat Kanikosen, where fish and crabs preserves, forced workers to work under miserable conditions, with minimum wages. Some can not cope with conditions and even death from malnutrition, and is also the supervisor of the more vicious variety. Shinjo, one of the employees, trying to convince the others that they will get good luck and fortune in his next life, and persuades them because they commit suicide to get there faster. It ends, however, in a single major failure. Rather than flee Shinjo being picked up by a Russian ship. Once there, he is overwhelmed by the social conditions that are completely different from those he has just left and decided therefore to return to Kanikosen to save their employees.

Tadashi Imamura is a burglar who idolises Ozaki, a star baseball player he shares a birthday with. One day he realises their connection is much deeper than that and decides to find out more.

Miyata lost his wife early on and single-handedly raised their two children. One day he notices a change in his physical condition, and decides that it must be stomach cancer.

After Satoru Watarai graduated from elementary school, he dropped out of school and decided to live within his apartment complex, never to venture outside. Satoru Watari then meets his old friends as they are coming back from their middle school classes. Satoru has now gotten a job at a cake shop within the apartment complex and eventually gets engaged to one of his friends. Satoru, still lives within the apartment complex only, but, as time passes, more of his friends leave ..

Mitsuko is 24, heavily pregnant and estranged from the American father of her child. Her parents believe she is happy and successful in America and are unaware that she has secretly returned to Tokyo. Making the biggest decisions on the slightest whim, she moves back into the tenement street where she lived as a child. The move changes lives, reignites old romances and creates a supportive circle of love that may be exactly what Mitsuko needs.

Riku, the heir to a corporate conglomerate, is determined to go through life never owing anything to anyone on principle. However, one day he nearly drowns in a river and is saved by a homeless girl named Nino. To repay his debt, he begins living together with her on the banks of the river as her lover.