Daigo Kobayashi is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and finds himself without a job. He decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled 'Departures' thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency. He discovers that the job is actually for a 'Nokanshi' or 'encoffineer, ' a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry...

In a near-future dystopian Japan where all dogs have been banished to a trash island after a flu outbreak, twelve-year-old Atari sets out for the island to find his lost dog Spots.

Immediately after Emperor Hirohito's World War II surrender, General MacArthur suddenly finds himself the de facto ruler of a foreign nation. He challenges his expert on Japanese culture, General Fellers to provide evidence in ten short days to decide if the Japanese Emperor, worshipped as a god by his people but accused of war crimes, should be punished or saved, as the fate of a nation waits.

A woman goes into Japan's suicide forest to find her twin sister, and confronts supernatural terror.

When a mysterious gate suddenly appears in Tokyo's Ginza district and begins spewing armed warriors and flying monsters, the world is thrown into turmoil. Although the deadly attack is thrown back by Japan's Self Defense Force, there's now a new and entirely unknown land on the other side of the portal, and Japan is effectively at war with a nation on the other side.

The gang of Mystery Inc. takes a trip to Japan and find themselves circling Asia and the Pacific in search of treasure. They race against the vengeful Black Samurai and his Ninja warriors to find the legendary Sword of Fate, an ancient blade fabled to have extraordinary supernatural powers.

Illegal immigrant Tietou loses his Chinese papers and can't return home. His fellow countrymen help him find illegal work. An incident causes Tietou to save the powerful Yakuza boss Toshinari Eguchi. The mobster offers him the job of boss over the Chinese illegal immigrants. However, his non-violent methods soon make him unpopular and he begins to lose control over his men which leads to a giant gang war.

Olympian and war hero Louis Zamperini survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII, only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.

Haruhi Suzumiya drafts Kyon and a few others of their classmates into the after school club that she starts, the Save our world by Overloading it with fun Suzumiya Haruhi's Brigade, or the S.O.S. Brigade for short. Her club searches for all things extraordinary, like aliens, time travelers and ESP.

A wealthy American is touring Morocco with his wife when the two become the focus of an international incident also involving a poor Moroccan farmer who is struggling to keep his two young sons in line and his family together. A San Diego nanny, with her employers absent, makes the disastrous decision to take her charges with her to a wedding in Mexico. A deaf-mute Japanese teen tries to deal with a relationship with her father and the world in general...