Love & PopMovies like Love & Pop
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Social issues, Teenage protagonist, Financial desperation, Loss of innocence, Urban setting, Exploitation, Moral ambiguity, Youth culture, Nudity-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Fans of social dramas, Viewers interested in Japanese cinema, Those interested in youth culture, Audiences seeking thought-provoking narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Innocence → Exploitation
Love & Pop

Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.
Love & Pop
A quiet teen's life is shaken up when she's forced to be her arrogant neighbor's slave. He loves her, but they both have a lot to learn about trust.

The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while operating for the sake of sin as an "up-skirt" photographer. 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.

While everyone thinks that Momo is a wild party girl, the reality is that she is shy and lonely. Can Momo confess her love to her classmate, Toji, or will her best friend Sae steal him away? It's a bittersweet drama of growing up and fitting in.

Fifteen-year-old country girl Suzume Yosano has to move to Tokyo to live with her uncle due to her father's transfer. She bumps into a mysterious man who ends up taking her to her uncle's place after she gets lost. Turns out, Suzume will be seeing him a lot more often once she starts school because... he's her homeroom teacher?!

In an abandoned Tokyo overrun by bubbles and gravitational abnormalities, one gifted young man has a fateful meeting with a mysterious girl.

A harsh young man seduces a freeloading young woman and eventually takes advantage of her knack for hitchhiking to rob middle-class men.

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of pop star Lily Chou-Chou.

Moshimo, Japan. The annual fireworks festival is about to take place and a group of schoolboys, arguing over whether they are round or flat when viewed from different angles, set out to find it out.

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

Slacker Ichiko gets into a fight with her younger sister and begins to live on her own, working the late shift at a 100 yen shop. On her way home, she passes a gym and meets boxer Kano who trains there in silence...

Mika is a fresh high school student who starts texting a mysterious boy. She is shocked when he reveals who he is - Hiro, a delinquent attending her school. What she doesn't know is that Hiro isn't as bad as he seems.

After losing her parents, young flower selling Midori is put up by a fairground group. She is abused and forced to slavery, until the arrival of an enigmatic magician of short stature, who gives her hope for a better future.

Young artist Kyoko wreaks havoc on everyone that she encounters when Japan's oldest major movie studio asks a batch of venerable filmmakers to revive its high-brow soft-core Roman Porno series.

Anna Tsuchiya blasts back in time playing an oiran, a top-notched geisha of the Edo period’s Yoshiwara District, navigating brothel politics while trying to cling to the man she loves.

Natsume Mochizuki works as a teen model in Tokyo, but she learns that she has to move to her father's hometown of Ukigumo. She is in a desperate situation because she can't do the things she wants to do in Ukigumo. One day, she meets Koichiro Hasegawa. He is the successor of the Hasegawa family. His family is wealthy and is respected in the area. Natsume Mochizuki and Koichiro Hasegawa become attracted to each other, but something changes their fate.

A girl named O loves a rich, and much older man. She is subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience to him in a Chinese brothel. A poor boy sees her and falls in love with her. To get the money needed to sleep with her, he takes part in rebellious acts.

After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.

A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.

Mio is a girl in high school who slacks off. She and her childhood friend Arata and best friend Madoka spend their after-school days in Ikebukuro hanging out. One day, Madoka tells Mio that she loves Arata, and Mio realizes that she loves Arata, too. But she’s scared of their relationship falling apart and lies, saying she’ll help them. Mio deliberately acts coldly to Arata, and they get into a fight. She decides to work things out with Arata, but gets into a car accident on her way to meet him. She wakes up in a mysterious world. It's the Ikebukuro she knows, but something’s different...

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.

Hyasaka Yukari only wants one thing: to enter the college that her mom wants. One day, she meets an extravagant group that loves fashion. They were searching for a model and Yukari fits their ideal model. From now Yukari will know the world of fashion and modeling, and what she really wants.

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.

A Japanophile young Belgian woman in Tokyo falls into a whirlwind romance with a Francophile Japanese student, in this charming and tender tale of young love and cultural discovery.

Ryo Morinaka is a university student and works part-time at a bar. He is bored with his daily life and exists in a state of torpor. One day, his friend Shinya Tajima brings the owner of a host bar over to the place where Ryo Morinaka works. Shizuka Mido is the owner of the host bar. Soon, Ryo Morinaka begins to work for Shizuka Mido at the members only host bar. He feels embarrassment initially, but he fulfills the desires of women and develops a sense of purpose.

An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.

Two high school girls who are about to graduate also happen to be highly-skilled assassins. When the organization they work for orders them to share a room, their relationship quickly sours. But when they become targets of the yakuza, the girls realize they'll have to work together to survive.

After meeting one day, a shy boy who expresses himself through haiku and a bubbly but self-conscious girl share a brief, magical summer.

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club. Working part-time at a restaurant, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man.

The story follows a trio of Japanese youths of Chinese descent who escape their semi-rural upbringing and relocate to Shinjuku, Tokyo, where they befriend a troubled Shanghai prostitute and fall foul of a local crime syndicate. Like many of Miike's works, the film examines the underbelly of respectable Japanese society and the problems of assimilation faced by non-ethnically Japanese people in Japan.

A Japanese girl struggling to fit in at her new school teams up with a reclusive neighbor to find out what happened to an upperclassman who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

A high school outcast pays a cheerleader to pose as his girlfriend so he can be considered cool.

In a Tokyo love hotel district, a woman is found dead in a derelict apartment. As police investigate, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To break away from the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model enacting sex in front of a camera. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade that she's still the doting wife she's supposed to be.

Fleeing a distressing family situation, Eiko, a very young girl, becomes an apprentice to Miyoharu, a veteran geisha. Both, determined to preserve their professional integrity, must face the selfishness and ambition of several petty people.

Two teenage best pals attracted to the same boy end up scrambling his life after he walks into a door and is knocked unconscious.

Yokohama, 1963. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics—and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off the shackles of a troubled past. Against this backdrop of hope and change, a friendship begins to blossom between high school students Umi and Shun—but a buried secret from their past emerges to cast a shadow on the future and pull them apart.

Haruki secretly had feelings for Akihiko for years, but Akihiko was still in a relationship with his roommate, the violinist Ugetsu Murata. Haruki, Akihiko, and Ugetsu's love clashes and starts to move forward.

A high-school girl inherits a declining yakuza organization, which seeks to repair its fortunes under her leadership.

Rihito Sajo, an honor student with a perfect score on the entrance exam and Hikaru Kusakabe, in a band and popular among girls, would have never crossed paths. Until one day they started talking at the practice for their school’s upcoming chorus festival. After school, the two meet regularly, as Hikaru helps Rihito to improve his singing skills. While they listen to each other’s voice and harmonize, their hearts start to beat together.

Karin Oriyama, 16 years old. She is in high school and... she's about to get married!

Jasna, a beautiful teenager, leads a crude life in post-war Serbia. She goes on a spree of sex, drugs and partying until she finds love and tenderness in a harsh environment.

Aoi Nishimori's parents moved to another city for work, but Aoi didn't want to transfer to a new high school. She stays behind and lives in an apartment by herself. Shūsei Kugayama moves in next to Aoi's apartment. Shūsei is a very popular student at their high school. Due to a mistake, Aoi makes the sprinkler go off in his room. Until Shūsei's room is fixed, he stays with Aoi.

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.

Offering a caustic immersion into the lives of disaffected junior high students on the cusp of adulthood, the film takes place over the 5-day period before, during, and after a ferocious, seemingly liberating typhoon, which six of the students endure while marooned in their school.

Because of her past, 17-year-old Rio lives her days filling the emptiness in her heart with money—until one day, she meets a university professor named Kouki and falls in love.

Alex glides his mouse tenderly over online images of Vika. He has been smitten ever since he saw her with her friends and cannot get her out of his head. Unfortunately, Vika is beyond Alex’s reach because he's not welcome in her neighborhood. Nonetheless, Alex sneaks into a disco at her school and finds up the courage to ask her to dance. Moments are intense as Alex feels infatuation for the first time.

When 54 high school girls throw themselves in front of a subway train it appears to be only the beginning of a string of suicides around the country. Detective Kuroda tries to find the answer to this mystery, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.

One night in Tokyo, Leo, a young boxer, meets his first love, Monica, an imprisoned sex worker. Caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, they find themselves pursued by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin.

Soon after being named the new leader of his high school's gang system, Kujo grows bored with the violence and hatred that surround him. He wants desperately to abandon his post… but his once-enviable position of power has a strange way of making him feel powerless.

A group of teenagers living in a housing project in the outskirts of Paris rehearse a scene from Marivaux's play of the same name. Krimo is determined not to take part, but after developing feelings for Lydia, he quickly assumes the main role and love interest in the play.

Shopping malls - today's place of creating desires. Best jewelry, clothes, shoes. Unaffordable by young girls, but they "work" to get themselves sponsors for new items.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

In the town of Saima, when summer is about to begin, a group of six high school students intend to live a secret adventure by spending seven carefree days in a ruined mining facility.

A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.

After being involved in a traumatic incident, 17-year-old Gong-ju is forced to change schools. Uncared for by her parents, her previous teacher arranges for her to hide away at his mother's place. It takes time for her past to catch up with her, but when it does the revelation is devastating.

Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.

In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.

Two girls named Nana meet on a train to Tokyo. Nana K. aims to reunite with her boyfriend and Nana O. hopes to make it big in the music business. Despite their differences, the pair hit it off and become roommates.

Rei helps the woman she's been in love with for years escape her abusive husband. While on the run, their feelings for each other catch fire.

In a loose retelling of the Revolutionary Girl Utena TV series, Utena Tenjou arrives at Ohtori Academy, only to be immediately swept up in a series of duels for the hand of her classmate Anthy Himemiya and the power she supposedly holds. At the same time, Utena reunites with Touga Kiryuu, a friend from her childhood who seems to know the secrets behind the duels. Utena must discover those secrets for herself, before the power that rules Ohtori claims her and her friends, new and old.

Hatori Matsuzaki is a female high school student. She has a crush on her childhood friend Rita Terasaka and believes he will eventually choose her as her heroine, but Rita Terasaka begins dating Miho Adachi. Meanwhile, the most popular male student, Kosuke Hiromitsu takes an interest in Hatori Matsuzaki.

A stern young girl who yearns for romance, finds herself involved with a celebrity whose image reveals a hidden persona.

A tale of delinquent and lazy school girls. In their efforts to cut remedial summer math class, they end up poisoning and replacing the school's brass band.

Three moments in Takaki's life: his relationship with Akari and their forced separation; his friendship with Kanae, who is secretly in love with him; the demands and disappointments of adulthood, an unhappy life in a cold city.

Isabelle, a 17-year-old student, loses her virginity during a quick holiday romance. When she returns home, she begins a secret life as a prostitute for a year.

In Edo Period Japan, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall.

Sawako Kuronuma looks miserable on the outside, but is actually a positive-minded girl, who looks up to Shota Kazehaya, a sociable and friendly boy. Perceiving Sawako's good intentions, he secretly has feelings for her. Sawako meets Kazehaya and makes her first friends, Chizuru and Ayane but in comes Kurumi proclaiming her love for him... Will Sawako and Kazehaya ever find out about each other's feelings?

A girl mysteriously receives advice from her future self and as a result her group of friends, along with a newly arrived, troubled classmate, learn how to be better friends and a better community.

A huge sphere suddenly began to emit a mysterious spiritual wave to the Tengu City that should have regained its peace. A mysterious, beautiful girl showed up at the same time. Silently, what is her purpose to cast her line of sight to Shidou and the others? The real purpose is...?

A shy high schooler in Kyoto meets a man claiming to be his future self, who tells him he’s hacked into the past to save their first love.

The students of Suzuran High compete for the King of School title. An ex-graduate yakuza is sent to kill the son of a criminal group, but he can't make himself do it as he reminds him of his youth.

As a group of university students go out for a night on the town, a sophomore known only as "The Girl with Black Hair" experiences a series of surreal encounters with the local nightlife – all the while unaware of the romantic longings of "Senpai", a senior student who has been creating increasingly fantastic and contrived reasons to run into her in an effort to win her heart.

Arata Kaizaki, a jobless adult, undergoes an experiment that makes him 10 years younger. He goes back to high school and falls in love with Chizuru Hishiro, who is more than she seems.

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.

The lives of five sex workers employed at a Japanese brothel while the nation is debating the passage of an anti-prostitution law.

A celebrity photograph sparks a court case as a tabloid magazine spins a scandalous yarn over a painter and a famous singer.

Devoted to her family’s rice-cake–making business and the high school baton club, Tamako is a little slow when it comes to love. She’s oblivious to her childhood friend Mochizo’s affections, even though all their friends know. With graduation closing in and Mochizo leaving for Tokyo, will Tamako realise her feelings and tell him in time?

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.

An unapologetic former sex worker starts working at a bento stand in a small seaside town, bringing comfort to the lonely souls who come her way.

Biarritz. Sixteen-year-old George, the high school hottie, falls in love with Alex. To get his attention, she initiates a group game with Alex, Nikita, Laetitia and Gabriel. They will discover, test, and push the limits of their sexuality.

A lonely university student develops a romance with a beautiful interesting woman, who turns out to be a cyborg from the future.

A wealthy young man pursues a young woman of modest means, but circumstances often separate them as the years pass.

Feeling confined by their small town and overbearing parents, Annie and Jules hatch a scheme of running away. The only issue is, they need the money to get there. Jules suggests the couple try webcam modeling. Although she’s nervous at first, Annie can’t argue when the money starts rolling in. But as the girls soon find out, consequences can blindside you. Sometimes violently.

Problem student Haru Yoshida sits next to the cold and studious Shizuku Mizutani in class. Without any other friends to turn to, both of them start to get to know each other and grow closer. Haru eventually develop feelings for Shizuku and confesses his feelings to her. Will Haru and Shizuku get their happily ever after?

Takuma knows that his life is shorter than the others and he feels that his demise is getting near. He chose to stay away from the girl that he loves so that she can easily move on. What he didn't know is that he is under-estimating her.

Raku Ichijo (Kento Nakajima) is an only son and a high school student. His father is the leader of yakuza group Shuei-gumi. Raku Ichijo doesn't like to fight and he studies hard. His dream is to become a public official. One day, he passes the entrance gate at his high school and is kicked inadvertently by Chitoge Kirisaki (Ayami Nakajo). She is a new transfer student at the school. Chitoge Kirisaki is the only daughter of a rival gang leader. To keep the peace between the rival gangs led by their fathers, Raku Ichijo and Chitoge Kirisaki decide to act as boyfriend and girlfriend. --asianwiki

When Muraki, a porn magazine editor, watches a blue film depicting a gang rape in a school, he becomes obsessed with the lead actress. Quite by chance, whilst looking to reserve a location for a shoot, he happens to encounter her at a love hotel where she works as a receptionist. Her name is Nami and she reluctantly agrees to speak with him, and confesses that it was her in the film. Then, Muraki tells Nami that he wants her to model for him.

Nineteen-year-old Laura is stressed by her first year at college when money worries distract her from her studies and so, desperate for cash, she answers an online advertisement for intimate companionship that leads her down a dangerous path.

Following the incident in the Southeast Asia Union in 2116, Shinya Kogami resumes his vagrant journey. In a small South Asian nation, Kogami rescues a bus of refugees under attack by armed guerrilla forces. Among the refugees is a young lady by the name of Tenzin, who begs Kogami to teach her how to retaliate against the enemy. Just what does the girl who wishes for revenge and the man who has exacted revenge see as they gaze upon the edge of a world from which there is no escape?

A youth group is preparing for what will be the summer of their life, including secrets, lies, sex, confusion, evenings and holidays.

A factory explosion plunges a small town into a timeless freeze, leaving teenage Masamune and his pals to grapple with a quickly collapsing reality.

Elisabeth and John John are raised in the same city, yet they live light years apart, separated economically, socially and culturally. That is until the day they start in the same high school class.

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

When the wife of a 17th century Kyoto scroll-maker is falsely accused of having an affair with his best employee, the pair flee the city and find themselves falling for one another.

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.

A look at the relationship between a young blind samurai and his wife, who will make a sacrifice in order to defend her husband's honor.

Brash single mother Nikuko is well-known for her bold spirit, much to the embarrassment of Kikuko, her pensive yet imaginative daughter. In contrast to her mother, Kikuko wants nothing more than to fit in as she navigates the everyday social dramas of middle school. Life in the harbor is peaceful until a shocking revelation from the past threatens to uproot the pair's tender relationship.

