High school student Sae Hirasawa lives a simple life with her mother in a peaceful northern fishing town but dreams of a life overseas. She has grown up in the shade of a dogwood tree planted for her as a young child by her itinerant and chronically-ill father, who knew he’d never see his daughter to adulthood. Sae is determined to make it into a top university and increase her chances of landing a job overseas when she meets Kohei Kinouchi, a boy from another high school. The two fall in love and together encourage each other to pursue their dreams, even as it pulls them apart: Sae to a prestigious university in Tokyo and Kohei to the open seas as a fisherman. Inevitably, the physical separation and the widening gap between their ambitions begin to strain their long-distance relationship. As Kohei misses, and increasingly regrets, not seeing Sae grow into a beautiful woman, Sae finds herself inching ever closer to her goal when she meets Kitami, an upperclassman who shares her same dream.

The 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. Carrying the hopes of a nation, Japan’s was seeking its first ever gold medal in the Men’s Large Hill Team event. On the sidelines stood one man who harbored particularly strong emotions toward team ace, Masahiko Harada. That man was former Japan ski jumper, Jinya Nishikata.

In the previous Winter Olympic games at Lillehammer, Norway, Nishikata had appeared alongside Harada as a teammate. He had just made the team’s longest jump of 135 meters. Japan looked like it had the gold medal in the bag. But then Harada flubbed his jump. And they had to settle for second place, a silver medal. Vowing to erase that humiliation at the next winter games in Nagano four years later, Nishikata threw himself into training. But then he injured his back and was dropped from the team. His hopes crushed, Nishikata was, however, asked to participate in the Nagano games as a test jumper.

A test jumper’s job is check for any hazards on the hill prior to the event, and to make numerous jumps should it start to snow during the event to pack down the snow. Despite being resigned to a humiliating behind-the-scenes role, Nishikata gathered the other test jumpers, all with back stories of their own, and began preparing for the event.

And then it came. In the first round, Harada again made a poor showing. Team Japan fell to fourth place. But then a fierce blizzard blew in, stopping the action. If the event were to be called now, the first round results would stand.

Just then, the event judges called together all 25 of the test jumpers and said, “If you can all jump, we’ll resume the event.” Miraculously, Japan’s path to a gold medal lay open again, and in the hands of Nishikata and his 24 test jumpers.

"Somato" is a term referring to the phenomenon at the brink of death where a person sees their whole life pass before their eyes. Those who are lost and happen to stumble into the Somato Incorporated are guided by Kaminuma by the entreaty, "Take as much time as you'd like to look back over your life" and then are handed a set of DVDs equal in number to each of your age. They contain parts of your life you had forgotten and your life as viewed by others. What's more, you get to learn the shocking truths you were not capable of knowing before, forcing you to face up to facts so shocking they may never recover. After watching every volume, what are people left thinking? Are they left with a sense of despair? Or hope.

Yuko is a biology teacher and education counselor at a local high school. Between the school bell chimes, she’s an ordinary teacher with superlative instructional technique. But when school lets out, she transforms into the one person you don’t want to mess with, a super problem-solving mercenary for whom no method is off limits when it comes to rooting out the myriad problems infesting teenage life in the schools. With an “eye for an eye” approach, she’s not above breaking a few laws and demands payment for her services. Enlisting as her sidekicks, Sumire and Aya, the personality-diverse trio run their elite “extra-curricular social work” club unified around Yuko’s charismatic leadership. High school students do not live in a sanitized bubble, and some extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions that black-and-white rules of propriety or common sense alone cannot solve.

Seri, an unknown yet talented female chef from the country, arrives in Tokyo to work at French restaurant, Etoire, but discovers that they have gone out of business due to the departure of their main chef. Together with the restaurant’s former manager, she opens a French restaurant of her own and begins to recreate the flavors her late father mastered as a famous gourmet chef. Unfortunately, Etoire returns with an unscrupulous manager, and to make matters worse, Seri learns that it happens to be owned by her birth mother living in Paris who she hasn’t seen since she was a child. Seri wonders if her passion and skill will be enough to succeed.

Aki loses her husband-to-be right before their wedding. What is left for her are the three children he had with his ex-wife. This story depicts the transition of Aki and the children instantly becoming a “family,” discovering love and bonds and building a true family. The new family of four heals their wounds of losing their loved one by gradually clearing up normal household issues and becomes true to themselves through their life in the nature of Nasu Heights.

Four people’s paths cross one winter by chance: two women and two men in their 30s, all whose dreams have gone sadly unfulfilled. Instead of swelling toward the peak of their lives, their lives all seem headed gently downhill. Despite being total strangers, they decide to share a house together in the wooded resort area of a Karuizawa. But “chance” also hides some pretty big secrets in this brand new adult-sized drama that will have you laughing at odd chemistry, biting your nails at unexpected turns, and even alarmed by some stark truths of the human condition.

A mystery writer and master of-the-trick-ending turns active interviewer in search of answers to a series of mysteries taking place in the realm between the virtual world and reality in an isolated town. Suffering from writer’s block, the author teams with his editor to solve a gothic murder that leads them down a labyrinthine path in this edgy mystery with dark comedy streaks.

“When we grow up… We’ll kill him together”. Koichi, Taisuke, and Shizuna are three siblings whose parents had been brutally murdered when they were just elementary school children, and they vowed to avenge the death of their parents. Fourteen years later, their vengeful plan unravels countless new facts. A shocking revelation leads to an overwhelmingly emotional ending. What will become of the siblings who have lived their lives solely in reliance of their bond alone?

A young woman is on her own, facing the fascination and challenges of the working world. This drama traces her journey to maturity as she casts off illusions and misconceptions to learn the genuine truths of life.