Best movies & TV Shows like The Bento Brings Happiness

Komaki is a thirty-something woman that has had it with her perpetually unemployed aspiring writer husband. Following the divorce, she moves back to her Tokyo-area hometown of Kyojima along with her young daughter, Non-chan. However, she has a difficult time making ends meet in big city Tokyo. Her solution? Take a chance and try opening her very own bento (lunch box) shop.

Kaori is a single mother and she raises her high-school age daughter Futaba. Her daughter is in a rebellious phase and ignores her mother. Kaori decides to take measures to communicate with her daughter and also get some revenge. Kaori creates messages in her daughter's bento meals.

Manami is captured by blood thirsty trigger happy vampires, and taken to their hotel, where they keep prisoners as future meals. They are all instructed to find a partner to survive, when a vampire clan from Transylvania interferes.

In his hometown of Toronto, Shawn Mendes pours his heart out on stage with a live performance in a stadium packed with adoring fans.

Kashiopea no Endo Roru A murder takes place on a luxury overnight train which runs from Sapporo to Ueno, Tokyo. The victim is a film director. The suspects are 4 women. Nokosareta Senritsu After a pianist concludes her best performance to date, she dies mysteriously in the waiting room. The cause of her death is potassium cyanide that was laced in her coffee. Kuroi Pan Teru A man works as a supervisor for a construction company. 30 years ago, he was a popular actor who played a hero character on TV. Now, he has a wife and a 20-year-old daughter. One day, the man learns that his daughter is kidnapped. Daiyamondo Dasuto A cold wave hits Tokyo. Two men, working for the same company, are unable to avoid overtime work that night. The snow storm then causes electrical outages. The two men must face difficult life or death decisions.

Tokyo Friends is a Japanese television drama released on June 3, 2005. Unlike many other dramas, it was never aired on TV but released as a set of 3 DVDs. Volumes one and two contain the first 4 episodes while volume three contains the last episode. Each episode is approximately 70 minutes. The Tokyo Friends Premium Box was also released which includes all 5 episodes, a bonus DVD, and 12 postcards. Although this is a very typical Tokyo-story and was never aired on TV, it was quite successful probably because it was Ai Otsuka's debut as an actress.

19-year-old Saeki Rei (Takei Emi) comes to Tokyo. Rei’s redeeming traits are her cheerfulness and distinctive positivity, but everything she does is always unheard of and unsuccessful. Because this foolhardiness causes trouble to the people around her each time, she ends up being called a girl who is unable to read situations. Rei moves to Tokyo with neither a dream nor goal, and is reunited with her father Suzuki Takuya (Watabe Atsuro) who abandoned her mother and her 15 years ago. Although she opposes her father for making her mother miserable, his dissolute life rouses her into action. “This won’t do. I’ve to make this person happy or I can’t move on with my own life!” And so, she runs about with the aim of getting her father remarried in her first experience living in Tokyo. With cheerfulness and positivity, she overcomes various difficulties and slowly changes the people around her too.

Dr. Kirishima is a genius plastic surgeon who gives his patients brand new lives.

At a high school entrance ceremony, high school student Kotoko Aihara, who isn't that smart, notices pretty boy Naoki Irie. She falls in love with him immediately. Kotoko initially doesn't express her feelings to him, but finally has a chance to tell him how she feels. Unfortunately, Naoki turns Kotoko down, saying "I don't like dumb women." One day, Kotoko Aihara's house is severely damaged by an earthquake. Until the house is rebuilt, Kotoko Aihara and her father decide to live with her father's friend. When Kotoko Aihara moves to her new temporary house, she is surprised to learn that Naoki Irie lives there as well.

To deal with the increasing violent crime rate in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, a special investigation team is formed at the Shinjuku Police Station. Detective Shunsuke Yamashita and Detective Keiichi Tashiro begin work at the special investigation team. Detective Shunsuke Yamashita doesn't care about details and says what he thinks. Meanwhile, Detective Keiichi Tashiro is diligent and enthusiastic with his investigative work. The two men frequently argue, but also cooperate to solve the cases.

The story is about the daily life of a 30-year-old new wife, Hana, who cooks “Zubora Meshi”, while her husband is on a job transfer away from home. ”Zubora-Meshi” is the corner-cutting and easy cooking people usually cook only for themselves to eat.

26-year-old Tanimachi Mizuho (Matsu Takako) moves to Tokyo hoping to become a successful author, but finds that Tokyo isn't so welcoming. There she meets a popular variety show writer, Morinaga Kenta (Sakaguchi Kenji), who happens to have been a childhood friend. But whether or not they fall in love is uncertain.

Two women are bound by their mutual passion for writing. Tono Risa is already a successful writer. Her books are all best sellers and have been made into movies, putting increasing pressure on Risa to keep churning out masterpieces. The professional pressures and her personal responsibilities begin to make Risa feel overwhelmed and dejected. Yuki is a young woman who moves to Tokyo with the dream of becoming a published writer someday. When she is about to give up on that dream, Yuki is offered a job to work as Risa’s assistant by her editor. The two women start off a little stilted but eventually form a friendship and a productive working relationship. As Yuki’s role gradually increases from being an assistant to a ghostwriter for Risa, will Risa feel threatened by Yuki’s ambition?

Yukiko (Wakui Emi) has been living in Tokyo for three years. Inside her heart, she believes that this beautiful city will certainly bring her happiness. This belief starts to realise one day when she has a chance encounter with Masashi (Karasawa Toshiaki) while welcoming her brother, Kikuo (Kishitani Goro), at a railway station. As Masashi is the son of a very rich businessman, and Yukiko is only an ordinary girl from the countryside, their together is highly obstructed by lots of barriers. However, Yukiko's kind-hearted personality finally wins Masashi's love, and he takes out his courage to turn down marrying his rich fiancee. --Snowflakes

Kohei is a single father and high school teacher who lives with his only daughter. A chance encounter brings him together with Kotori, one of his students. The three of them start to meet together to make meals. None of them know how to cook, but they all love delicious food!

About 150,000 illegal entrants live in Tokyo. They are not recognised as refugees and live in poor conditions. To protect themselves, the illegals create a secret organisation. The organisation has a bank which Japanese Financial Services Agency is not involved with, a hospital that is not authorized by Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare and an illegals police force called "Dias Police." The only police officer in the organisation is Saki Kubozuka. His age and nationality is unknown. Saki Kubozuka does not speak much, but he has a warm heart and strong sense of justice. He takes care of the weak and tries to maintain public order.

Yoshioka Yuiko begins the first grade in high school. She gets sick with the cold and stays in bed. At that time, she gets a phone call from class president Matsubara. Yuiko becomes flattered by his kind voice on the phone. The next day, she goes to school and meets Matsubara. He is a mysterious boy, wearing a paper bag over his head. Her high school days begin with pounding heart.

University student Wakamizu Ryota (Emoto Tokio), who is the middle of job hunting, gets caught up in a sudden gang dispute. Ryota’s life is saved by Yanagiba Ryuichi (Namase Katsuhisa), the boss of Yanagiba-gumi, and Ryota for some reason ends up harbouring Yanagiba in his own home. Ignoring Ryota who wants him to leave immediately, Yanagiba uses the leftover food in the fridge and starts to prepare a meal without asking. However, the meal is surprisingly delicious despite the leftovers that did not seem possible to combine. This is the beginning of a bizarre communal life connected by meals for a gangster and a university student.

In an otherwise mundane diner open from midnight to 7 a.m., there is no menu – but the chef cooks anything his customers want. Each episode is about different a different customer, as they find simple yet profound connections with one another based on their shared love of a particular dish.

Shiho works as a neurosurgeon at Nishitokyo General Hospital. She decides to quit her profession after hallucinating during surgery. Her ex-teacher Masayuki Kitabatake is the director at Tokyo University Hospital and he persuades Shiho to work at his hospital in the diagnosis department which consists of all female doctors. Shiho, who is more stubborn in her will to save other patients, sometimes come in conflicts with the other doctors there, but she cooperates with them to reveal a mysterious malady.

Detective Goro Nanase and his colleagues of "Akatsuka Detective Office" are based in Shimo-Akazuka of Itabashi-ku, Tokyo. The detectives take on a string of challenging cases that no one else wants to take on.

Eiichi Nishio (Kento Nagayama) is a young actor. He is not very popular and only receives offers to play dead bodies. One day, he wanders around Nakameguro, Tokyo and recognizes the restaurant/bar Izakaya Fuji. He saw pictures of Izakaya Fuji on a woman's Instagram account and decides to go in.

Freelance writer Harada Ririko and former lecturer on folklore Shimano Hitoshi go around to Tokyo’s hidden spots with horror stories. They encounter many apparitions in places that everyone knows about in the 23 wards. There is the office lady who wanders the subterranean drains of Shibuya ward in search of her missing mother. The mistress who hides a dead body in Koto ward’s Yume no Shima. The riddle of the Ikebukuro woman and romance in old age. The secret of the female CEO who encounter an apparition in a late night taxi plying Minato ward. The doctor’s wife whose fate is at the mercy of Itabashi ward’s tree which is supposed to severe ties between man and woman. The mystery of a woman and the Suzugamori execution grounds related to a crime scene in Shinagawa ward.

I never thought I would see him again. Aki Terada said goodbye to her first love long ago. When her current boyfriend is caught cheating on her, Aki moves out of her apartment and into a sharehouse, where she's reuinted with her first love. When things get heated between them, he drops a major bomb… Heart and body and everything in between intersect in this fresh new adult love story.

Pinku (the Japanese softcore film sub-genre) has a long and historied part in Japanese cinema. The genre has existed for over forty years and seen many ebbs and flows. One of the directors during the heyday of the movement was the prolific Muranishi Toru. Adapted from a novel about the man, this series depicts the character, his art, vision and his interactions with the approving and disapproving folk around him.

Hiroshi Tanaka moves to Tokyo after being laid off from his job.

Nagi Oshima quits her job, cuts off everybody she knows (including her boyfriend), quits social media and cancels her cellphone. To restart her life, she moves to an old apartment in the suburbs of Tokyo. She wants to have a pleasant and free life, not caring about other people.

Let’s drink between everyday and extraordinary !!! Toru Seino has a lot of terrifying “ghost stories” that he heard directly from his friends, acquaintances and others. Why don’t you actually go to the mysterious scene and drink “liquor”? I want to see “ghosts” because it’s okay to call them once. But scary … but I want to see … scary scary ..

In Neo Tokyo, disillusioned youth form tribes that battle each other in an intense game called Extreme Baseball. One night, two kids – Haru Shirogane and Taiga – meet the strongest XB Player Shun Kamiya. Haru and Taiga join Shun's group, the Minato Tribe, to play this cutthroat game against a mysterious man who has begun taking control of all the tribes. Can they defeat him before it’s too late?

Satoru Matsudo moves to Tokyo in hopes of becoming an actor. He has trouble breaking into the industry, but his luck begins to change when he finds an airplane ticket belonging to a talent agency CEO. Time passes, and Satoru makes a name for himself as an actor. He gets a call from America. Hoping it is a Hollywood offer, he instead hears about his estranged older brother.

A school gourmet set in the 1980's. In one junior high school, teachers and students continued a quiet battle. That is, who will eat the school lunch?

A fashionable condominium found by a newlywed, but the living conditions are limited to "house husband"? Maison de Otto, a condominium limited to full-time husbands' families. Although it is a fashionable 2LDK in a prime location in Shibuya, Tokyo, the rent is only 50,000 yen a month, so to live in this super-favorable condominium, Riku became a "house husband" without even thinking about it. Kamiya Riku moves with his wife, and the story begins! A heart-full romantic comedy that provides dreams, longing, and healing.

Yamada Fumiko, nicknamed Bun, is a poor university student who lives alone in Kita Senju, Tokyo with her talking soft toy Hokusai. A shy person and a day dreamer, Bun makes the people around her happy with imaginative, delicious food that takes little effort.

When Sakuragi Haruko's father's factory is bombed, Oba Hiroto stops Haruko when she tries to rescue her father from the fire. They meet again a few years later when Haruko is working as a nurse and Hiroto is brought in as a patient with a heart condition. The second couple is a Korean man, Boku Hitoshi, and another nurse, Yamada Kazue