Kiyoshi Shigematsu

Yasuo (Hiroshi Abe) grew up as an orphan. He married a woman he loved and they had a son Akira (later played by Takumi Kitamura). Yasuo's life seemed great at the time, but his life totally changed after his wife died in accident. Since that time, Yasuo, who never experienced parents' love himself, has to raise his son Akira alone.

Single father Kenichi has raised his daughter Miki alone for the past ten years, from when she attended nursery school until her graduation from elementary school. Kenichi is currently 30 years old. His wife Tomoko died at a young age and he has raised Miki alone since that time. While raising his daughter alone, he has encountered various problems.

What was once a superlative varsity baseball coach is now a jaded middle-aged man. He and a former student meet and the older man discovers that his now married pupil is afflicted with terminal cancer. Full of regrets of how he once treated the student the man ponders how to make it up to the man whom he once coached

Makoto Tanaka is 40-years-old and has remarried. His wife is Nanae and they care for 2 daughters from Nanae's prior marriage. Makoto tries to have an ordinary family. Nanae then becomes pregnant. Afterwards, things begin to change among the family members.

Schoolteacher Yohei is married to Miyoko. For the first time in 25 years they begin to live by themselves when their son marries and moves out. Then Yohei discovers that all’s not well in his marriage.

Shunsuke Fujii was a bullied middle school student. He took his own life. A letter left behind referred to his classmate Yu Sanada as a friend. Sayuri Nakagawa was a girl that Shunsuke liked. Her birthday is the same day as the day Shunsuke commited suicide. Shunsuke's father can not forgive Shunsuke’s classmates and his mother's life has been destroyed by his death. They have spent 20 years of their life carrying their own cross since Shunsuke Fujii's death.

Mie’s father died during the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. One day, she finds a bundle of unsent New Year’s cards, which languished there for 28 years. To find out why the cards were never sent, Mie tracks down Haruhiko Sakacho. Haruhiko played on the same high school baseball team with her father. Mie eventually gathers together her father's former teammates to play in the Masters Koshien (a senior league baseball tournament). Mie also uncovers a truth about her father and the baseball team.

It was a novel based on the incident that occurred in reality, and the series began in 1960 with "Weekly Shincho".

Higashigaoka Junior High School is in turmoil as one of the pupils, Noguchi, who had been bullied, attempted suicide last term. On the first day of the new term, a substitute teacher arrives to take the second year class. When the teacher, Murauchi (Hiroshi Abe), introduces himself, the pupils are surprised by his stutter. He has a speech impediment. Unable to speak eloquently, Murauchi faces his pupils with ‘words of truth’. His first instruction to the pupils is to return Noguchi’s desk and chair to the original place in the classroom. Every morning Murauchi greets the empty desk, “Good morning, Noguchi.” This causes a ripple beyond the classroom and among other teachers and parents, but Murauchi will not stop doing it. Eventually the day comes when Murauchi must leave.

While researching a story on a school for problem children, Nakahara meets Emi, a college volunteer with a compelling tale of her own. After overcoming her initial reluctance to open up to the writer, Emi talks about her busted leg and her childhood friendship with the chronically ill Yuka.

Junko and Kohei were each other's first relationship, and got married. A white apartment, a white blouse, and white underwear; their relationship was pure. But then Junko put on conspicuous lingerie and a black dress, and went to attend a class reunion. Suspicious, Kohei followed behind her until she disappeared into a hotel with Okada, a former junior high school classmate. Kohei had learned from his mother to obsessively despise `filth,' and vowed to make Junko utterly filthy. So, he presented his own wife to a gang rape club...

Sachiko and Yoshida are newlyweds, and have just moved into a newly-constructed apartment with completely white rooms. It’s reasonable to expect that they would be enjoying their newlywed life, but Sachiko is refusing to go along with Yoshida’s sexual demands. One day, Yoshida’s junior colleague, Kato, shows him a video. Its title is White Room: Evening Classroom Inspection, and in it a girl is shown holding a photograph of her mother against her thigh while engaged in fondling. But the astounding thing is that it is a room in their newly-constructed apartment! Yoshida stealthily takes the video home, but Sachiko sees what it contains.

Oda is a cowardly and boring man, his only redeeming feature being his diligence. He continues to live with his wife, Ayane, but they can't seem to produce children and are troubled as to whether their relationship will survive. One evening Oda returns home to find a pair of blue toy handcuffs hanging on the doorknocker. Using them, Oda humiliates Ayane. Although bewildered at first, Ayane begins to respond, and Oda becomes increasing excited as he sexually assaults her. In truth, the blue handcuffs were Ayane's contrivance. There was a time in the past when she used to reach climax...

Yoko is an ordinary housewife living in an ordinary apartment block. She has no real complaints as she goes about her tedious days, although her husband, Shinichi, is rather predictable in bed. They have one son, Junichi, and Yoko feels at a loss regarding his recently-acquired adolescent interest in sex and his secret stash of erotic magazines. Junichi is about to write his junior high school entrance exams, so he’s heading off to cram school camp for New Year’s. Before going, he makes a surprising suggestion, “Why don’t you guys go somewhere for New Year’s?” Yoko and Shinichi are suddenly faced with the prospect of New Year’s apart from their son. How will this couple, who’ve already lived half of their lives, change their behavior when it’s just the two of them?

Chiho has prohibited her husband, Takahashi, from smoking while she is trying to become pregnant. Takahashi hasn’t told his wife he was laid off, and has a paid sexual encounter with a high-school student, attracted by the pungent odor of her cigarettes, Peace Regulars. That evening, Chiho became outraged by the foul odor of the Peace Regulars saying it reminded her of an elderly relative having shoved the same brand of cigarettes into her genitals in the distant past. In fact that memory was not Chihos, but that of her twin sister, Kaho.

Only a fool loves their body more than their soul! Masayuki and Kyoko's bodies had both started to age to the point where they no longer experienced sexual passion. They are a couple that shares the same bed while finding separate pleasures with their own sex toys. Masayuki was always reminded that his true understanding of love came from his high school ethics teacher and that teacher's wife. The incident occurred when Masayuki was only 17. When he became alone with her he impulsively craved her body, only to notice that on the other side of the sliding paper screen...

Mortality and death seen through the eyes of a lonely student who has an morbid and albeit naive fascination with death. His teacher, Koichi is also grappling with the issue of mortality as he deals with the impending death of his ailing father, who has decided to spend his final days in the family home. As the story progresses, Koichi finds unexpected solace from his grief by letting his troubled student visit and meet with his father in the hopes that he will understand the meaning of life and death.

Classmates Shuji and Eri becomes friends, both young people have family problems. When Eri is taken away to Tokyo by her relatives, Shuji becomes increasingly isolated at school and drifts into criminal activity.