In the wake of the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, a young woman recently release from one of Japan’s new rehabilitation centers struggles to build a new life.

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she’s a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life’s vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well…

When Sergeant Okubo’s brother is murdered at a Japanese outpost in Northern China during the Second World War, Okubo poses as a war correspondent and seeks out his brother’s killer.

A husband and wife’s pet peeves and minor irritations escalate into major rifts and animosity.

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn’t see any future in her mother’s trade in the late days…

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn’t and after the…

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband’s lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can’t treat herself and the husband finds the…

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother’s attempt to sustain her family.

The story of Kiyoko, a young woman who has successfully managed to make a break with her dysfunctional family who have been trying to arrange a marriage for her with…

A young idealistic doctor works at his father’s clinic in a small and seedy district. During the war, he contracts syphilis from the blood of a patient when he cuts…

Doctor Sanada treats gangster Matsunaga after he is wounded in a gunfight, and discovers that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Sanada tries to convince Matsunaga to stay for treatment, which…