The setting is the Tsukishima district of Tokyo where the Summer Olympic Games will be held in five years. A small old-fashioned confectionary shop, “Sakuraya” stands as a remnant of the past amid the rapidly changing cityscape. Akiko Sakurai has been running the shop on a shoestring for over 50 years, along with her grandson, Taro (33) whom she raised form childhood after he lost his parents in a traffic accident. With them also is Reiko, a single mother who has returned to Tsukishima with her child. Seemingly left behind by a fast-moving world, Taro appears as something of a “loser” who finds himself reexamining his lost childhood in an effort to move forward. Life takes a strange turn when his grandmother, Akiko, receives a letter that she is being sued for damages because her cat, Mi-chan, allegedly scratched up a neighbor’s luxury car. What should be an easy case to win turns into a fumbling mess at the hands of Taro who can’t seem to win for losing in this wacky yet endearing and slightly heartwarming late-night drama.

Inside the Metropolitan Police’s Organized Crime Task Force, a help line has been set up to assist repentant organized criminals in their effort to permanently cut ties with their syndicate. Dubbed the “Going straight hotline”, it is spearheaded by a fearless female police officer Bakushu Nagamitsu, played by former AKB48 member Yuko Oshima, who stands ready to crush anyone threatening those under her protective custody no matter how powerful that threat may be. Depicting the struggles and maturation of Bakushu and those around her, “Yamegoku” is a groundbreaking police drama with great heart and soul not seen since “SPEC” and “Keizoku”.

Haruko Takanashi is 30. She works at a radio station, and is approaching middle management where good looks alone aren’t enough. She isn’t very romantic so she devotes herself to work and play and suddenly finds herself alone. Just when she has given up on romance she meets a man at a party to which she was taken by a subordinate at work. He is 25-year-old Ichiro Kashiwakura and is nothing out of the ordinary. They start a relationship, and one day, out of the blue, Ichiro ardently proposes to Haruko. Realizing that he really loves her, Haruko says yes and they get married. But she still hasn’t told him her real age. Now Haruko has to cope with living with Ichiro’s mother, Satoko, eldest sister Setsuko who has returned home, 2nd daughter Kazuko who has just returned from a prestigious overseas post with her company and the third daughter Sachiko who seems to have reached a bit of a dead end in her life. Competition for Ichiro’s attention is only one of many problems that arise!

Sora, the third daughter of four sisters, is a selfless soul who runs a medical clinic she inherited from her father which cares for primarily poor and weak patients. Sora is shocked to learn that she has a younger step-sister, Hiyo, whom her father had out of wedlock, and is loath to accept her into the family. However, it is revealed that Hiyo has a secret which pits Sora’s dislike for her step-sister against her otherwise generous nature.