Cardiac transplantation, a final option of treatment for refractory heart failure, has not been a standard procedure in Japan especially, mainly because of the shortage of donors. However, surgical methods to restore native heart function, such as surgical ventricular restoration (SVR), are often effective for these cases. The Dor procedure has been used for ischemic cardiomyopathy cases presenting with broad akinetic segments. This is a fine method to exclude the scarred septum and to reduce the intraventricular cavity by encircling purse-string suture, but it may produce a postoperative spherical ventricular shape as a result of endoventricular patch repair. Also, partial left ventriculectomy is not recommended for non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy cases for now. A modification of these SVR and surgical approaches to functional mitral regurgitation has been named "overlapping ventriculoplasty" without endoventricular patch and resection of viable cardiac muscle, and "mitral complex reconstruction", which consists of mitral annuloplasty, papillary muscle approximation, and suspension. Although the long-term prognosis of these procedures is undetermined, they could be an important option, at least as an alternative bridge to transplantation. This review will describe the concepts and some technical aspects of these procedures for the end-stage heart.