Best movies like Asahiyama Zoo Story: Penguins in the Sky

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Asahiyama Zoo Story: Penguins in the Sky Starring Toshiyuki Nishida, Yasuhi Nakamura, Ai Maeda, Keiko Horiuchi, and more. If you liked Asahiyama Zoo Story: Penguins in the Sky then you may also like: One Wonderful Sunday, A Farewell to Jinu, Free and Easy 16, Get Up!, Maestro! and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido, is the northernmost zoo in Japan. The unpopular zoo welcomes a new zoo keeper, young Yoshida (Yasuhi Nakamura), who has more affection for insects than people after years of being bullied at school when he was young. Yoshida soon realizes that Asahiyama Zoo is facing a financial crisis and the zoo director Takizawa (Toshiyuki Nishida) has been doing everything in his power to save the zoo from closing down. Moved by Takizawa's passion, Yoshida and other zoo keepers came to share the zoo director's belief that one's dreams can come true, and together they tackle this seemingly impossible task of revitalizing Asahiyama. A breakthrough arrives in the form of “Behavioral Exhibition,†a method that is pioneered by Ashiyama's zoo keepers and which eventually makes the zoo renowned throughout the world.

Asahiyama Zoo Story: Penguins in the Sky
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One Wonderful Sunday

Yuzo and his fiancée Masako spend their Sunday afternoon together, trying to have a good time on just thirty-five yen. They manage to have many small adventures, especially because Masako's optimism and belief in dreams is able to lift Yuzo from his realistic despair.

A Farewell to Jinu

Takeharu Takami (Ryuhei Matsuda) is a bank teller, but he becomes allergic to money. He decides not to use money at all. Takeharu decides to move to a small village in the Tohoku region. There, he encounters residents who are not so easy.

Free and Easy 16

Hama-chan meets a friendly US soldier on a trip to Nagasaki with Su-san. Su-san returns to Tokyo and is informed that Hama-chan has gone missing.

Get Up!

A James Brown fanatic gangster decided to disband his own gang and see his long lost daughter before entering prison. Hoping to change his mind, his underlings planned to kidnap James Brown to convince him to perform privately for their boss.

Maestro!

Due to the economic recession, the orchestra is shut down. The members hear later that the orchestra will be reformed. Only some of the members, who have not yet been rehired, gather for the orchestra. For the first time since they disbanded the orchestra plays together, but they sound horrible. At that time, the conductor Tetsusaburo Tendou appears in front of them.

The Silk Road

In 1026, students in western China are shanghaied into the forces of crown prince Li Yuanhao of Xi Xia, who wants to control the length of the Silk Road. One student is Zhao Xingde, who becomes the favorite of his commander, Zhu Wangli. While sacking a fortress, Xingde discovers Tsurpia, princess of the Uighur. He hides her; they fall in love. When he's sent away to study Xixian, he leaves Tsurpia in Zhu's care, but returns to find her engaged to Li. Tragedy follows, and he and Zhu enter a pact to take revenge when Li arrives at Dun-Huang, the region's seat of learning and culture. Against overwhelming odds, they find a surprising way to leave a monument to their life and love.

Twisted Justice

Starting in 1970s Hokkaido, the film charts the moral descent of Detective Moroboshi over three decades, the young cop quickly gets a bit too cozy with the other side of the law when his senior colleague Murai teaches him the ropes and ruts of the police business. Soon, he swaggers and rants through the streets of Sapporo a lean, mean, sex‐crazy bully, indistinguishable from a yakuza.

Shippu Rondo

An illegal biological weapon K-55 is stolen from a university lab. The university lab can't even call the police because the secret nature of the weapon. The school lab then receives a message stating that the entire country is now being held hostage and they must pay a ransom of 300 million yen.

Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan

When a variety of circumstances leave Nobita, Doraemon and the gang wanting to run away from home, they face the task of finding somewhere to live. However, with every seemingly spare piece of land already owned by someone else, building themselves a house looks impossible – that is, until Nobita has the idea of travelling back seventy thousand years into the past. While the group are making themselves at home in an uninhabited Japan, back at home a glitch in space-time has sent a caveboy crashing into the middle of the city. When they return to the present, Doraemon et al encounter the child – named Kukuru – and take him with them back to their prehistoric paradise. Together, the gang decides to return the young boy to his true time and help him free his captured friends, even if it means facing the dangers of Kukuru’s enemies: the dark tribe.

My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission

A mysterious group called Humarize strongly believes in the Quirk Singularity Doomsday theory which states that when quirks get mixed further in with future generations, that power will bring forth the end of humanity. In order to save everyone, the Pro-Heroes around the world ask UA Academy heroes-in-training to assist them and form a world-class selected hero team. It’s up to the heroes to save the world and the future of heroes in what is the most dangerous crisis to take place yet in My Hero Academia.

Macross Δ the Movie: Absolute Live!!!!!!

Walküre and Delta Flight used music to save people from the Vár Syndrome, a previously unknown disease that made humans and others go berserk. However, they find themselves facing a new threat.

Strayer's Chronicle

In the early 1990s, experiments were carried out secretly in Japan. Two different methods were used in the experiments. One method involved forcing stress upon expecting parents and when the baby was born, provoke the baby into mutations and develop their special abilities. The other method involved birth to babies having abilities of animals and insects. The special abilities were derived from gene manipulation. Subaru, Saya and others were born from those experiments.

Dead Angle

Elite college graduates commit perfect financial crimes though loopholes in the law during the 1950s.

Men and War I: Prelude to Destiny

Keisuke Godai, head of the upstart Godai family conglomerate, plans to strengthen ties with the hardliners in the Kwantung Army as they plan military expansion into Manchuria.

Kanikôsen

On board at the boat Kanikosen, where fish and crabs preserves, forced workers to work under miserable conditions, with minimum wages. Some can not cope with conditions and even death from malnutrition, and is also the supervisor of the more vicious variety. Shinjo, one of the employees, trying to convince the others that they will get good luck and fortune in his next life, and persuades them because they commit suicide to get there faster. It ends, however, in a single major failure. Rather than flee Shinjo being picked up by a Russian ship. Once there, he is overwhelmed by the social conditions that are completely different from those he has just left and decided therefore to return to Kanikosen to save their employees.

Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS

A Japanese film that tells the tale of the birth of VHS. It follows Kagatani Shizuo, an electronics employee who rallies his coworkers to save their jobs by increasing sales. They do this by developing the VHS standard. They battle with Sony and their standard and ultimately prevail.

What to Do With the Dead Kaiju?

A large monster attacks Japan, but dies suddenly. While the people rejoice and bask in relief, the giant corpse left behind begins to slowly rot and bloat. If it explodes, the nation will be destroyed.

Bread of Happiness

A couple decide to relocate from Tokyo to the northern island of Hokkaido where they settle and establish a bakery and café called Mani. One cooks. The other bakes. Everyone walks out happy.

Silver Spoon

Ooejo Agricultural High School is located in Hokkaido. Most students are from families involved in agriculture and their dreams are to continue working in agriculture. Meanwhile, Yuugo (Kento Nakajima), who graduated from a prestigious middle school, applied to the Ooejo Agricultural High School just because the school has a dormitory. Yuugo, who grew up in the city, finds himself in an unfamiliar environment at Ooejo Agricultural High School, surrounded by nature and animals. Yuugo is also the only one who doesn't know what type of career he wants to pursue. Yuugo becomes impatient. He goes through struggles everyday, but he also gets to know the other students and rural life in general. He begins to grow as a person.

Free and Easy

Densuke Hamazaki is an office worker at Suzuki Construction and gets transferred to the main Tokyo office. After settling in to his surrounding along with his wife Eri, Densuke befriends an elderly man named Ichinosuke Suzuki. Ichinosuke is a lonely and old man who learns to enjoy life again through his friendship with Densuke. Meanwhile, Densuke is completely unaware that Ichinosuke is the boss of his construction company. The two men become friends through their shared passion for fishing.

Tora-san Meets the Songstress Again

Tora-san visits Hokkaido and is reunited with Lily. Now divorced, she plans to resume her singing career and renews her unusual relationship with Tora-san.

Tora-san's Dream-Come-True

When Tora-san returns to visit his family, he is surprised to find an arrogant professor occupying his room. The professor and Tora-san become rivals for the affection of Chiyo.

The Apology King

Ryoro Kurojima (Sadao Abe) is the director of a Tokyo apology center. His job is to teach others how to apologize. Ryoro Kurojima solves problems by using his apology techniques on anything from simple arbitration to a national crisis.

Intolerance

A teenager girl's accidental death incites a media frenzy and causes her harsh father to turn his rage against those he believes are responsible.

Sakura Guardian in the North

The film follows the relationship between a mother and her son. In 1945, the mother played by Sayuri Yoshinaga fled with her two sons from the Russians to Hokkaido. In 1972, her son played by Masato Sakai returns to Japan after finding success in the U.S.

Star Watching Dog

An abandoned car is discovered near a camping ground and inside it is the body of an identified middle-aged man and a dog who seems to have died months later. This is the story of the life of the loving and faithful dog and his owner told from the dog's point of view. City hall employee Kyousuke Okutsu is assigned to uncover the man's identity for a proper funeral. As he investigates the situation, he remembers his late family and his own dog's unfailing loyalty.

An Ocean to Cross

Set in Japan's Tenpyou era (729-749 CE), four young monks are sent to China to study Buddhism and bring a high priest back to Japan with them. The film tells the tale of the four monks' youth and the life and times of the high priest Ganjin.

Macross Δ the Movie: Passionate Walküre

Macross Delta is set in the year 2067, eight years after the events of Macross Frontier. The story focuses on Walküre, a team of talented idols and the Delta Squadron, a team of experienced Valkyrie pilots as they battle against the Var Syndrome, a mysterious phenomena that is consuming the galaxy, alongside the mysterious Aerial Knights Valkyrie fighter team of the Kingdom of Wind. This film recompiles scenes from the television anime with new scenes to tell a different story.

AIBOU: The Movie

A former TV presenter is murdered. On the same day, two police officers from the Metropolitan police Special Mission Task Force, Sugishita Ukyo (Yutaka Mizutani) and Kameyama Kaoru (Yasufumi Terawaki), are guarding a female Diet member, Katayama Hinako (Yoshino Kimura). The pair identifies explosives and saves her life. From the clues left at the scene, Sugishita builds up his case and finds a connection between the murder of the TV presenter and the attempted murder of the Diet member. During a painstaking investigation, the savage murder case of a young overseas volunteer five years earlier emerges in the background, and the pair prevents indiscriminate murder at the Tokyo Big City Marathon event by suppressing the perpetrator.

Love Letter

Yuko is in love with an old poet who happens to be also a married man. She waits patiently for him and only him, yet she is constantly being lust by others.

For Love's Sake

Shiori is a star university student with an incredible palate for wine who dreams of studying winemaking in France. However, to her dismay she is assigned to a rural sake brewery for her internship. To make matters worse, upon arrival she discovers that the brewery owners don’t exactly want her around. However, as it becomes clear that Shiori will be sticking around, she tries to make the best of things and begins to pitch in at the brewery, perhaps even warming up to the idea of drinking sake. And when the brewery owner falls gravely ill, and his upstart son Kanji is forced to take the lead, Shiori may provide the spark that can save the brewery and change her own life in the process..

Desperate Sunflowers

Natsuko Kotani was born to be a swindler. Meanwhile, Tetsuko Ishida is Natsuko’s distant relative. Unlike Natsuko, Tetsuko is an attorney with an upright disposition. Whenever Natsuko makes trouble, Tetsuko is called to solve her troubles. Believing that Natsuko is using her, Tetsuko, with her boring life, begins to change.

The Housekeeper Saw!

Sawagura Nobuko is back housekeeping again in this sequel to the 2014 SP! This time around Nobuko, having been given some pearl earrings as a present sometime before, decides to attend an exhibition for a pearl described as being the world's most expensive one. That pearl is owned by the Iwakura family, who run a large pearl company. While looking at the pearl however, Nobuko is pulled away by a handsome man who seems to have some connection to the family. So when Nobuko finds one of her pearl earrings missing and probably taken by that man, she decides to work as a housekeeper for the Iwakura family until the man shows up again and she can get her earring back. But the Iwakura family that Nobuko is now working for has plenty of secrets beyond just pearls that she'll have to sort out if she wants her earring back...

Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home

In May 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) launched an unmanned spacecraft of their own development to retrieve samples from an asteroid. Seven long years later, Hayabusa achieved its goal and was the first of any kind of craft launched from Earth to safely return samples of this kind to home base. The story was one of such great national pride for Japan, and in the wake of the tsunami and resulting tragedies in Japan it’s strong nationalistic message became the subject of no less than three rival films. Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s high-profile effort, simply titled Hayabusa (2011) starred the incomparable Toshiyuki Nishida. Most recently, Welcome Home, Hayabusa (2012) was released to Japanese audiences. Slipping in between those two was Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home, concentrating on the people on the ground who helped return the probe safely.

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