Satoko Ogata is a brilliant psychiatrist, 39 and single. She loves her work and has a good social life with her friends, but as she nears 40 her best friend of many years tells her, “If you want children you have to get married soon” prodding her to actively seek “happiness as a woman.” One day, Satoko meets Keitaro Okamura, a man whose devotion to ecology borders on the eccentric. As one of the “around 40 generation” who blazed a trail for the women of today, how will she deal with the situation?

A struggling lawyer, Kenji Sakuragi, takes a position at private school Ryuzan High to pay off his debts. Kenji decides to try to turn this hopeless school into one of the elite institutions in Japan to help rejuvenate his career. His barometer of success will be to get five of his students admitted to the prestigious Tokyo University the following year. But rather than cramming them with lots of general information, his down-to-earth class concentrates on unknown techniques for passing the entrance examination and how to live a good life in these turbulent times. His refreshing outlook and strategy may just be what is needed to turn around the future prospects of himself and his students, and teach the rest of us a thing or two as well!

The year is 1972. Fumiko is a very ordinary college student working a part-time job translating English literature where she meets university professor, Shintaro Katase and his wife, Hinako. She finds herself “enamored” with them. But the appearance of a young man named Katsuya Okubo leads to the destruction of those feelings. On one fateful day, Fumiko shoots Okubo to death in a violent incident that renders Professor Katase paralyzed from the waist down. His wife had witnessed the scene, but never speaks of it, allowing Fumiko to shoulder the blame. Fumiko does so willingly to keep a certain secret. 40 years later, in 2013, a reporter named Mit-suhiko Torikai is reexamining the case, trying to find out what really happened. Finishing a long sentence, Fumiko, who now suffers from terminal cancer, decides to bare her soul at last and reveal the secrets she’s kept locked away for so long.

Adapted from a novel by Jun Ikeido, the story follows the travails of a company man once touted as an elite executive candidate who falters when he voices opposition to his superiors over an acquisition, and is exiled to general affairs manager at a branch factory. Adding insult to injury, he is also ordered to serve as general manager of the plant’s failing rugby team, the Tokiwa Motors “Astros”, which once basked in glory but has since sunk to perennial cellar dweller. Hoping to resuscitate his own future along with that of a weak rugby team on the verge of disbandment, the embattled company man stakes pride and fortune on fulfilling two missions, putting all he’s got into work and sports in this inspirational human drama.

The setting is one of Japan’s most prestigious private high schools, Ouran Academy, with a student body made up of scions of the country’s rich and famous. It is also home to an extracurricular club made up of “beautiful” boys called the Ouran High Host Club. The story begins with the only penniless boy in the school, Haruhi Fujioka, making his way into the school on academic merit alone, and unwittingly stumbling into Ouran High Host Club membership. Having found himself saddled with enormous debt, Haruhi is ordered by the club’s leader, Tamaki, to make his debut as a host. But the problem is… Haruhi’s actually a girl.

Who can resist a good crisis or the scent of a woman?
The panic-thriller/comedy series “Panic In” celebrates all of the classical panic and disaster movie themes and tropes with a high-octane television drama full of suspense, laughter, tears, joy and soul-satisfying human emotion! Computer graphics add a level of scale and impact never before seen in made-for-television entertainment.
Torao Kurumada (43) is a hapless, middle-aged bachelor who is always changing jobs, but every time he starts at new place of employment, he is interrupted by some major incident or disaster such as a runaway bus, an unidentified mysterious animal, or terrorists. Each challenge is accompanied by a fateful encounter with a woman whether a college student, an office lady or a widow with whom he falls helplessly in love and for whom he is willing to sacrifice life and limb to save. It is the classic tale of a guy trying to win the girl amid extreme circumstances. But will it ever work for Torao?

Each episode is filmed by a guest director; Taichi Suzuki, the first ever 4-award winner at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival (“The Brat” ’12), action specialist, Yoshikatsu Kimura (“Karate Girl”, ’11), globally-acclaimed director SABU ( “Bunny Drop”, ’11 & “Kanikosen”, ’09), Munenori Nagano, who while active also as an actor in the popular theatrical troupe “European Project” is an award-winning independent filmmaker, for a total of 4 directors all bringing their own flair and taste to this all new “panic” action-comedy genre.

It begins as any other day with commuters and passengers catching the 8:23 train. That is, until one train car suddenly warps into a wormhole and lands in a devastated future world. Without smartphones or social media, the passengers must confront extraordinary and extreme conditions. Mere strangers yesterday, they must face their worst fears and instincts for survival, deception, and love as they fight to get back home in this exploration of how people deal with unprecedented events.

The setting is Futakotamagawa Gakuen High School. Upset that the baseball club has been forced to suspend its activities after a scandal caused by one of its members, the boys have slipped into delinquency. This is an inspiring story of blood, sweat and tears as Kawato, the dedicated schoolteacher, tries to open up communications with the toughs through baseball, and we see the boys clawing their way back from delinquency as they set their sights on Koshien despite their lack of skill.

With a title inspired by “Stomiiformes”, an order of deep-sea ray-finned fish called, this story follows Tomioka, a late-night security guard at a supermarket who laments his drab and solitary life. Feeling it unnatural to exist alone, he wishes upon a shooting star one night for a true friend. Soon, a mysterious woman appears in his life. She is Azusa, a next door neighbor who instantly falls in love with him. But as the kind of social awkwardness, Tomioka is obtusely unaware of her feelings for him. Can love bloom between these two? Especially when compounded by the sudden emergence of a homeless guy, who calls himself a “life wanderer”, and then an enigmatic death threat in the form of a letter that reads: “You will lose your mind within a year and die”. Life is suddenly turned upside down.

Nao Kitazawa, 34, leads a busy but fulfilling life as a doctor at a women’s clinic and as fiancee to an elite psychiatric physician, Yuchi Ihara. With their wedding day a month off, Nao is preparing to move into a new home when she meets Shinji Mamiya, a struggling writer who works part-time as a mover and falls inexorably in love with him. The fateful encounter compels Nao to follow her heart and experience true love. Overwhelmed by Nao’s passion, Shinji soon falls for her as well, but their budding romance is threatened by the tragic discovery that Nao has early onset Alzheimer’s. What unfolds is a story of pure love. As Nao’s symptoms worsen, Shinji spends the next ten years giving Nao mental and health support even as she begins to lose the precious memories they both shared.