The best Arata Iura’s romance movies

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.

Based on the best-selling novel about a woman who decides that her one goal in life is to have her tongue split, this is the sexy body modification movie you’ve been waiting for. While alone in a nightclub, straight-laced Lui meets sensitive but troubled punk kid Ama (Kengo Kora of last year’s SAD VACATION). Mesmerized by his split tongue, she becomes obsessed with body modification and soon wants the same treatment. After Ama’s heavily-tattooed friend Shiba (Arata, 20th CENTURY BOYS) pierces her tongue, Lui finds herself inexorably drawn to both men – and to her growing list of desires, she now adds a tattoo.

Sae (Yui Aragaki) is a high school student who is studying hard for her college entrance exams. She lost her father when she was very young and so lives with her mother Ryoko (Hiroko Yakushimaru) in Hokkaido, Japan. Her father Kemimichi (Arata) once planted a dogwood tree in their garden after he found out he had a terminal disease and could not watch Sae grow up. She hopes to enter a university in Tokyo. She then meets Kouhei (Toma Ikuta), who attends a specialized high school teaching fishery. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather as a fisherman. These two young people meet and have a long distance relationship. Although their love is strong it does not last. 10 years later these two people have a miracle ...

Meiko Inoue is a recent college grad working as an office lady in a job she hates. Her boyfriend Shigeo is permanently crashing at her apartment because his job as a freelance illustrator doesn't pay enough for rent. And her parents in the country keep sending her boxes of veggies that just rot in her fridge. Straddling the line between her years as a student and the rest of her life, Meiko struggles with the feeling that she's just not cut out to be a part of the real world.

Terako is a young woman without a job. She has an affair with Iwanaga who is married. His wife is in a coma. One day, Terako's friend kills herself. After that, Terako sleeps all day long and wakes up only when Iwanaga calls her.

Following the manga series and the subsequent television serial of the same name, and featuring the same cast, a young and relatively inexperienced man comes across a woman during his working day and sparks fly.

The story is set in the 70s where Ishihara plays Fumiko, an university student, who gets involved romantically with her assistant professor Katase Shintaro (Iura Arata) and his wife Hinako (Tanaka Rena). However, on 28 February 1972, the police finds Shintaro seriously injured and a young man working in a electronics store (Saito Takumi) dead in a bungalow at Karuizawawhile Fumiko and Hinako are also present at the scene. The truth behind the case is not known and the case is quickly classified as a crime of passion which leads to Fumiko being sent to prison. 40 years later, a report writer Torigai Mitsuhiko (Watabe Atsuro) comes to know about this case and goes to interview the elderly Fumiko (Harada Mieko) in prison which leads him to find out what really happened at the bungalow.

Yumi is a victim when the triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown occur in Japan of 2011. She is a guest of her aunt now. She finds a job at a local bar and works under the owner Sugiya, a man who has amnesia and barely recalls anything except his recipes. The two begin to develop feelings for one another.

Rika, a bright, attractive, and driven young woman, is intent on marrying her dreamy boyfriend Seiichi Ono who is not only tall and handsome but also an up-and-coming executive. One day, Ono abruptly dumps her.