Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writing essays, cooking Zen food with the vegetables he grows and the mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor and love interest, occasionally visits. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. On the other hand, he still hasn't let go of his wife's ashes, although she died 13 years ago.
A story about how Kuboshima Seiichiro overcomes various difficulties to open Mugonkan, an art museum in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, featuring artworks by students before they were sent to fight in WWII.
Okawa Yuka is living out the daily motions of life but doesn't understand her reason to keep living. After a confrontation with a co-worker, she decides to end it all but fails when she stops herself from squishing a cicada. That cicada returns the favor by transforming into a man, named semi, for seven days because he thinks it will make her happy. The downside is, he has no idea how to live as a human.
Junko Harumi was once a model student during her middle school and high school days. She failed to enter prestigious Tokyo University and her life has not gone smoothly since then. She has a hard time finding a job and having relationships with men. Now, at the age of 31, she works as a teacher at a private institute. 3 men, who vary in type, appear in front of her. Masashi Yakumo is smart and a cousin of Junko, Kyohei Yuri is a disorderly high school student and Kazuma Yamashita is Kyohei ’s teacher in high school.
A CEO struggling to maintain his small sock business risks the company's future with a new challenge — creating a line of running shoes.
Fumi becomes Genzui Kusaka’s wife. During the turbulent times of the closing days for the Tokugawa shogunate, she lives positively and tries to keep up Shoin Yoshida's will. Shoin Yoshida is her older brother and intellectual.