The Song of the Cart

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.

The story of the silk industry and the young girls who worked as silk spinners in the early 1900s in Japan. The silk mills were located in Okaya which lies just beyond the Nomugi Pass. The women and girls worked in a hot, humid atmosphere without rest, and endured those conditions and sexual harassment to earn money for their poor families. Across the ocean, it was the great depression in America.

In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.

Shigematsu Shizuma lives with his senile mother, his wife Shigeko, and his niece Yasuko in a village near Fukuyama. He, his wife, his niece and his close friends in the village were present at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Shizumas look for prospective husbands for Yasuko, but find that the families withdraw on finding out she was at Hiroshima.

Professor Griggs, teaching at the college, doesn't get paid a living wage; his next door neighbor, successful shoemaker Olsen, has money and plentiful food, while the Griggses have hardly any. When the professor's rich student Phil West falls for beautiful Griggs daughter Amelia and also befriends the poor Reverend Gates (a young man who is also in love with Amelia), he observes the difference in his life and theirs and tries to help make a difference.

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

The lives of five prostitutes employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband.

This tale takes place in a bar. The Spanish Alonso and his blind mother run this place. Bay, who is Alonso's friend live here too. This story tells something about Alonso and Bay and the "American Dream".

One snowy night, in a mountain hut, Minokichi, a hunter, sees a snow woman killing his mentor Mosaku. “Should you tell anyone, I will take your life” she says, then drifts off. A year later, Minokichi meets and marries a beauty named Yuki. She bears him a daughter, Ume. 14 years pass and Ume blossoms into a radiant lady who befriends the sickly Mikio, the village leader’s son and Mosaku’s distant relative. Mikio soon dies in the same hut as Mosaku, with his body showing the same frostbite scars. Minokichi is reminded of that horrid night, and wonders what it was that he saw, and who Yuki really is.

In the black marcket, a war orphan is confronted with the struggles of people living in the immediate aftermath of WWII.

Impersonating an Imperial Army officer by wearing a "red lion's mane", a poor servant returns to his village after 10 years of absence to end the village's suffering caused by corrupt officials.

A poor family in Florida saves all the money they can in order to plan something special for the soldier they've invited to Sunday dinner. They don't realize that their request to invite the soldier never got mailed. On the day of the scheduled dinner, another soldier is brought to their home and love soon blossoms between him and Tessa, the young woman who runs the home.

As her husband Eiichi becomes more entangled in his life as businessman, Naoko looks for ways to expand her own life even as her husband's life shrinks in scope and intimacy. She finds new interests, new love, and a greater sense of her place in the world.

Late 18th century, Tohoku. An outcast girl, Rin lives in a village suffering from famine. She draws strength from Mt. Hayachine, where the spirits of humans ascend after passing.

NieA_7, also known as NieA under 7, is a 13 episode anime series about Mayuko, a poor, introverted student who lives above a Japanese bathhouse, and NieA, a freeloading, freewheeling alien who lives in her closet and eats her food.

Takemoto Yuuta, Mayama Takumi, and Morita Shinobu are college students who share the small apartment. Even though they live in poverty, the three of them are able to obtain pleasure through small things in life. The story follows these characters' life stories as poor college students, as well as their love lives when a short but talented 18 year old girl called Hanamoto Hagumi appears.

Matsushima Nanako grew up in a very poor family and is thus determined to marry a rich man so that she will never have to go through poverty ever again, and is named the "gokon queen" in her quest to find her man. Tsutsumi Shinichi is a brilliant academic (Fields prize winner - Nobel Prize equivalent in Mathematics) who gave up his studies to take over his deceased father's fish-shop. They meet through a doctor's "gokon" (group date) and she falls in love with him under the mistaken assumption that he is a very rich man

Italy is in a deep depression, so to support her family, Marco's mother goes to Argentina to work as a domestic. But after she writes to her family that she is sick, her letters stop coming. So Marco decides to go to Argentina to look for her. He travels across Argentina to find her, meeting many wonderful people, and having many adventures during his journey.

An anime series based on the children's book and set in the Swiss mountain village of Rossinière.

The real stories that inspired TV movies that have become a part of American pop culture. The program combines cinematic re-creations with first-person interviews with women in peril who recount the jaw-dropping experiences that gave them their turn in the spotlight.

A plucky young orphan sent to live with her grandfather in the mountains discovers wonder and adventure around every corner.

In a small village in the Kanto regioin, which is surrounded by mountains, residents and a management consultant (Shosuke Tanihara) struggle to rebuild the village through its only industry, farming.

A shady bus tour of young men and women are headed to an elusive village called Nanakimura. A destination where people can partake in an utopian existence, free of the world's obstacles... or so goes the rumor. Heading deep into the mountains, the bus is carrying 30 different individuals, each harboring their own expectations and troubled hearts... What they had arrived to was an uninhabited village with lingering, faint scents of life and it was falling apart. Just what is the secret of Nanakimura?

The very different lives of Jan Leigh, a poor but studious young country lad, and Diana Gayelorde-Sutton, the equally single minded daughter of a rich landowner, from the 1920s through to post-war Britain.

Early summer, Maebara Keiichi had just moved to a remote mountain village. As he becomes close friends with a group of girls, he was enjoying his life in the village. However, when he starts to become suspicious that Ryūgū Rena, Sonozaki Mion and the others that Keiichi trusted may be deeply involved in successive murders that occur every summer, the situation around Keiichi gradually starts to turn. As if the girls' characters had completely changed, a sewing needle is found in his food, he is chased by mysterious men, and is involved in an accident that could have killed him. He could no longer trust anyone, and then one mystery leads to another, bringing out a shockingly bloody ending.

Hayame's happily married life comes to an abrupt end and she is left alone, penniless and homeless! Things couldn't get any worse, until she runs into rich high-school brat Issei, whom she had previously humiliated! Sparks fly as two worlds collide in this unlikely Cinderella story!

This TV series is the story of 5 japanese seniors and 1 night school student struggling with their future as they prepare for the grueling entrance exams and what lies ahead after graduation.

In a farming village in 1959 (Showa 34), Kayama Kazuma (Tomita Kaito) grew up in a poor family. He left home at 13 because he could not tolerate ill-treatment from his parents and lived hidden in a cave deep in the mountains. He became proficient at survival skills such as making bows and arrows, and catching rabbits and wild boars on his own. His beloved dog supported him through this lonely life. Several years later, a kind farming couple Sunagawa Yoshio (Inoue Jun) and Masayo (Kiuchi Midori) discover a man clad in animal fur living in a cave. He is the grown-up Kazuma (Nakamura Aoi). Kazuma starts to make contact with the world despite his confusion … --JDramas Weblog

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.