Female refugee seeking shelter during wartime chaos.
A young teacher who arrives on Shōdoshima in 1928 and becomes the emotional center of the story. She teaches and cares for her first-grade pupils, later leaves teaching to raise her children, and returns to the classroom after the war. She endures personal loss and reunites with her former students.
Young widow and Ginza hostess nicknamed Mama. She plans to open her own bar instead of remarrying, but faces financial struggles, family burdens, and emotional setbacks. After a traumatic encounter with a businessman and a rejected marriage proposal from her manager, she returns to work, ascending the stairs while masking her sorrow.
The protagonist, a former secretary expatriated from French Indochina. She pursues Kengo, renews their affair, survives economically by becoming an American soldier's mistress, has an abortion after getting pregnant by Kengo, and eventually follows him to Yakushima where she dies from poor health.
Central protagonist. Initially engaged to Takashi, she is raped by Heibei and forced into marriage. She bears three children, struggles with lingering love for Takashi, and endures a volatile marriage marked by abuse and emotional distance. Ultimately seeks reconciliation before her husband's death.
Kin Aoyama, performing under the stage name Lily Carmen, is the central figure of the story. When the Tokyo venue where she works is renovated, she returns to her rural Nagano hometown with Maya Akemi and prepares to perform her popular strip-dance act, provoking both curiosity and moral concern among the villagers.
Kiyoko lives with her husband and his mother while helping run their struggling food store. She seeks a loan from Kenkichi to open a café, but faces pressure to give the money to her husband's older brother. Though she develops mutual affection with Kenkichi, she ultimately stays with her husband and reaffirms their café plan.
A 23-year-old tour guide living in Tokyo's Shitamachi district. She struggles with intense family tensions and financial demands, eventually moving out. She develops a slow romantic interest with neighbor Shuzo and successfully resists the unwanted advances of Tsunakichi. She also reconciles with her mother during a thunderstorm.
Miho is Keijiro's longtime mistress and the manager of the Ginza bar he owns with his wife, Ayako. After Ayako mortgages the bar, Miho hires a lawyer to seek severance pay, then turns to a custody claim for her children, Hiroko and Susumu, whom she gave up to be raised by Keijiro and Ayako. She is eventually compensated and plans to open a street food shop.
Fumiko is a young woman who struggles to find decent work and is abandoned by her boyfriend. She writes about her life in poverty, but publishing companies initially reject her autobiographical novel. While working as a bar girl and factory worker, she cares for the aspiring writer Fukuchi, leaves after his verbal and physical abuse, and ultimately achieves literary success.
An 18-year war widow running a grocery shop in her deceased husband's family house. She faces pressure from her sisters-in-law to convert the store. After rejecting Koji's romantic confession, she decides to leave. During a train trip with him to a country inn, she refuses intimacy. She later sees him carried in on a stretcher after falling from a cliff, stops running, and stares blankly.
Okoma is a young conductress working for the Kohoku bus company in Kofu. Worried that passengers are choosing a rival company's faster, cleaner buses, she proposes entertaining riders with information about local sights and persuades the driver and company owner to support the idea. After an accident during practice, she goes on the first guided tour with Sonoda, unaware the company is closing.
Hideko Takamine has 127 screen credits in a career dating back to 1929. Their work spans 3 cinematic universes — most prominently Carmen Collection with 2 titles. Signature works include When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Twenty-Four Eyes, Flirtation in Spring. Explore the interactive character relationship maps on each title page to trace how their roles connect across franchises.
Universe traveler — spans 3 universes
Related entry on Wikidata (Q290963), public domain (CC0).
