Tsubame wa Modottekonai

Kusaokes have spent several years undergoing fertility treatment without success. As the wife Yūko is getting older and she has been told she will have difficulties carrying a pregnancy to full term, they ask an agent to arrange a surrogate pregnancy using the husband Motoki’s sperm and the surrogate mother’s eggs. Both want a child with Japanese DNA, and therefore a Japanese surrogate mother—which is an expensive, illegal business. Riki, who takes on the surrogacy role, has come to Tokyo from Hokkaidō. She is scraping by on ¥82,000 a month, working in a nonregular job, and sees the chance of getting paid ¥10 million as unmissable.