The best Daichi Watanabe’s movies

When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.

College student Asako falls in love at first sight with Baku after meeting at a photography exhibit. Romance sparks between the two but doesn't last long when Baku suddenly disappears from her life. Two years later, she spots a man that bears a striking resemblance to him. Even though it is only his physical similarities to Baku that attracted her to him, she doesn't say so and starts dating the soft-spoken young man called Ryohei.

Michitaro Sano’s wife passed away 18 years ago. Since her death, he has lived with his daughter Yumiko at their home. Now, Michitaro retires from his work. Yumiko though tells him to start doing housework. Michitaro is also surprised to learn that Yumiko has a boyfriend and is considering marriage. Michitaro is unsure how to handle his sudden abundance of free time. He then attends a local radio calisthenics group session.

Yuri Kashiwaga was once known as a genius pianist. One day, she returns to her hometown in Goto Islands from Tokyo. There, she begins to work as a temporary teacher at a middle school and advisor for the school chorus. The chorus aims to take part at a competition. Yuri gives the members of the chorus members an assignment. She instructs them to write a letter with the title of “To myself 15 years later.” The 15-year-old boys and girls write about their secrets and worries.

On the night of her police university graduation, Natsume Hamanaka’s (Riho Yoshioka) younger brother dies in accident caused by Natsume Hamanaka. In the accident, Natsume Hamanaka also loses her eyesight. She gives up on being a police officer. 3 years later, Natsume Hamanaka still has gotten over what happened that night. One day, she is involved in a minor car accident. She hear's a young girl's voice asking for help. Natsume Hamanaka senses that the girl might be a kidnap victim. She reports what happened to the police, but the police doesn't purse her report. Natsume Hamanaka does not give up and keeps looking for the girl. She finds a young boy who was skateboarding near the fender bender car accident. Natsume Hamanaka believes a serial kidnapper exists.

Saike, Kazuki, and Takeo were abused by their respective parents and did not go to school. They stayed together at a youth detention center. To survive, these three young men commit robbery and burglary against criminal groups. (AsianWiki)

Yoshika has had a crush on Ichimiya, whom she calls "the One" since she was in middle school. Now, a 24-year-old salarywoman, her all-consuming fixation has prevented her from even considering another candidate for boyfriend until an office colleague asks her out.

Mio is 20 years old. Having lost her parents early, she and her grandmother run a traditional inn in Nagano. However, her grandmother gets sick. Mio moves to Tokyo and lives with her father’s best friend, Kyosuke. He runs a public bath. She begins to work at the public bath, but it is scheduled to be demolished to make way for redevelopment.

After the death of his grandfather, Koen Shirakawa (Atsushi Ito) quits his job at a bookstore and goes to a temple to become a monk.

The year is 2020, the middle of the corona crisis. Art student Itsuka has her graduation exhibition canceled and must take home the piece which she had been working on for a year. In a whirlpool of emotions she clashes with her worried parents, her little sister overreacts to the virus and even her usually calm friend Hirai starts to build up frustration. In the middle of all that, she re-unites with Tanaka, who gave her the opportunity to absorb herself in painting, clashes with Hirai over their true feelings and tries to face her own future.

Trapped in her anemic career and love relationship, a 30-year-old TV commercial director returns to her countryside home in the company of a free-spirited friend. In a bittersweet reunion with an alienated family, her childhood memories of freedom and yearnings creep in the dreamlike blue hour, transcending into a lyricism of self-realization – at once whimsical, agonizing and yet hopeful.

Two girls dream of the same man. One remained in their hometown, went with Shiina and wants to revisit the happy times with him again. The other moved away, returned to move back in with her parents and establishes contact with Shiina and other friends. It may be that either a rivalry or a triangle is in the offing.

An emotional coming-of-age drama centered around Andou Jun, a gay student who is not out. He accepts a confession from his fujoshi classmate Miura Sae and they start dating. However, Jun is also seeing Makoto, but fails to tell Sae about his male lover.

Kato, a scriptwriter, is in love with Miho—but he can never manage to muster up enough courage to make the relationship anything more than a platonic friendship. Seemingly oblivious to Kato's feelings for her, Miho is always calling him up and spilling her guts about her own love problems. She's in love with someone else, it turns out, but Kato swallows his pride—hearing about it all is almost too much to bear, but he wants to be with Miho as much as he can. In the meantime, the script he's working on for a TV drama mirrors a lot of his relationship with Miho. One day, Kato's friends tell him that his views on love are all mistaken, that he shouldn't delude himself into thinking that his dead-end crush on Miho will go anywhere. Emboldened and motivated, Kato finally decides to tell Miho exactly how he feels.

Hikari (Dai Watanabe) receives news that his father passed away. Hikari decides to take over his father's ramen shop. To do so, Hikari quits his job at a design company and goes back to his home town of Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture. Now, taking over his father's shop Hikari has problems recreating his father's recipe. Hikari thinks back to when he was a child and how his father believed Hikari never used his imagination. Hikari relies on his memory in attempt to recreate his father's recipe.

Hajime asks his friend Yoshi to set him up with his classmate Ann. Yoshi tries to do this for Hajime, but this just upsets Ann. Yoshi's relationship with Ann is now awkward. Yoshi doesn't know exactly why, but Ann becomes absent from school frequently. One day, during their summer vacation, Yoshi hears that Ann has dropped out of school.