In a small town in Spanish Morocco, old Ricardo, who runs a café, lives with his daughter, Conchita. She believes that Ricardo is her father. In reality, he took her in at the age of eighteen months in a douar abandoned during the conquest. One day a Berber chief, Tamar, sees Conchita, tells her that she is from his tribe and wants to take her away. She rejects it, then accepts later to find that Muslim civilization is incompatible with the Christian training she received. She escapes and succeeds in obtaining forgiveness from Tamar. A French officer from the Intelligence Service offers to collect it.
Former petty criminal Ali la Pointe becomes a commander of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directing a guerilla insurgency against the colonial French occupation.
A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India.
Jesse, a charismatic but down on his luck troubadour, finds himself at an existential crossroads as bad choices catch up with him during an unexpected reunion with Carla, an old flame.
The story centers on Yoshio, a poor and struggling manga artist who lives in Kitamachi. He is sent by Oyaji, the landlord of his apartment who is also engaged in other shady businesses, to help a novelist called Imori move in, and meets a recently-divorced woman named Fukuko.
Seiichi is the owner of a flower shop. He enjoys his peaceful single life. Kiho runs the ramen restaurant left to her by her father, but she's thinking of closing it.
Childhood friends move up the economic ladder from slumrat to middle class comfort, but the marriage between two of them is threatened by a bad woman from a nightclub.
On the day before Easter in 1911, Don Hewes is crushed when his dancing partner (and object of affection) Nadine Hale refuses to start a new contract with him.
