NHK Educational

Actor and Taro Okamoto fan Arata Iura narrates this mockumentary surrounding the 1972 tokusatsu series "TAROMAN", its impact on contemporary 1970s Japan, the ties to popular art with its motifs influenced by artist Taro Okamoto, and the lasting impact the series had on creators decades down the line. Also, performed for the first time is the theme song for "TAROMAN", "Explosion! TAROMAN".

Osaka was the the site of Expo ’70, and among the most memorable elements of the event, standing to this day, is the "Tower of the Sun", a 70-metre-tall sculpture/building envisioned and designed by renowned artist Taro Okamoto, who some call “the Japanese Picasso”. This film is a theatrical adaptation of "TAROMAN", a tokusatsu series re-envisioning Okamoto's most famous pieces as surrealist superheroes and villains, with Ultraman-like TAROMAN, based on the Tower itself, at the forefront of it all.

Siblings Aru, age 3, and Kino, age 1, have 3 parents: father Fumino, who is transgender; mother Honoyo, Fumino's partner who gave birth to the children; and father Gon, a close gay friend who donated his sperm. The 3 are now raising their children together, struggling repeatedly to find their own way of being a family. This program covers their first 3 years of parenting. And it asks an important question: What does it take to be a family?

Okinawa, Japan. Momoko loved the piano and attended a school that had one. Then the war arrived and she was drafted to work in an army hospital. Could she survive the war through the power of music?

Tarō Okamoto became world-famous by designing the “Tower of the Sun” at Expo ’70 in Osaka. The ideas and problems that came with its creation, however, are intertwined with the evolution of Japanese culture – from the Paleolithic up until modern times. In his documentary debut, director Kōsai Sekine takes us on a philosophical journey that transcends the visual limits of documentaries.

A salaryman living alone in a small apartment is visited by complete strangers, a large family with grown-up sons and a daughter, who take over his apartment and his life. They use his money and he has to wait on them as their servant. They even steal his girlfriend. Although they behave very dictatorially, everything is decided "democratically" by the majority.