Top 250 Movies Like Watashi Wa Umi

Six-year-old Ataru steps on Elle's shadow during an impromptu game of shadow-tag; in Elle's culture, this is viewed as a marriage proposal. Eleven years later, Elle returns to Earth in order to marry Ataru — by which time not only had he forgotten the events of his childhood, but he was also going out with Lum. The rest of the plot focuses on Lum's attempts to prevent the marriage. The film was directed by Mamoru Oshii who was mad at the many requests that the producer made of him to alter the movie. Rumiko Takahashi considers this film her favorite and it is the most true to the original series.

Mario, an Italian war orphan, sees Luca Rossi commit a murder. Eager for a home and family life, Mario promises not to tell the police if Luca takes him into his household and family. Luca fears and hates Mario, but his father, mother and sister all come to love him.

Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.

Young Kinu Yamabe is drawn to low-born Onimaru, who is vital and charismatic, but viewed by his father as a demon. After her first period, Kinu suffers the fate of any women born near the Sacred Mountain: she must leave the Mountain and serve as a priestess.

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.

A lifetime story of a woman who stubbornly lives in a poor mountain village in post-war Japan.

Shows the devastation caused by the atomic bomb, and by use of a fictional storyline, portrays the struggle of the ordinary Japanese people in dealing with the aftermath.

A sweeping romantic epic set in Japan in the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

When vile aliens known as the Gamilons wreak nuclear havoc on Earth, a group of survivors refit the Japanese battleship Yamato for intergalactic travel and set off on a mission to retrieve a neutralizer that will eradicate the radiation from Earth's atmosphere.

In 2100, the newly built Bayside City serves as Japan's premier international port. The Angel Arms Company is established by a former policewoman named Takako, to help wage war on terrorism with armed security suits. When the mayor is assassinated, the women of Angel Arms end up protecting the evil crime-lord Hassan, in hopes that his information will help bring down a global terror ring. Takako's back is to the wall as a band of criminals plot to kill Hassan, and the organization's leader is revealed to be the former lover of Angel Arms' own Alisa.

Suzunosuke visits a martial arts master and tries to learn the 'Vacuum Slash,' a secret technique of producing tornadoes.

Nikkatsu Roman Porno

In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.

This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on.

An unemployed young man who has just broken up with his girlfriend meets a woman at a bicycle race. They start dating but then strange things then begin to happen to him, including a beating from the local yakuza. - Wikipedia

In postwar Japan, a new terror rises. Will the devastated people be able to survive... let alone fight back?

Colin MacLeod hunts for the man responsible for the death of his love. He chases the immortal Marcus Octavius across centuries as his quest threatens to take over his life and heart. In his quest, he meets a woman who reminds him of his slain beauty. But it's his final battle with Marcus that will decide not only his fate, but also the fate of everyone in the world.

Zensaku, middle-aged and deaf in one ear, learns that his son's fallen for the daughter of a war officer responsible for the maiming.

The story begins in 1917 with Stan and Ollie being drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in World War I. While in the Army, the pair befriend a man named Eddie Smith, who is killed by the enemy during a battle. After the war is over, Stan and Ollie venture to New York City, where they begin a quest to reunite Eddie's little daughter with her rightful family. The task proves both monumental and problematic as the boys discover just how many people in New York have the last name Smith.

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together.

While enjoying the flower gardens, Sailor Moon (Usagi) and friends encounter an old childhood friend of Mamoru's: an alien! He's come back to give Mamoru a special flower, but doesn't like Usagi and the rest of the planet's inhabitants. Sailor Moon must defend the earth from the evil Kisenian Flower he's brought back... before the evil vines and blossoms overrun the planet!

Momose (played by Sousuke Takaoka), who used to be a street punk, lives with girlfriend Kayo (played by Tomoko Tabata). Trouble brews for the couple when Kayo's younger sister Momo (played by Erena Ono) moves into their home for the summer. Momose finds himself gradually being drawn to the free spirited ways of Momo. A new love comedy from Keisuke Yoshida director of "Cafe Isobe".

After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble.

The Seasoning House - where young girls are prostituted to the military. An orphaned deaf mute is enslaved to care for them. She moves between the walls and crawlspaces, planning her escape. Planning her ingenious and brutal revenge.

On the day of his wedding, Sir John Carteret's fiancée, Moonyeen, is killed by a jealous rival named Jeremy, leaving him emotionally devastated. Carteret spends three decades in seclusion, mostly communing with the spirit of Moonyeen, until he learns that her niece, Kathleen, has become an orphan. He adopts and raises the child as his own but is alarmed when, as a young woman, she falls in love with the son of Moonyeen's murderer.

Sam Gallagher returns home to Los Angeles as an undercover spy for the Navy, getting a job at the shipyards where his brother, Jeff, is a foreman. Jeff still resents Sam for abandoning the family years ago and fears he may steal away Lea Damaron, his current girlfriend -- who is Sam's old flame. While Sam tries to sniff out Nazi saboteurs in the plant, he grows closer to Jill McGann, the agent tasked with pretending to be his wife.

American adventurer Jeff Williams is fleeing the communist advance in China when he becomes entangled with a young Chinese orphan, Wei Lin, and a beautiful Red Cross volunteer, who arranges for their harrowing escape to Hong Kong.

An advertising executive and his temperamental wife adopt a war orphan who turns out to be a beautiful woman.

In postwar Germany, a displaced Czech boy, separated from his family during wartime, is befriended by an American GI while the boy's mother desperately searches for him.

Lost Boys of Sudan is a feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America. Orphaned as young boys in one of Africa's cruelest civil wars, Peter Dut and Santino Chuor survived lion attacks and militia gunfire to reach a refugee camp in Kenya along with thousands of other children. From there, remarkably, they were chosen to come to America. Safe at last from physical danger and hunger, a world away from home, they find themselves confronted with the abundance and alienation of contemporary American suburbia

An industrial section of Japan got the name of Yentown as many immigrants come to make money and hope to go home rich. A small group of people in Yentown try to work together to survive, there is a girl named Ageha who has no family, Glico the hooker, Fei Hong a poor immigrant from Shanghai, Arrow an ex boxer from the US and Ren the mysterious guy who seems to know too much about guns. Fortune shines upon them when they find a cassette that we'll get them rich but along with money trouble will always follow.

When a deep space fishing vessel is robbed by a gang of pirates, the Captain makes a daring decision to go after a rare and nearly extinct species. His obsession propels them further into space as the crew spins toward mutiny and betrayal.

In an attempt to rectify their criminal past, a once successful Hollywood starlet, turn prostitute, and a petty, misogynistic thief, set out together to solve a high profile child abduction case in San Francisco.

In 1975, as the Vietnam War was ending, thousands of orphans and Amerasian children were brought to the United States as part of "Operation Babylift." Daughter from Danang tells the dramatic story of one of these children, Heidi Bub (a.k.a. Mai Thi Hiep), and her Vietnamese mother, Mai Thi Kim, separated at the war's end and reunited 22 years later. Heidi, now living in Tennessee - a married woman with kids - had always dreamt of a joyful reunion. When she ventures to Vietnam to meet her mother, she unknowingly embarks on an emotional pilgrimage that spans decades and distance. Unlike most reunion stories that climax with a cliché happy ending, Daughter from Danang is a real-life drama. Journeying from the Vietnam War to Pulaski, Tennessee and back to Vietnam, Daughter from Danang tensely unfolds as cultural differences and the years of separation take their toll in a riveting film about longing and the personal legacy of war.

Set in the rural south of the United States, a bereaved war widow learns to put aside her bitterness and grief as she grows to love a young orphan boy and his dog.

The time: the 22nd century. The place: the Confederacy, a matriarchy where men are enslaved and impotent. The hero: Dylan Hunt, a handsome, vigorous 20th-century scientist awakened from suspended animation - just the "breeder" a Confederacy dominatrix has been waiting for! Can Hunt defy the Confederacy and free his downtrodden fellow males, or is he doomed to slavery on Planet Earth? A sequel to Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II.

One of many adaptations of "Onna no isshō", this time by Yasuzo Masumura as a starring vehicle for famed actress Machiko Kyo.

A remake of the 1953 film of the same name.

A young Czechoslovak orphan, Loddy Bicek, befriended by an American army sergeant, is brought into the United States as a stowaway by the soldier. He is apprehended, but escapes and makes his way to the sergeant's home town. There, he is befriended by young Danny Mitchell and his dog, Rusty, a K-9 veteran of World War II. A third boy reports Loddy to the authorities, and when Loddy tries to run away, he falls into a deep ravine.

In a world laid waste by nuclear war, Amamiku guards the seeds that hold the genetic code of the planet and can be used for its rebirth. Living underwater and protected from the radioactive atmosphere above, she impatiently waits for the earth to be ready for the seeds to germinate.But when her existence is discovered, it sparks a frantic race between the remains of humanity struggling for survival, and the disembodied brain. This fanatic being has programmed his robotic army to destroy them.

In the year 2125, Alec Mason led the Martian Colonies to freedom in the hit action game Red Faction: Guerrilla. Now, Syfy and THQ are teaming up to continue the saga of conflict on Mars 25 years later in an all-new Original Movie, Red Faction: Origins. Stargate Universe's Brian J. Smith stars as Jake Mason, son of revolutionary hero Alec Mason (Terminator 2's Robert Patrick) and a Red Faction ranger. Fighting to preserve Martian freedom, Jake encounters a powerful new enemy in a dangerous and mysterious group led by the charismatic Adam Hale (Torchwood's Gareth David-Lloyd) and holding secrets that will rock the Mason clan. Jake must now battle the relentless regime and somehow reunite a family torn apart by war. Red Faction: Origins also stars Battlestar Galactica's Kate Vernon and The Tudors' Tamzin Merchant, and will feature music from Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica).

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

Sent to the planet Agerna to investigate a feud between two opposing factions, Kei and Yuri must find out why strange creatures are attacking vezorium test plants.

An Australian blowhard raises two orphaned children as his own in the years leading up to WWII.

In 16th century Japan, a young man has to choose between becoming a master steel maker like his father and grandfather before him, or becoming a samurai so that he can help protect his village from attacks by the various clans which want the high-quality steel made there.

Oichi the Blind helps a woman escape the clutches of a high government official to go off with the man she loves. The official puts a reward on her head of fifty gold pieces and soon a menagerie of bounty hunters are after her skin. Three of them band together to accomplish this, one an expert swordsman, another a huge judo master and the third is deadly with a chain. To escape, she heads for the fishing town of Itso but soon comes face to face with Sankuro, the swordsman...

Chie (Sanae Ōhori), newly arrived in Tokyo, saves her friend from school, Mari (Annu Mari), from a suicide attempt. The two girls become close, eventually leading to a lesbian relationship. Their affair drifts into sadism and involvement with a bizarre sex cult, resulting in the deaths of the two lovers.

Fifth film in the series. When Kyoshiro, in a moment of weakness, saves the life of a woman being attacked on the road, he quickly finds himself entangled in a conspiracy involving a corrupt chamberlain, a wily merchant, the survivors of a pirate gang, and a missing treasure trove.

New York Jennifer returned from Japan. Immediately ordered a new mission from Kazama. It is the arrest of boss Asuka, a drug organization that has been chasing for many years. Asuka was also the enemy that had Jennifer's sister martyred. Miyuki, a police police officer, Haruko, a female police officer, and Ayu, a new policewoman, were selected for the investigation team. Based on the information from the FBI, he heads for the wharf where transactions will take place, but what was waiting there was Kazama and a sparrow table. Kazama stares at Asuka, who is lurking inside the police, among them, and tries to expose Asuka through "Strip Mahjong Investigation".

Set in decadent, chaotic Hong Kong and Tokyo, the film tells the story of a young woman caught up in a mysterious turn of events. A young tour guide, 23-year-old Mamiko who's had her heart set on Paris, finds herself swept off to booming Hong Kong where she is thrown into the midst of a high-profile burglary case.

Harsh film about a car dealer who gets into financial trouble.

A wandering gambler strolls into a village searching for his father's killer, unaware that the village is run by criminals who sell the poorest peasants into slavery.

Follows a group of space explorers tasked with intercepting an alien starship hurtling through the solar system.

Biopic about jazz saxophonist Kaoru Abe (Ko Machida) and his wife, noted writer Izumi Suzuki (Reona Hirota).

Millionaire Daddy Warbucks goes bust in the Great Depression and is forced to abandon his adopted daughter, Annie. While he's out west working on another fortune, Annie finds an orphaned boy on the streets and helps him find a home.

Four female flight attendants embark on some salacious misadventures: A few go to a company singles party to cavort with some pilots, while the lovely Misako embarks on an adventure all her own after meeting a street fortune teller...

Mega star Akira Kobayashi stars as Jiro in the rambunctious tale of a chef who opens a restaurant in the busy Ginza district. His culinary skills and dashing good looks bring in the women as well as unwanted trouble, while an explosive political scandal builds around his girlfriend’s business...

The movie was inspired by Hiroshima prefectural government's marital activity "Koinowa Project" which is practiced as part of countermeasures against the declining birthplace.

An NHK documentary about the talented actresses who have portrayed the beautiful, intelligent and resourceful heroines of the long running series. Features interviews with Kumi Mizuno, Keiko Mari, Yumiko Shaku, and Megumi Odaka. Also featured are never before seen 8mm home movies shot by producer Tomoyuki Tanaka on the sets of classic Toho films.

A Japanese TV documentary, NHK Tokushu Tezuka Osamu: Sosaku no Himitsu (Secrets of Creation.), was originally released as a book-mounted DVD, with cooperation from Tezuka Productions. Screened in Japan in 1986, it was filmed as Tezuka prepared for the Hiroshima International Animation Festival in 1985. It shows him working in his private studio and with his team, and gives glimpses of his wife, colleagues and old friends.

NHK TV special about the making of the Japanese animated film "From Up on Poppy Hill" (コクリコ坂から)

Former P.O.W. Jack Calgrove moves Heaven and Earth to be reunited with his children following the Civil War. After returning home, Jack discovers that his wife has tragically died and his children, presumed to be orphans, are heading deep into the West on a train crossing enemy lines, with the intent of being placed into new homes. Calgrove and another soldier team up with a troop of Native American sharpshooters and a freed slave as they try to stop the train.

This work is a 12-year story of Mana, a woman who cannot accept the death of her best friend, staring at her as she tries to step forward while having deep sorrow.

An angry husband hires a rope expert to torture his wife and her lover.

A Japanese soldier is forced to question alliances when he meets and falls in love with the leader of the rebel movement.

A blind traveling musician is abused and oppressed wherever she goes, even as the modern world imposes change around her.

A woman hires a specialist to use rope torture on a woman she blames for her husbands death.

During World War II, Chinese guerrillas fight against the occupying Japanese forces. A young woman is the secret leader of the villagers, who plot to rescue two downed Flying Tigers pilots who are currently in the custody of the Japanese. The rescue mission takes on even more importance with the arrival of a Japanese general, which signals a major offensive taking place in the area.

Relatives gather from afar in wintery Ashibetsu upon the death of patriarch Mitsuo. A mysterious woman named Nobuko suddenly shows up. Her appearance gradually exposes wartime secrets and Mitsuo's unknown past.

45-year-old Rui Nakamura is a highly successful publisher. During the course of work, she encounters a 28-year-old married man named Kou Suzuki who aggressively pursues her. Unexpectedly, Rui Nakamura starts to fall in love with the younger married man Set 5 years after the ending of the NHK drama series “Second Virgin,” Rui Nakamura is transferred to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia while still taking care of Marie Suzuki.

Keiko Suzuki is a lonely waitress in Tokyo. Her father passes away of cancer and she becomes obsessed with the passage of time. And so, three weeks before her 22nd birthday, she decides to record this period of time in the most accurate way possible, regardless of how lonely or banal this record ends up being.

Inspired by the true story of a Geisha murdered in a city famous for its baths, Adachi forged here his favorite style, a kind of conceptual documentary recounting the incident in monotone. The same event that at the beginning of Violated Angels escaped every principle of causality, is portrayed here as a singular anti-spectacle.

After their father quarrels with local military men, Anju and Zushio are forced to flee, but they are captured and sold into slavery. When their mother dies, they are sold to Sansho the Bailiff, a cruel man who subjects them to hideous torments. While Anju falls into a lake and is transformed into a swan, Zushio escapes and after being adopted to a nobleman grows to a young man. He will then fight to defeat the evil Dayu and free all the slaves.

Set in the year 1969 in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Kyoko Noma is a loving female high school student who takes part in campus protests. One day, she meets university student Wataru Domoto in the tea cafe Mubansou ("A Cappella"). Kyoko falls in love with him, but they get involved in an incident that leads to a shocking ending.

A plucky stewardess risks her life marrying a daredevil pilot.

In the 22nd century, scientists from an energy-depleted Earth research new fuel sources in the far corners of the solar system, where they discover an ancient alien race from Jupiter as well as the emergence of an apocalyptically dangerous black hole. Koji Hashimoto's 1983 sci-fi adventure was conceived as a Japanese competitor to the upcoming sequel to Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001, titled 2010, and often mirrors the sequel's plot.

One day, 300 year-old Namahage is caught in a trap. While being transferred he manages to escape. Wandering through the suburbs of Tokyo, Namahage meets 11-year-old Mamoru and he moves in at the boy's house without Mamoru's mother's knowledge. Mamoru struggles to hide Namahage from his mother. Meanwhile, bad pet shop traders seek out to capture Namahage.

At the conclusion of World War I, a French girl is romanced by an American doughboy even though she is promised to a French soldier who was sent to the front.

The management of touring ice show faces mounting debts.

An auto repairman's daughter questions him about what happened to her aunt during the war, but the father remains reticent. Finally the man opens up, and the girl is able to piece together her aunt's tragic story.

Set towards the end of World War II, Kaede Itakura, who leads kindergartners, and Mitsue Nonomiya, who enjoys music, persuades the parents at the school to take their children out of Tokyo. They seek shelter at an abandoned temple in Saitama while Tokyo is bombed.

Shocking scenes are revealed in the Nagasaki Women's prison.

Three years had passed since Ichiro Takeo left Japan. He was a young physician with a promising future, until his medical error caused the death of a big-shot politician. He was discharged from the hospital and had since sailed around the world as an on-board doctor. As he was about to reach the Taiwanese piers of Kinmon Island, thoughts of his days in Japan crossed his mind - he reminisced about the Taiwanese girl, Yan, who had scooped him out of his misery during the time of the medical accident. At times of war, the two rekindle an old flame.

A young Japanese-American orphan in California is taken in by a priest who is actually a Japanese secret agent and a samurai warrior. Due to the samurai's training, the boy murders his English teacher, kills the American parents who have adopted him, smuggles Japanese secret plans into the country, and eventually becomes the governor of California with plans to infiltrate Japanese spies into the state so they can take over.

The last fight put up by remaining forces and a special volunteer nursing corps in 1944-5.

Japanese youngsters enduring hard training in Recruit Camp and then going to Iwo Jima in the last days of World War II.

Story of loyal sailors giving their lives for their country as human torpedoes towards the end of the War.

With the background of the Battle of Okinawa, he draws a semi-documentary image of each individual person under an unusual psychological state of war. Furukawa Takumi of “Backlight” is adapted and directed by Daiichi Ishino. Filmed by Yoshio Mamiya, “Smuggling of the body”. The main performers are Sachiko Sakai since the “Zoi Family”, Hiroyuki Nagato of the “Next door bride”, Shoji Yasui of the “Sentimental wife”, Takatoko of “Crying, the last Japanese fighter”, “Blue angry” Noriko Katsura, Shinzo three of "actress (1956)", Masao Oda, Nobuo Kaneko, Toru Abe, Hiroshi Nihonyanagi, Misako Tsubouchi.

Darren comes to Tokyo to attend his best friend's funeral but gets mysteriously drugged and misses out, losing trust with the people he came with. With the help of a local woman, he attempts to piece back together the night before as well as himself.

Ichinoi, a 75-year-old woman living a peaceful life, unwittingly buys a Boy's Love manga one day…and is fascinated by what she finds inside. When she returns to the bookstore to buy the next volume, the high school girl working there–Urara, a seasoned BL fan–notices a budding fangirl when she sees one. When Urara offers to help Ichinoi explore this whole new world of fiction, the two dive into BL fandom together, and form an unlikely friendship along the way.

Yuko is in love with an old poet who happens to be also a married man. She waits patiently for him and only him, yet she is constantly being lust by others.

By a certain circumstance, web magazine editor Mochizuki Nasa meets Yanase Sota who claims to be endowed with a "non-sexual relationship switch". Working as a "rent-a-friend", Sota is hired by Nasa who wants to test out a theory.

Yuichi is a freeter who has lazy days. He receives an allowance from a woman that he lives with. Tomoko is a housewife. Yuichi and Tomoko meet through an online dating website. They become involved in an intimate relationship, but their lives are about to be shaken by an incident.

A woman who grew up in a prestigious household, begins to have an affair outside the marriage.

Japanese LGBT-themed drama about the romance between two co-workers: the boy finds out his girlfriend has feelings for another woman, and does not know how to react.

Based on the Seichō Matsumoto's story The Woman Who Took the Local Paper.

In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

The first theatrical release, titled Bonobono, opened in theaters on 1993-11-13. The film has since been broadcast on domestic television in Japan, including on broadcast satellite channels such as NHK BS-2. The film has been released on VHS and DVD in Japan, including in a "no cut" edition.