After a wizard's spell goes awry, 12th-century Gallic knight Godefroy de Papincourt, Count of Montmirail finds himself transported to 1993, along with his dimwitted servant, Jacquouille la Fripouille. Startled and perplexed by modern technology, the duo run amok, destroying cars and causing chaos until they meet Beatrice de Montmirail, an aristocratic descendant of the nobleman, who may be able to help them get back to 1123.
Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.
A middle-aged sales rep drops everything to track down the killers of his cop friend. Two years earlier, an older gambler forms an intense bond with a naive young man, who changes his name to please him.
