In a quiet village in Aomori, a respected professor and novelist named Ishinaka becomes the steadying voice for a townful of small desires and big histories. The first threads pull tight when a young man, Yuzō, Yūji Hori bursts in with a wild claim: he and his army comrades buried 460 drums of gasoline in farmer Yamazaki’s orchard. The orchard’s owner, Yamazaki, Eitarô Shindô, welcomes the challenge with stubborn humor while Ishinaka, Yuzō, and a townsman named Nakamura start digging. They soon abandon the excavation and retreat to the warmth of sake, while Yamazaki’s daughter Moyoko uses a traditional folk dance to brighten the evening and soothe the moment. Later, Yuzō confesses to Moyoko that the drums were a pretense—his way of courting her and finding a reason to meet again. The dig is abandoned, but not the matchmaking instinct that lingers in the air. Nakamura, a practical man who keeps the village’s nerves steady, and Yamazaki marvel at the odd romance blooming from a rumor, and Yamazaki even asks Ishinaka to act as a matchmaker for Moyoko and Yuzō, seeing in their reunion a small, hopeful future.
Meanwhile, in a separate strand, Takezo Yamada, the bookstore’s owner, Kamatari Fujiwara receives two tickets to a traveling burlesque show. He and Shuichi Kihara, Ryô Ikebe, decide to attend as a kind of public morals “examination.” The news reaches Mariko, Yamada’s daughter, and she Yōko Sugi is furious at the notion that her father would indulge in such a performance. She drags her boyfriend Shuichi—the son of Kihara—outside to confront their fathers, and a heated quarrel erupts: Mariko and Shuichi align with their parents, while the two men blame each other for the idea. The clash threatens to sever the young couple’s bond, yet Ishinaka steps in to help mend the rift, guiding the families back toward harmony and nudging Mariko and Shuichi toward reconciliation.
On a different road, Yoshiko from Iwaki—Setsuko Wakayama—visits her sister Katsuko, who is hospitalized. A palm-reader among the patients predicts that Yoshiko will soon meet her future husband. After a ride back from a teahouse, Yoshiko’s path crosses with Teisaku, a man from Harago village. She wakes up in Teisaku’s home and, moved by the late hour, agrees to stay the night. Teisaku’s mother, Chōko Iida, ensures the family’s reputation remains intact by having a constable and Ishinaka prepare a certificate stating that Yoshiko slept in the mother’s room and that her virginity remains intact. The next morning, as Yoshiko returns toward her home, Teisaku asks Ishinaka whether he believes in love at first sight. Ishinaka, in a rare moment of certainty, agrees and urges Teisaku to accompany Yoshiko all the way to her house, opening the door to a possible, hopeful tomorrow.
Across these interwoven days, the village relies on a gentle balance of humor, ceremony, and honest feeling. The threads of rumor, music, and quiet desire weave together to reveal how ordinary people respond when longing meets circumstance, and how a seasoned adviser like Ishinaka can steer two different generations toward a kinder understanding of love, loyalty, and community.
