Set at the Hotel Royal, situated in the marshland of Hokkaido, Japan, and follows the guests, the family that runs the hotel, and the hotel's staff. Masayo Tanaka is the only child of the family that runs Hotel Royal. She failed to enter an arts school and she now works at the hotel. She does not show her emotions to anyone.
Yoshika has had a crush on Ichimiya, whom she calls "the One" since she was in middle school. Now, a 24-year-old salarywoman, her all-consuming fixation has prevented her from even considering another candidate for boyfriend until an office colleague asks her out.
A suburban town is faced with a series of bizarre incidents in which children disappear and three days later an adult in their life dies. A mysterious "child whisperer" phantom appears before journalist Shunya, who is investigating the incidents, and his girlfriend Naomi.
Mone, Kechon, Chiffon, Younapi and Chibo are ordinal women. They work at a cleaning company. The CEO of the company is a woman and she is like a devil. The 5 working girls have boring days. One day, they go to a place in the middle of the forest to clean up. There, they find a dead body of a beautiful girl. The girls raise the beautiful girl from the dead by imitating a ritual of a Norwegian black metal band.
When she was a middle school student, Futaba Yoshioka liked Kou Tanaka who was unlike the other boys and quite gentle. Kou Tanaka then moved away and they lost contact. At the end of Futaba Yoshioka's first year as a high school student she meets Kou Tanaka again. Kou Tanaka’s name has changed to Kou Mabuchi and his personality seems different from his middle school days.
Haruo has a dream to become the best magician, but, so far, he is only a marginal magician. Haruo also doesn't have parents. He then goes back 40 years in time to Asakusa, Tokyo. There, he meets his parents when they were young and he learns the secret of his birth.
A young girl named Kiki must leave her home for a year to begin training in witchcraft. She leaves on her broom, but first says goodbye to her friends and family. Kiki then begins her new life with her trusted cat Jiji.
Ryoro Kurojima (Sadao Abe) is the director of a Tokyo apology center. His job is to teach others how to apologize. Ryoro Kurojima solves problems by using his apology techniques on anything from simple arbitration to a national crisis.