Best movies like Red Paper Lantern

A husband and wife have been married for 50 years. For her birthday, the husband asks the wife what she wants for her birthday present. She replies that she wants a divorce. The wife's divorce announcement sends the entire family into chaos.

Nobuyuki Sakisaka (Yuta Tamamori) is a salaryman. When he was in middle school student, he read light novel "Fairy Game”. He still has that light novel, because he was so shocked by the ending. One day, Nobuyuki Sakisaka browses the internet and comes across the blog "Rein Tsuri no Kuni.” He learns that the blog writer, Rika Hitomi (Mariya Nishiuchi), also was shocked by the ending in light novel "Fairy Game." Nobuyuki and Rika soon begin to exchange emails. Nobuyuki wants to meet Rika, but she refuses due to her secret.

Two girls with the same name but very different personalities share an apartment in this sequel to Nana. The rising fame of Nana Osaki's band, the Black Stones, is beginning to take a toll on the best friends' relationship. Meanwhile, Nana Komatsu struggles to make sense of her love triangle with Black Stones' guitarist Nobu and rival group Trapnest's bassist Takumi.

Maki Eda works for an advertising agency at a large company. She is a single and doesn't have good luck with men. She also isn't very good at cooking and likes eating junk food. One day, she meets Nagisa Katayama. He is an art teacher and a vegetarian. Unlike Maki, Nagisa cooks very well. The two people then happen to live together. Maki realizes that she is in love with Nagisa, but Nagisa is gay. Through his cooking, they solve their own problems and become important to each other.

Haruna Wakagusa is a high school student who lives with her mother. Ichiro Yamada is gay and Haruna’s classmate. He is bullied at school, but Haruna sticks up for Ichiro. They become intimate and Ichiro tells Haruna his secret. He found a dead body along the riverside. A new body is soon found.

Follows the ups and downs of four female friends in Tokyo looking for love and trying to cope with the responsibilities in their lives.

High school girl Madoka may look pretty and cute, but there is another side to her. She can exact revenge, land a good punch or a kick and not care about limits. She opts to inflict pain, coerce and blackmail a virgin when she is sensually touched on the train. She begins making his life hell.

Pharmaceutical student, Keiko witnesses her boyfriend having an affair. Shocked and disappointed, she jumps on a train ("destination anywhere, east or west, she don't care") and ends up in a town named Masao in Tokyo's remote suburbs. There, she gets a part-time job at a newly opened drugstore. What do ya know.. The local shopping district's middle-aged men all fall for the young girl's charms, and they start practicing lacrosse once they have found out that that's her favourite sport.

A 28-year-old single woman is pressured to marry.

Set over one night in Tokyo, we follow Leo, a young boxer down on his luck as he meets his ‘first love’ Monica, a call-girl and an addict but still innocent. But, little does Leo know, Monica is unwittingly caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, and the two are pursued through the night by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin sent by the Chinese Triads. All their fates intertwine in spectacular Miike style, at his most fun and anarchic.

Yoshika has had a crush on Ichimiya, whom she calls "the One" since she was in middle school. Now, a 24-year-old salarywoman, her all-consuming fixation has prevented her from even considering another candidate for boyfriend until an office colleague asks her out.

An old man and a young woman meet in Tokyo. She knows nothing about him, he thinks he knows her. He welcomes her into his home, she offers him her body. But the web that is woven between them in the space of twenty four hours bears no relation to the circumstances of their encounter.

Kit can’t remember much of his native Vietnam. When he returns to the Land of the Golden Star for the first time in over thirty years, he takes in his local surroundings as any Western tourist would, and the environment is as exotic as the language is incomprehensible. The aim of Kit’s travels – to find a place to scatter his parents’ ashes – thus becomes part of a journey back to his roots and to the discovery of his identity, which external circumstances have rendered ambiguous and complex.

Takatoshi Minamiyama majors in art at an university in Kyoto. On the train to the school, he sees Emi Fukuju and falls in love with her at first sight. Gathering up all his courage, he speaks to her. They begin to date and enjoy happy days together, but Emi reveals her secret to him.

A Japanophile young Belgian woman in Tokyo falls into a whirlwind romance with a Francophile Japanese student, in this charming and tender tale of young love and cultural discovery.

Rory is an ambitious entrepreneur who brings his American wife and kids to his native country, England, to explore new business opportunities. After abandoning the sanctuary of their safe American suburban surroundings, the family is plunged into the despair of an archaic '80s Britain and their unaffordable new life in an English manor house threatens to destroy the family.

The year is 1987 and Japan is just reaching the peak of its economic success. Eighteen-year old Yonosuke Yokomichi arrives in Tokyo from Nagasaki. Ordinary in every way possible, he lives in a suburb far from the excitement of the big city and commutes to a university in the center of Tokyo.

This exploration of Japan's fascination with girl bands and their music follows an aspiring pop singer and her fans, delving into the cultural obsession with young female sexuality and the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.

Ryosuke lives in a small house in Toshima, Tokyo. Since his wife died, he has adjusted to living alone. He used to teach at a university and he now works as a translator. Meanwhile, Ryosuke has one child, Yuriko. She is married to Shigeyuki, who works as a teacher. Yuriko and Shigeyuki live in Azumino, Nagano Prefecture. One day, Yuriko visits her father Ryosuke without advance notice. Ryosuke is surprised by her sudden visit. Yuriko doesn't give any reason for the visit. Ryosuke only learns that Yuriko isn't sure how long she will stay. They haven't talked as father and daughter in a long time. They begin to live together in a nervous, but warm atmosphere.

When Koichi Takahasi (Miutani) is transferred from Tokyo to a small village in Iwate Prefecture, they set up hoe in a two-hundred year-old farmhouse. The family is split between those who hate the move and those who are happy. Fumiko (Yasuda), the wife, is unhappy at the change and doesn’t get on with her elderly neighbours, Azumi (Hashimoto) is sad about having to transfer to a new school. Koichi’s mother, Sumiyo (Kusabue), rather likes the new community while young Tomoya Takahashi (Hamada) really enjoys the new move because he can play outdoors. Koichi takes note of the split in the family but finds himself struggling at his new job. Thankfully the house has Zashiki Warashi (yokai) living there who will unite them with their antics. Judging by the poster these antics won’t be terrifying.

Aoi studies photography at a school in Tokyo. She undergoes a heart transplant operation and goes to the island of Okinawa to recover. Her uncle lives on the island. There, she holds a camera and walks along the island. Aoi hears the sound of a trumpet. She looks up and sees a young man playing the trumpet. His name is Zio.

Cultures meet and values are learnt through the renovation of an inn.

A tragic accident lead to Kaori's blindness, but she clings to life and the smaller pleasures it can still afford her. She meets Rui and begins to talk to him. Rui was once a promising kickboxer, but something happened in his past. Kaori's smile brings out a change in Rui. However, the two are connected in more than one way. Rui attempts to do what is right.

A 29-year-old lawyer and her lesbian best friend experience a dramatic shift in their longtime bond after one enters a serious relationship.

Peter and Amanda spy on a bickering couple from their penthouse, but when the man finds out, he vows to make the nosy couples life a living hell.

Reiko Himekawa (Yuko Takeuchi) is a female detective at the Metropolitan Police Department. Reiko doesn't come from an elite background, but she has risen fast through the ranks with hard work. Reiko than becomes involved in a murder case named "Strawberry Night" due to the mysterious use of those words surrounding the case.

An alcoholic civil servant wakes up under a cherry tree in Tokyo next to a bar hostess with whom he's impulsively made a suicide pact. Though he's now changed his mind, he agrees to travel with her to Hokkaido, her preferred site for ending it all.

Manami's mother died when she was a child. She moves to Okinawa, where her ailing aunt lives and she feels connected with her mother. Manami has always lacked self-confidence, but she becomes more positive after meeting Koa, a Vietnamese researcher following his dreams. But then Koa returns to Vietnam.

In her search for answers, 17-year-old Haru sets out on a long journey across the country to the town where, in 2011, the devastating tsunami swept away her brother and parents. This road trip takes the young woman, who is still haunted by her loss, from Hiroshima to Tokyo and Fukushima and all the way to Ōtsuchi, where her family home once stood. On the way she encounters other people, other stories, other lives and other losses. Landscapes and faces. The journey ends in the middle of a garden in full bloom among the scarred surroundings of her coastal hometown.. In it stands a telephone box which, even though it is no longer connected, is used to speak to those who cannot be reached any other way.

A new salesman named Kosuke Okuda happens to meet Mao Watarai, a friend from his middle school days. Back then, Mao was called stupid and bullied, but now she is an attractive woman. Kosuke and Mao fall in love and decide to marry, but Mao has a secret…

After helping a pregnant girl escape from their reform school and facing the resulting punishment, a clique of delinquent girls eventually reunites a year later in Tokyo to face different challenges in the form of yakuza and… street vendors.

After being deserted by her parents, 11-year old Miyori shuts her heart from the rest of the world and denies any form of human relationships. She was entrusted in the care of her grandmother who lives near a forest. Miyori will take a walk in the forest where she felt a strong sense of loneliness in the forest which seems to have nothing. However, she soon encounters unbelievable things...

After graduating high school, Hiromi moves from the coastal town of Niigata to Tokyo in the hopes of becoming a famous actress. Her dream seemingly comes true as a manager scouts her off the street. He recruits her as a model but it's actually to be a "nude" model. It's not exactly what Hiromi was looking for, but she can't turn down the opportunity. As her career dwindles, the manager coerces her to make the jump to AV and Hiromi gains a new identity as Mihiro.

An honest examination of the funny, sexy, turbulent and beautiful high-stakes game of heterosexual cohabitation. Tim wants to be a doctor. Caroline doesn't quite know what she wants. They both know their love is real, but can that love endure a town full of possibilities and temptation?

This work, in which Tetsuya Takehora picked up a megaphone and Komatsu Komatsu wrote the script, is a youth ensemble drama depicting young people who are worried about the stage in Aomori Prefecture. In front of Masami Kimoto, who had an awkward relationship with her lover Michio Oda for some reason, her childhood friend Teruo Ikeda, who returned to Aomori for a temporary return from Tokyo, appears. Teruo, who gained confidence through a part-time job called "self-rental," influences the relationship between Masami and Michio.

In 1980, Ayuko is a new transfer student in Okayama from Tokyo. She doesn't have any friends and relies on her boyfriend Hideo who is a college student. Ayuko likes to draw a romance manga of herself and her boyfriend. Ayuko's classmate, Takemi, becomes a huge fan of Ayuko's manga and they become close friends. Due to an incident though, they drift apart. 30 years later, Ayuko is now a manga artist and comes back to Okayama to give a lecture at her former high school. There, Ayuko meets Takemi who is now a teacher.

Life seems to be good for Shintoto, an up-and-coming rakugo artist who has just had his first sexual experience at a local brothel. Lucky for him, he gets to date the beautiful sex worker he meets that day, and a younger high school rakugo aficionado is also vying for his attention. But for clumsy, heart-on-his-sleeve Shintoto, life doesn’t stay rosy for long.

Two people meet each other after missing the last train home, leading to a beautiful relationship over five years.

Haruna Tsunematsu (Yuri Tsunematsu) is studying folklore at university and she decides the subject of her graduation thesis will be the "Kisaragi Station" urban legend which has been a hot topic on the Internet since 2004.

After the mysterious death of their young son, a couple desperately flees to a remote lake house to escape the unrelenting haunting following them only to discover the mysterious entity is still very much a part of their lives.

Six women attempt to make it in current day Tokyo, living their everyday lives the best and worst they can. For them, every little moment becomes a ritual of the ordinary and the exciting, a balancing act for their dreams and hopes as the days perpetually tug on their heartstrings.

During the 2nd year of high school in the winter season, Yano transferred from Kushiro to Tokyo due to a family matter. Yano and Nanami promised to meet again. A couple of years later, Nanami is busy finding a job, while Yano's friend Takeuchi supports her. in the beginning, Yano and Nanami kept their relationship, even with the long distance between them, but Yano suddenly stops contacting Nanami.

It is difficult to stand out at a Ginza club where every hostess wants to be number one. It is competitive. One of them is a virgin and also just eighteen years old. She wants to become the number one hostess to help pay the bills for her family. She advertises herself as 'virginity for sale.' It is an auction and the prize goes to the highest bidder. She doesn't have hostess skills however. The club's manager was the number one hostess in all of Ginza and helps the younger woman.

Classmates Shuji and Eri becomes friends, both young people have family problems. When Eri is taken away to Tokyo by her relatives, Shuji becomes increasingly isolated at school and drifts into criminal activity.

Focusing on the lives (and a few deaths) of three filmmakers, Rikiya Imaizumi (Their Distance, Sad Tea) tackles weighty themes in this new ensemble drama set in Tokyo and Fukushima. Director Kajiwara, struggling to earn a living from film, gets an offer to do a music video. But it doesn’t go well and he finds himself in an unexpected situation. Actress Aoba witnesses her filmmaker boyfriend's suicide and decides to hide his body. Gardener Taro plans to close the family business he inherits from his father, but receives a phone call one night from the self-declared girlfriend of his estranged twin, Jiro.

Shiori has just moved to a new apartment. One evening, she hears a mysterious voice that claims to be "from the future" asking her to trail Susumu Hirano, who lives next door. Shiori in an attempt to solver the mystery began to investigating more and more about Hirano until she gets attracted to him.

Love Me Do is a twisted love story which follows the relationship between a female investment banker and an out-of-work actor. As the couple learn to bridge their differences and fall in love, a romantic bond develops, which drives them to commit a terrible crime.

Eriko – lonely, aimless and self-absorbed – falls for Tamura. Despite knowing that he is waiting for his girlfriend to return from overseas, she requests to enter into a relationship with him for just one year.

University student Nozomi tries to get a job. Back in her hometown, she was lazy, but now Nozomi is used to the quicker pace of Tokyo. Nozomi is also experiencing problems with her boyfriend Kameyama, who seems to be travelling at a different speed in life and work. Meanwhile, Saeko works very hard in the advertising field and she is faithful to her boyfriend Tomoya. Yet, on their first year anniversary, Saeko hear's woman's voice on Tomoya's cellphone. Based on the anthology manga of the same name.