Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writing essays, cooking Zen food with the vegetables he grows and the mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor and love interest, occasionally visits. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. On the other hand, he still hasn't let go of his wife's ashes, although she died 13 years ago...
Uta married a priest who saved her when she tried to commit suicide at a waterfall. The love triangle between a lustful priest, his second wife and his son Masao.
A touching story following young shamisen string maker, Saku. Beautiful Saku moves to Lake Yogo, known for its production of quality shamisen strings, only to find her peaceful life turned upside down when a master musician takes personal interest in her.
A sake factory worker on holiday returns to his home town, where he rapes the wife of one of his co-workers in the forest. The other man returns home to find his wife changed and suspects that she has been unfaithful.
Yuko, una chica joven y guapa, es vendida a un prostíbulo de Kyoto por su padre, que necesita el dinero para alimentar a la familia y cuidar a su madre enferma. Al principio Yuko se siente desdichada, pero pronto se adapta a la nueva situación, especialmente tras conocer a un misterioso y joven cliente, que se convierte en habitual.
Un joven artesano de bambú se casa con una prostituta, pero es incapaz de consumar el matrimonio porque la imagen de su difunto padre, que la había visitado durante los últimos cinco años, se interpone entre ellos.
Satoko is a mistress by trade or fate: when her master, the silkscreen artist of the Kohoan Temple in Kyoto, dies, she is given to the temple's lascivious head priest Kikuchi. She is drawn to a melancholy young acolyte, Jinen, who has observed the profligacy of his cruel master and Satoko's utter dependence on the man. Jinen is both fascinated and disturbed by Satoko's interest in him; he is similarly caught between loathing of Kikuchi and of the dark circumstances of his birth and his own moral weakness. The story unfolds in a dreamlike manner—a flashback inspired by a now-infamous image on a silkscreen in the souvenir shop at the so-called Temple of the Wild Geese.
