Two estranged brothers inherit Marukin Hot Springs, a small-town bathhouse. One sees it as an homage to their late father; the other—a struggling architect—as lucrative real estate for condos. Their eclectic collection of townsfolk customers show them the value of the bath goes way beyond a scrub and soak.
After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Futaba resolves to spend her remaining time reuniting her broken family, reopening the long-closed bathhouse, and helping her shy daughter Azumi learn to stand on her own.
Mio is 20 years old. Having lost her parents early, she and her grandmother run a traditional inn in Nagano. However, her grandmother gets sick. Mio moves to Tokyo and lives with her father’s best friend, Kyosuke. He runs a public bath. She begins to work at the public bath, but it is scheduled to be demolished to make way for redevelopment.
Ranmaru is a 450-year-old vampire who works in a bathhouse. As a vampire he is particularly picky about his blood choices, his main goal being to drink the blood of an 18-year-old virgin. To do so, he has been watching 15-year-old Rihito, the son of the bathhouse owner who saved him from near death. Rihito must not lose his virginity before he turns 18 and Ranmaru does everything he can to prevent that. However, when Rihito starts to show interest in a classmate, Ranmaru's desperate fight to preserve the boys virginity begins.
Kanae's husband disappeared without a trace while on a union trip. Though usually headstrong and independent, the woman becomes plagued with worry over what happened to him, and is unable to move on with her life. Thus, Kanae decides to hire a private investigator, and keeps running the public bathhouse to the best of her abilities. As he tries to figure out the truth about her husband, Kanae must deal with the stress from a work-intensive job, meddlesome neighbors, and recurring nightmares in which she is drowning.
Set with three central figures, "Mother Water" describes the daily lives of people near the Kamo River in Kyoto, Japan.
A schoolboy has a crush on his pretty class-mate Keiko on the inland island of Awaji. He figures her routine of taking baths at the public one is a good way to get to know her, but he first has to overcome his sensitivity to hot water, the presence of other school-mates and of course his shyness. He has never mustered the courage to speak to her in class after all.
Kazuhiko, a graduate of a prestigious university, wasn't enjoying his life, until he takes a job at a bathhouse. Then he discovers that the baths are used as a space for killing people after closing hours.
Rinko inherits her parents’ public bath after they pass away. She starts to manage the business with the help of an old and experienced worker, Mr. Tame. However, she soon realizes traditional public bath are no longer marketable in this new century. Rinko thinks of a "Bikini Body Wash Service" to attract more customers.
Male student Souta Tsukishima begins working at his family's public bathhouse as a back washer. While concealing her true identity, Souta's classmate Aoi Yuzuki visits the bathhouse. A relationship between the two begins to develop when Souta washes Aoi's back.
When 15-year-old Rihito falls in love, an ancient vampire who craves 18-year-old virgin blood must protect the teen's virginity at all costs.
42-year-old Utsumi Takayuki works for Second Division of Hinode Advertising's Planning and Sales Department. He was transferred from the General Affairs Department one year ago, but he keeps delivering the worst sales performance. Utsumi is not eloquent, poor at dealing with things and is a pushover too. He always gets reprimanded by his boss Dozono Shoko. His only pleasure is skipping work, going to the public bath in the day on a weekday and gulping a beer down his dry throat after that. Utsumi cannot resist the temptation when he sees a public bath during working hours despite his sense of guilt. On this day too, he calls his company with the excuse that he has urgent business and walks through the door of a public bath in high spirits. When he pays the fee, takes off his suit and enters the bath, the best moment awaits him.
After Mizusawa Yume's mother becomes ill and passes away, she finds a picture of a man holding a baby in her mother's keepsake box. On the back of the picture it says "Loving Papa and Yume, at Raku no Yu." Yume has never known or even seen a picture of her father, but she believes that this guy must be him. Also in the box there is a lighter with the initials RM. After she finds that the "Raku no Yu", is a 'sento' (public bath) in Shibuya, Tokyo, she's off to meet her long lost father and to get as much money out of him as possible. The debts her mother left her after her death left nothing for Yume. Yume blames her father for her mother's death because if it wasn't for him she wouldn't have had to work so hard and wouldn't have gotten ill and died young. Once she arrives in Tokyo and finds 'Raku no Yu' she finds a name plaque with the inscription Mannaka Rokku, so she is sure this is the place.
