Pika**nchi Life Is Hard Dakara Happy (2004)

As four friends prepare for life after high school, different challenges bring about turning points in each of their lives. The dramas unfold and resolve at their local rollerskating rink, Cascade.

Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.

A man in his mid-20s, still living at home with his mother and stepfather, puts all his eggs in one basket: the girl who works at his local coffee shop. The problem is, she has a serious boyfriend. As they become closer, the line between friendship and intimacy is blurred, and the situation forces both to examine where they are in their lives.

A teenager living with her sister and parents in Manhattan during the 1990s discovers that her father is having an affair.

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.

Leo and Angela Russo live a simple life in Queens, surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. When their son finds success on his high school basketball team, Leo tears the family apart trying to make it happen.

Elijah must balance his dream of becoming a master sommelier with his father's expectations that he carry on the family's Memphis BBQ joint.

A dropout comes to the aid of a chubby and suicidal high-school kid by recruiting him as the drummer for his upstart punk-rock band.

When a self-destructive teenager is suspended from school and asked to look after his feisty alcoholic grandmother as a punishment, the crazy time they spend together turns his life around.