The best Makiko Watanabe’s movies

Before he was a protector, Kenshin was a fearsome assassin known as Battosai. But when he meets gentle Tomoe Yukishiro, a beautiful young woman who carries a huge burden in her heart, his life will change forever.

The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an "up-skirt" photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing - which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian - dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.

In 37 Seconds, 23-year-old comic book artist Yuma, physically disabled due to profound cerebral palsy and emotionally stunted by her well-meaning but overly protective mother, forges her own unusual path to sexual awakening and independence while at the same time discovering love and forgiveness.

Masashi (Kazunari Ninomiya) is a photographer. He has his parents and an older brother Yukihiro (Satoshi Tsumabuki). Through the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Masashi begins to take staged photos of his family.

Set after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, all 14-year-old Sumida Yuichi wants to become is a regular boy and live a decent life. His environment though repeatedly drags him into the mud. He runs his parent's rental boat business, which is located next to a nondescript lake. His mother frequently comes home with different men and soon she leaves him entirely. His father only comes around looking for money. Chazawa Keiko is a classmate of Sumida Yuichi. She harbors a severe crush on Yuichi. Keiko's home life isn't much better than Yuichi's. Her mother builds a gallows with a noose in place for Keiko to take her own life. Her mother believes her life would be better off without Keiko. Under these circumstances, Keiko pays a visit to Yuichi's home. A group of people are lingering nearby who live in makeshift tents on the property. Keiko tries to befriend Yuichi, but she is berated and even physically assaulted. She doesn't get deterred though and sticks around.

Taking place during the full-moon night of traditional dances in August and set on the Japanese island of Amami-Oshima, the drama centers on a 14-year-old boy who finds a dead body floating in the sea. The young man enlists the help of his girlfriend to solve the mystery. The pair will learn to become adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death and love.

When a woman, able to read the thoughts of others, comes to help survivors of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, she encounters a girl with Multiple Personality Disorder whose dangerous 13th personality, Isola, must be stopped

Based on a 2016 novel by Mana Sakura, “The Lowlife” shows the stories of three women who work in Japan’s adult video industry .

This Japanese thriller finds a beautiful policewoman becoming entangled in Japan's S&M underground while investigating a gruesome murder. Soon, her investigation has led her to a seductive sadist and his equally appealing masochist victim. Falling prey to her suspects' powerful allure, she struggles to extricate herself from an increasingly torrid affair to solve the mystery she set out to investigate.

The triangular relationship between three 21-year-olds - the unnamed narrator, his male roommate Shizuo, and a woman named Sachiko who works at the same bookstore as the narrator.

Kenji and Aya spend their summer days in a Hotel. While she is doing her own thing, he tries to work on his novel. But then a few strange hotel guest arouse the curiosity of the couple...

A Korean girl at a party disguisedly as a porno actress. An overly ambitious Nepalese man. A Vietnamese far from home. An Okinawa-born filmmaker in debt. A non-stop ensemble film about people surviving in Osaka.

In the closing days of World War II, Japanese-American Hiromi, a girl age 16, encounters an American deserter, Bob, and a Japanese soldier, Iwabuchi, living together in a cave on a small island in Okinawa. The two men are deserters from their armies; yet both vow never to harm another human being again. Hiromi looks after the deserters until another soldier appears and the peace of the cave is shattered. It leads to the death of three of them and a fascinating mystery that isn't solved until the present day.

A caregiver at a small retirement home takes one of her patients for a drive to the country, but the two wind up stranded in a forest where they embark on an exhausting and enlightening two-day journey.

Being a failure as a teacher and a familyman, Shinichi tries to escape everyday live by dressing up as "Zebraman", the superhero. Although the TV series whas canceled after only 6 episodes, this cannot stop him from acting out his escape fantasy in a self made zebra-suit. He get's more then he could ever wish for, when his black-and-white dressed alter-ego seems to be the only thing to stand between absolute (green) evil and a happy ending.

Schoolteacher Yohei is married to Miyoko. For the first time in 25 years they begin to live by themselves when their son marries and moves out. Then Yohei discovers that all’s not well in his marriage.

Hisashi Tanaka is a medical student in Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. He does volunteer work and gets to know Yasuaki Kano at the hospital. Yasuaki Kano has suffered from muscular dystrophy since he was 12-years-old. Yasuaki Kano has his eccentric ways like running out of the hospital and saying that he wants to eat a banana late at night. Hisashi Tanaka thinks Yasuaki Kano is a lovely person. Yasuaki Kano develops a crush on rookie volunteer Misaki Ando. He asks Hisashi Tanaka to write a love letter for him, but Misaki Ando is Hisashi Tanaka’s girlfriend.