Ryûichi Matsushita

During the Kyoho period in the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, there is a gang of thieves active not just in Edo but also the Tokaido and the Nakasendo, and all across the Kansai region, stealing large sums of money with skillful techniques. They only target the very wealthy and never kill or injure people. They appear with the clouds and disappear like the mist. On the night that the beautiful Ochiyo is to become the bride of a dry goods dealer, a large amount of money hidden inside the shop is stolen. The gang disappears without injuring anyone. It was a two-year plan to marry Ochiyo off so that she could bring them in. The leader of this gang is Kumokiri Nizaemon, the greatest bandit of all time. He keeps a rein on his highly-skilled and notorious followers Nanabake no Ochiyo, Kinezumi no Kichigoro, Subashiri no Kumagoro, Ingakozo Rokunosuke and others.

Shunsaku was paralyzed from the neck down at the young age of 36 by a spinal injury suffered in a motorcycle accident. A blind woman named Hanae arrives to be his caregiver. Despite her frustrations with Shusaku's ill-nature and verbal abuse, Hanae also harbors a tremendous sense of being deprived that she doesn't tell others.

When U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's infamous Black Ships arrived in Uraga Harbour in 1853 saw his chance to let that breath out, and he and a friend snuck aboard Perry's ship in an attempt to return with him to America. When Perry's crew caught him and returned him to the mainland the ruling Shogunate put him under house arrest, a light sentence considering that the official penalty for leaving Japan was death. It was during his time of house arrest that Shōin saw the whirlwind of foreign influence that Perry's visit had initiated. To try and counteract this Shōin set up a school in his native Hagi in Yamaguchi Prefecture where he taught traditional Japanese values, military strategy and a redefinition of bushido, the samurai code. This school, the Shoka Sonjuku produced some of the leading revolutionaries who would bring about the downfall of the Shogunate.

A coming-of-age drama that depicts the love of film through the everyday lives of a foreign student working at a video store and a runaway boy. The story takes place in Hollywood, a video rental store located in Shirakawa Imadegawa, Kyoto.