Best movies & TV Shows like Half Blue Sky

Ito Marika stars as the lead in this 2022 SP that tells the story of a group of friends, who run a food wagon serving sandwiches made with local produce, and their interactions with a farming family that they meet in Takasaki City in the Gunma Prefecture. TV Tokyo has teamed up with Takasaki City, Gunma in order to showcase a series of programs and dramas that are part of its efforts towards creating programs aimed at regional development in Japan. This will be its third production, following “Hatake Sono Manma Restaurant” in 2020 and “Nouka no Mikata” in 2021.

The story of Kevin Arnold facing the trials and tribulations of youth while growing up during the 1960s and 70s. Told through narration from an adult Kevin, Kevin faces the difficulties of maintaining relationships and friendships on his enthralling journey into adulthood.

It's 1986 - the year Maradona ends England's World Cup dreams in Mexico; the year Top Gun is the highest grossing film; the year over 3.4 million Brits are unemployed and the year Shaun is leaving school.

Seventeen-year-old Nanaka Kirisato is a high school student serious about her studies and goals in life. She frequently criticizes her best friend, Nenji Nagihara, for being a childish delinquent who spends his time fighting other boys. Then one day, after a heated argument with Nenji, she falls off a flight of stairs and suffers a brain injury, resulting in her mind reverting to that of a six-year-old. With this in mind, Nanaka's father and Nenji must keep her injury a secret as she struggles to live a normal life and grow up all over again.

When Yadomi Jinta was a child, he was a central piece in a group of close friends. In time, however, these childhood friends drifted apart, and when they became high school students, they had long ceased to think of each other as friends. One of the friends from that group, Honma Meiko, now has a wish she asks Jinta to fulfil. The problem is, she can't remember what her wish is anymore.

Ohisama is a Japanese television drama that aired on NHK in 2011 in the Asadora time slot. Set in Nagano prefecture, "Ohisama" covers the life of Yoko Sudo (Mao Inoue) through World War II. Yoko Sudo with her smile is able to bring brightness to those around her & she follows her mother's motif to laugh through the hard times. During the onset of WW II, Yoko is a high school student and "Ohisama" follows her as she eventually becomes a teacher and then gets married and has a child. Yoko then opens a soba restaurant with her student. --asianwiki

Set in a family restaurant in Hokkaido, the northern prefecture of Japan, 16-year-old high school student Sōta Takanashi works part-time along with his strange co-workers: Popura Taneshima, a high school girl who—despite being a year older than Sōta—is easily mistaken for a elementary/middle schooler, and Kyoko Shirafuji, the 28-year-old store manager who does not bother to do any work at all.

The story revolves around four teens - the good-looking twins Asaba Yuuta and Yuuki, the effeminate Matsuoka Shun, and the class head Tsukahara Kaname - who have known each other since early childhood. While they are not necessarily good or bad friends, they continue to hang out well into high school. The half-Japanese transfer student Tachibana Chizuru joins the circle of friends in this comedy about the everyday life of adolescence.

Aoi prefers indoor hobbies and is afraid of heights, but her childhood friend Hinata loves to show off her passion for mountain climbing. As young children they once watched the sunrise from the top of a mountain, and now they've decided to take up mountain climbing in hopes of seeing that sunrise again. They have cooking battles with mountaineering gear, climb small hills in their neighborhood, and meet new mountaineering friends as they learn the ropes of the hobby. When will they finally see that sunrise again?

Amachan is the 88th 2013 NHK asadora written by Kankuro Kudo (Tiger and Dragon, Unobore Deka). It's about Amano Aki (Nounen Rena), a 16 year old girl from Tokyo who goes to her mother's former home in Sodegahama, a fishing village in Kitasanriku, Iwate prefecture for the summer break. She falls in love with the sea and its people, and decides to stay on to become an Ama (women divers who fetch clams and sea urchins for tourists) just like her grandmother, Natsu (Miyamoto Nobuko). Her decision is welcomed wholeheartedly by Natsu and the other locals. However, her mother Haruko (Koizumi Kyoko) does not like the idea at first. She has a strained relationship with Natsu, and her extreme dislike of the sea, diving and the countryside is one of the reasons why she left her hometown 24 years ago. Eventually, she decides to stay in Sodegahama with Aki, considering that she is contemplating on getting a divorce anyway and does not want to go back to her husband in Tokyo. She also notices that it might be good for Aki for she seems livelier and happier in Kitasanriku than in Tokyo. The road towards becoming a full-fledged Ama-san is tough for Aki as she encounters tests and hurdles. One day, a video of her as an Ama gets uploaded in the city's tourism website, transforming an ordinary high school girl into an overnight Internet sensation. Suddenly she is called upon to use this opportunity to attract tourists to a city suffering from depopulation.

Massan is based on the lives of Masataka Taketsuru and his wife Jessie Roberta "Rita" Cowan, a Scotswoman Taketsuru met while studying abroad.

Mare is an elementary school student. She lives with her family in the city, but, right before her father goes bankrupt, they run away and settle down at a fishing village in Noto. The family rents a couple's home who run a salt pond. Mare's father starts a new business, but it also fails. Her mother supports the family by working at the salt pond. 8 years later, Mare, about to graduate from high school, decides to work for the Wajima local government. She wants to have a steady job, unlike her father. Her job is to support people who move to Noto.

Aoi Miura (Sota Fukushi) was born and grew up in Toyama Prefecture. He has an indecisive personality and does not like summer. He was the focal member of the high school swimming team, but he now works as an assistant at a small architectural office in Tokyo. One summer day, he meets his childhood friend and first love Akari Serizawa. During their school days they spent everyday hanging out together until the fireworks night in their 3rd year of high school. That night, Akari suddenly disappeared. Now, Akari has a man named Aoi.

Uranohoshi Girls’ High School, a private school in the seaside neighborhood of Uchiura at Numazu city, Shizuoka prefecture. A small high school in a corner of Suruga Bay, it is home to nine teens, led by second-year student Chika Takami, driven by one seriously big dream: To become the next generation of bright, sparkling “school idols”! As long as we don’t give up, any dream can come true... All we have to do now is keep pushing hard for fame and glory! Now their “School Idol Project” begins to make their dreams come true!

In 1930 and as a young child, Tsuneko Kohashi lives at Enshu in Shizuoka Prefecture. She has a happy life with her parents and two younger sisters. Things change after her father dies from tuberculosis. Her father asked Tsuneko Kohashi to take care of the family in his place. Due to financial difficulties, her mother Kimiko decides to move the family to Tokyo where Tsuneko's grandmother lives.

On a visit to his hometown, Souta Tawara meets a strange child who loves udon and frogs... and has ears and a tail?! Although ordinary at first glance, it turns out that this little tyke is actually a tanuki in a human disguise! So begins the tale of a gentle, warm, and slightly weird family in Kagawa prefecture, better known as "Udon Prefecture," where time passes at a less hurried pace than in the big city...

Nadeshiko, a high school student who had moved from Shizuoka to Yamanashi, decides to see the famous, 1000 yen-bill-featured Mount Fuji. Even though she manages to bike all the way to Motosu, she's forced to turn back because of worsening weather. Unable to set her eyes on her goal, she faints partway to her destination. When she wakes up, it's night, in a place she's never been before, with no way of knowing how to get home. Nadeshiko is saved when she encounters Rin, a girl who is out camping by herself. This outdoorsy girls story begins with this first encounter between Nadeshiko and Rin.

Sakurai Taro’s parents died young. His grandmother, Akiko, has been making great effort to protect her struggling candy store, Sakuraya, in the old part of Tokyo, but it's not easy. Taro eats candy with regular customers such as chilhood friend Saegusa Hiroki who aspires to be a scriptwriter, and talk nonsense, like in their youth. However, they realize this unfettered, comfortable existence will end some day with the passage of time. Then Taro’s ex-classmate, Kimura Reiko, comes back home with her son after a divorce. He and his friends start to notice what is truly important to them as they face up to their pasts, dreams and pains.

Saigo Takamori, the hero of the Meiji Restoration, was born to a poor, low-ranking samurai family in the Satsuma domain (present day Kagoshima Prefecture). His simple honesty caught the attention of its charismatic feudal lord of Satsuma, Shimazu Nariakira. Nariakira’s assertion that the love of people is what will enrich and strengthen the nation captivated Saigo who took on Nariakira’s secret mission and eventually became a key person for Satsuma. Not a portrait of him survives today and much of his life is a mystery. He is a man who was twice exiled and thrice married. He overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate with exceptional bravery and action. Although he accomplished the restoration, he lost his life in a fight with the new Meiji government.

18-year-old Urano Suzu marries Hojo Shusaku and moves from Eba City to Kure City in Hiroshima Prefecture in the middle of the Pacific War. As Japan slides into a war it cannot get out of, the townspeople go on with their “ordinary” lives. Supplies are short, and family and friends get sent to the battlefield. Suzu and the Hojo family battle such anxieties as they try to live positively.

Two transfer students, Takashi Mitsuhashi and Shinji Itō, tired of their boring normal life and unpopularity, decide to take their arrival at a new school as an opportunity to reinvent their image, and become delinquents. The duo set out on various misadventures to become the greatest delinquents in all Japan!

Set during the 1950s, the six-part series tells the story of a young woman’s search for love and identity in a newly independent, post-Partition India defining its own future.

Kinoshita Kazuya is a 20-year-old failure of a college student. He managed to kiss his girlfriend once, but was dumped after a month. Completely spiteful, Kazuya uses a certain method to date a girl. He goes to their meeting place and a beautiful girl brushing her long, black hair behind her ear was there, smiling at him. Her name was Mizuhara Chizuru. Something real is born after just a single rental! A reckless rom-com filled with love and excitement is about to begin!

Together with her father, who had quit his salaryman job, Toyokawa Himeno moves to Gifu prefecture's Tajimi city. That's the city where her mother is from, whom she had lost when she was still young. Himeno is now attending her mother's alma mater, where her classmate Kukuri Mika invites her to tag along to a special place. That place turns out to be the pottery club! There, she learns for the first time that her mother was a legendary potter, and is consequently pulled into the world of pottery.

Koguma is a high school girl in Yamanashi. She has no parents, friends, or hobbies, and her daily life is empty. One day, Koguma gets a used Honda Super Cub motorcycle. This is her first time going to school on a motorcycle. Running out of gas and hitting detours become a small source of adventure in Koguma's life. She is satisfied with this strange transformation, but her classmate Reiko ends up talking to her about how she also goes to school by motorcycle. One Super Cub begins to open up a lonely girl's world, introducing her to a new everyday life and friendship.

Rio Sanada is the president of "Sanada Wellness" and an up-and-coming businesswoman who is selected as one of the "100 people in their 30s who will change the world". She is reunited with her former love interest Daiki Miyazaki, who is now a detective, after 15 years as an important witness to a murder case. In Gifu Prefecture in 2006, Rio is a third-year high-school student who wants to go to the University of Tokyo. She took good care of her younger brother in lieu of their busy father. Before Daiki could confess to her, an incident occurs at the dormitory.

University student Sawano Natsumi lives in Shonan, Kanagawa Prefecture. An encounter in Hawaii makes her decide to bring the popular pancake restaurant Eggs n’ Things to Japan, which sparks a pancake boom in the country. Despite suffering difficulties and setbacks, Natsumi fulfils her dream, motivated by thoughts of her father as well as the support of family and friends.

In this tell-all drama documentary series, we lift the lid on these titans of music. Hearing from friends, family, band members, partners and the people who were all part of the journey, we piece together the turbulent childhoods, explosive teenage years, relationships with parents, girlfriends, wives and the band members of these unique individuals. We take those that knew them best back to the places where their legends were born – the apartments, clubs, dives, houses and cars in which these men were forged. From crippling drug addictions to scandalous affairs, we’ll uncover the shocking reality of what it takes to be a frontman; we’ll tap into the vast musical archive, use rare band interviews and remarkable off stage footage to piece together each dramatic tale.

Fight is a story about fifteen year old Yuu, whose family becomes separated after an incident involving her father's spring factory. With her undying spirit to "fight" off every obstacle arising in life, Yuu maintains her positive attitude and moves forward in hopes of the day when her family will reunite again.

Natsumi is the 23 years old daughter of a master baker in Yokohama and in training with her father to become a pastry chef. She lives with her parents and younger brother in Yokohama. One day she travels to Iwate Prefecture with her boyfriend Masaki for his grandmother Katsuno's 77th birthday. While they are there, Katsuno, head okami of a famous ryokan in Morioka City, becomes ill and asks Masaki to return to run the ryokan. Natsumi returns to Yokohama and later Masaki visits, asking her to disregard their earlier plans to get married because he will return to Morioka as requested by Katsuno. However, Natsumi surprises him with a vow to become the ryokan's okami. Is Natsumi in for clear skies as suggested by the series name?

Born over a tofu shop in Osaka, twin sisters Reiko and Kyoko have very different characters. Reiko is diligent, and longs for a secure, middle class lifestyle. Kyoko is a free spirit, who seeks thrills and adventure.

The story is about a young woman who becomes a landscape gardener following her father's wishes. Wakaba, born and brought up in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, lived happily with her parents and younger brother until the Great Hanshin Earthquake shook and destroyed the city in 1995. In the disaster, Wakaba loses her father, who was an architect and moves with her mother and brother to Obi, old castle town in Nichinan, Miyazaki Prefecture, where her grandmother lives with her uncle and aunt. Living in Obi's rich natural environment, Wakaba learns that plants can heal people's hearts. She makes a resolution to return to Kobe and reconstruct the city abundant in greenery.

The story is set in Hiroshima Prefecture's Onomichi City, where a high school student Nashiko Jippensha was kicked out of her house. Without a place to play with her friends, she learns that the mahjong parlor that her father used to run is now vacant. She fixes the mahjong parlor and turns it into a place where she and her friends can have fun, cook, have tea, and sometimes play mahjong.

The 12th NHK Asadora. Set in Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, at the end of the Pacific War. Maki is the heroine, married to Shuichi who must go to war. She stays home and takes on the role of other war widows, managing business and a Chinese restaurant.

A young woman Chiaki whose family runs an old miso company in Nagano Prefecture, the only daughter of old traditional family. For generations, they were making soybean paste for living. Now she needs to take over this business and rebuild it. She lives through the hardships of postwar Japan.