Best movies & TV Shows like Swimming in the Dark

An ordinary man plays matchmaker to his friend only to realize the girl being pursued is being stalked.

Marc, Louis and Gaétan work as doormen in a fictional nightclub called The Manhattan. The new owner wants to give the bar an upscale makeover and the three friends are stuck having to deal with this hip new work environment, with riveting consequences.

Upon entering college, Narumi forms the Asunaro Group along with four other boys and girls. In time, she starts to date Tamotsu, whom she felt attracted to when she first saw him at the entrance exam. Although the two are happy together at first, their very different backgrounds cause them gradually to fall out and ultimately break up. Immediately following the break up, a member of the group dies a terrible death, and this brings the group to an end. The members go their separate ways, but Narumi and Tamotsu do not forget each other. Four years later, when the group reunites on the anniversary of the death of their friend, Tamotsu proposes to Narumi. The story follows the Asunaro Group members’ growth into adulthood as they struggle with the boundary between friendship and love, deal with bitter experiences, and find love for the first time.

Moriyama plays a temp worker who has never had any luck with women. One day, he suddenly starts getting invitations from several beautiful women, and he finds himself confused about how to deal with this new experience of having a "moteki" (a period when one is very popular and attractive to others).

Yūko Ichihara is the sexy owner of a strange store which offers to make any wishes come true for a price. Kimihiro Watanuki has a special type of blood that attracts spirits and ghosts. He goes into the shop owned by Yūko Ichihara and asks her to get rid of the spirits. Yūko offers to do so if he works part-time at the store.

Doujin Work follows the life of a young girl named Najimi Osana and her exposure into the doujin world. She was first tempted into becoming a doujin artist after seeing how much one of her friends can make at a convention. Najimi loves to draw, though soon learns contrary to what she expected that this new world is anything but easy. As she attends more conventions and meets more people, Najimi eventually manages to find a group of very interesting friends. These friends already have some experience in the field and help her out along the way so that she can someday make a name for herself creating doujinshi.

This story is about four men who work in a confectionary. Tachibana Keiichiro (Shiina Kippei) is the owner; Ono Yusuke (Fujiki Naohito) is the superb baker that has a mysterious and mesmerizing aura; Kobayakawa Chikage (Abe Hiroshi) is the waiter and close bodyguard of Tachibana; and last but not least is Kanda Eiji (Takizawa Hideaki), the ex-boxer who loves cake so much that he becomes a waiter at 'Antique'. This is a refreshing, yet heartfelt comedy about the 4 very unique personalities that work until the wee hours of the night at the small confectionary. The series follows the romance, family life, and most importantly friendship that these 4 men from different generations experience. This is a confectionary with a "flavor" not like most. Located in the middle of an ordinary residential area, "Antique" stays open until 2 a.m. Every single thing in the shop is antique, in fact even the sherry glasses that water comes in look like they would cost 50,000 yen. On top of this, all the sweets that are sold are unbelievably delicious. The thing that is most peculiar about "Antique" though is that all 4 of the men that work here are very handsome, and each has an interesting past. Those that frequent the store also have a story to tell. Edited Excerpt from JDorama.com

Hiroko Matsukata’s determined to work her way to the top, and at only 28, she’s now an editor at Jidai Weekly. But she’s had to dedicate her life to work while suppressing her feminine character traits to blend in with her uncouth male coworkers.

Kindaichi's best friend is involved with the school film club where members are found murdered. Can he protect her before she become the next victim?

Hanae Aoishi is set to turn 30. She works for a general trading company and has never taken a day off or been late for work. She dresses pleasantly plain and has zero dating experience. She attends a company party and drinks with part-time employee Yuto Tanokura. He is a handsome university student. Through the evening, Hanae becomes drunk and passes out. When she wakes up, Hanae finds Yuto Tanokura sleeping next to her and he is naked. She becomes confused about what happened and takes the day off from work for the first time. To come out of her shell, Hanae decides to date Yuto Tanokura who is 9 years younger than her. At this time Yu Asao, the CEO of a food company located in the same building as her company, begins to have feelings for Hanae.

Tamako works for a company in the restaurant business. She experiences betrayal from Makoto, a chef she recently hired. Rumors then spread at work about her. Tamako decides enough is enough and quits her job. She decides to open a restaurant and run it from a woman's perspective. Tamako soon learns that Makoto has opened a luxurious restaurant across the street from her modest restaurant.

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.

The boy who sits next to Yokoi in class, Seki-kun, is always up to something at his desk. He manages to somehow play very elaborate games without attracting the teacher's attention. From dominos, to shogi, to go, to mecha models, to playing with cats and more, he always has something new to do. Yokoi often finds herself getting reluctantly interested in his games, even though they always seem to end up getting HER in trouble with the teacher!

30-year-old Kamata Rinko is single and a struggling scriptwriter. She has no boyfriend and keeps having night outs at drinking spots with her girlfriends Kaori and Koyuki. “If I become beautiful, a better guy will appear!” “If we grow to like each other, we can get married!” They will not stop talking about these hypothetical questions. Then a younger, handsome, golden-haired guy suddenly utters, “These “what if” women!” and the trio have to face the harsh reality that they are no longer girls. Rinko enters her 30s while still immature, seeking happiness and struggling with romance and work.

Seventeen-year-old Mugi Awaya and Hanabi Yasuraoka appear to be the ideal couple. They are both pretty popular, and they seem to suit each other well. However, outsiders don't know of the secret they share. Both Mugi and Hanabi have hopeless crushes on someone else, and they are only dating each other to soothe their loneliness. Mugi is in love with Akane Minagawa, a young teacher who used to be his home tutor. Hanabi is also in love with a teacher, a young man who has been a family friend since she was little. In each other, they find a place where they can grieve for the ones they cannot have, and they share physical intimacy driven by loneliness. Will things stay like this for them forever?

Asuka Takanashi is a twenty-something woman who works for a megabank and holds various professional qualifications in finance. Despite her successful career, she is extremely eager to get married and become a stay-at-home housewife. One day, she suddenly gets damped by her boyfriend of five years. Desperate to find her next potential husband, she immediately starts searching to find the "love of her life." Then she meets Ryu Nanami, a very popular TV newscaster. He appears to be the most ideal man for Asuka, except that Ryu is 100% against the idea of marriage and determined to never get married. However, despite their different views on marriage, they eventually fall in love and start their relationship. It seemed as though everything was going so well, but this was the beginning of their “Battle of Values.” Where is their romantic relationship headed? Will Asuka be able to announce her marriage and make her dream come true?

Sumire Iwaya works as an editor for a well known newspaper. She is attractive and graduated from a prestigious university. She goes through a difficult period after being dumped by her boyfriend and getting demoted at work. One day, she picks up a beautiful young man, Takeshi Goda, out of a box. Takeshi looks like her former pet Momo and Sumire offers to let Takeshi live in her home as her pet.

Sayaka Minami works as a designer for a company. She is 30-years-old, single and has not had any love experience due to her 15 year unrequited love for Ryosuke Sagisawa. They have been friends since they were kids. One day, Sayaka wakes up and a strange man is in front of her. She panics and the man introduces herself as Shohei Machida. He works as a salesman at the same company as Sayaka. He tells her that they are in a relationship and live together. Sayaka lost her memory for 3 months.

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.

Wako Taira is 31 years old. She works part-time at a cinema close to her home. Her boyfriend is Fu-kun and they have lived together for three years. She has never thought of breaking up with her boyfriend, considering her age. One day, she meets high school student Yumeaki Iko. She can't resist him. Wako Taira has an affair with Yumeaki Iko.

Hinata is an introverted high school girl and Mikage is the "gal" who sits next to her in class. Hinata realizes Mikage is her friend from elementary school, and she wants to strike up the friendship again.

Kakei Shiro is a lawyer who works at a small law firm. He is a good cook and a meticulous and thrifty person who keeps the monthly food budget to 25,000 yen. Shiro’s daily routine is to leave work on time and head to a discount supermarket nearby. His partner Yabuki Kenji is the affable hairdresser. The two of them share a two-bedroom apartment and the finer points of two men living together comes up at the dining table every day.

Omori Momoe is twenty-seven-years-old, single and works at Studio Delta. She is thin and attractive. She should be courting suitors and taking her pick of the crop. Well, actually she does. She is having sex despite being single. In fact, she is making herself available sexually to five different men. to her it is just a disposable and habitual object of pleasure. She is sensual, sexy and adds the pleasure of sex toys to her repertoire of pleasures.

One day, Anzu went to a drinking party with her best friend Yuka. Anzu got really drunk and saw a handsome man before she left in a hurry. However, fate appears when Anzu reunites with the handsome guy who is one of the two new employees in the company.

Shin Karino is an unpopular manga writer and he is single. He lives in an apartment complex that has a rule forbidding children from living there. One day, Shin Karino's doorbell rings. When he opens his apartment door, he sees a small boy. The boy is 5-year-old Kotaro Sato. Kotaro Sato tells Shin Karino that he moved into the neighborhood. Shin Karino makes a weird face, because of the rule of his apartment complex. Kotaro Sato says that he lives by himself. At first, Shin Karino is annoyed by Kotaro Sato, but residents of the apartment building, including Shin Karino, become attached to Kotaro Sato.

Rinko Amaki is a successful 27-year-old woman who works at a busy wedding planning agency. She excels at her job to such an extent that she is promoted to lead her unit. She is popular, beautiful, and hard-working, but there is just one thing that frustrates her: Despite being surrounded by loved-up couples and romance all day at work for years, she is still single. And on top of that, she has never made love. She wants to lose her virginity, but has never found the right man. In a twist of fate, her male co-worker Gen Kamisaka, another wildly successful wedding planner is in the exact same predicament. Also aged 27, he has never had any intimate relations with a woman. The duo, having discovered they share the same “problem,” decides to do something about it. But they soon discover that work and physical intimacy are not easy to balance. And while they might have initially envisaged a quick and fuss-free fling, Cupid might have other plans for them...

21-year-old Shinomiya Yuki has no friends and spends his days alone working part-time jobs. One day, when he returns home as usual after a night shift, a male stranger who has been stabbed in the abdomen with a knife is sitting in his room. The man wakes up at the hospital that he has been taken to and identifies himself as Shinomiya Yuki to detectives. Then he points to Yuki and states that he stabbed him. Yuki flees the hospital right away and becomes a fugitive in an instant. At that moment, a mysterious woman called Zoka appears right before Yuki and asks him to help her take revenge on her father’s killer. He decides to collaborate with her. Zoka is a “leech” who goes from one house to another while its occupants are away. The two of them eventually encounter Kara, a legendary leech who lives like an empty shell solely for the purpose of revenge.

Kashiwazaki Yu has dated Naoki for the past 7 years and they have lived together for the past 5 years. Nowadays, their relationship has very little romance and Naoki seems to have no interest in marriage. On Kashiwazaki Yu’s birthday, Naoki seems to care more about his new game than celebrating her birthday. Kashiwazaki Yu is unable to control her anger anymore and runs out of their house. Perhaps by fate, she then meets her ex-boyfriend Fukami from her high school days. Kashiwazaki Yu soon finds herself in a love triangle with Naoki and Fukami.

Makoto and Yura Onoda are a newly-wed couple with zero sexual experience. Yura is a shy and naive 25-year-old woman whose good looks grab men's attention, something that she dislikes because she gets embarrassed very easily. Her husband Makoto is of the same age, but as opposed to his wife, he loves having dirty thoughts about other women. Physically though, Makoto is truly faithful to Yura. Both of them may be virgins, but now that they are married, they are ready to dive into the world of sex, "practicing" as often as possible. However, the world of sex is complex, so they need all the help they can get to find their way through it. Thankfully, their friends, acquaintances, and porn media lend them a helping hand.

Cooking is how Nomoto de-stresses, but one day, she finds herself making way more than she can eat by herself. And so, she invites her neighbor Kasuga, who also lives alone. What will come out of this impromptu dinner invitation...?

Minare Koda, a floor manager at a small restaurant in Sapporo, tries to deal with her bad breakup with an ex-boyfriend. In the process, she drunkenly vents her frustrations to an older man sitting next to her at a local bar. The following day, she discovers that the man works as a producer at a nearby radio station, which broadcast her drunken ramblings over the airwaves. As Minare's voice gains her more attention than her work at the restaurant, she ends up becoming a late-night radio talk show host at the same station, trying to balance her talk show with her daytime life to make ends meet.

Yomogida Fujiko is an office worker with an academic complex. She works hard and becomes a full-time employee at an insurance company, but because of her diligence, she is unable to refuse the work she is asked to do and accepts it with a smile on her face. One day, an elite company employee, Nishina Soma, moves into the room next door. Fujiko is soothed by the time she spends with her very kind and gentlemanly neighbor. But why did Nishina, a supposedly elite man, move into this shabby apartment, and why is he so kind to Fujiko...? It seems that Nishina, who does not speak much, is a stranger to Fujiko...?

General of the Three Kingdoms, Kongming had struggled his whole life, facing countless battles that made him into the accomplished strategist he was. So on his deathbed, he wished only to be reborn into a peaceful world and was sent straight to modern-day party-central, Tokyo! Can even a brilliant strategist like Kongming adapt to the wild beats and even wilder party people.

Tsurugi Hina, a first-year high school student who moved from the city, is an indoor person who is not good at living things. While walking along the embankment, she met her senior Kuroiwa, and was forced to join the mysterious "Teibo Club" and she decides to start fishing. With the support of unique club members, she gradually discovers the joy of fishing.