Morimura Tomomi is a housewife scorned by her husband and two sons, and yet she continues to protect the family. On her 46th birthday, she leaves home in disgust and embarks on a 1,200 km journey. It is Tomomi’s first time driving onto the highway and she speeds along to the west. On the road, she encounters a series of traumatising episodes. She detects her husband’s affair, is faced with a truck driver who mistakes her for a prostitute housewife, and finally her car gets stolen. While Tomomi is at a loss, a good-looking young man and an elderly person give her a ride, and she arrives in Nagasaki. As she meets various people in this town which was once transformed into a wasteland because of the atomic bomb, she becomes aware of a “wilderness” within her and starts to explore the path to rebirth

In 1947, a year heavily tinged by the scars of war, Kitazawa Taro, Mitamura Kiichi, Arikawa Nobuo and other fellow poets who would play a central role in post-war Japan’s modern poetry movement gathered for the launch of the poetry magazine ‘Arechi’. 28 years later in 1975, a 53-year-old Kitazawa works at a newspaper’s proofreading department as he continues scrape by composing poetry. Although he is not prolific as a poet, he cherishes ordinary happiness every day surrounded by his wife Haruko and their daughter Yuko and son Sho. But a big turning point comes for Kitazawa one day. He develops frequent contact with Akiko, the wife of his good friend Mitamura. Falling in love with her, he abandons his job and leaves his wife Haruko and two children behind. As he starts to live with Akiko who has also left home, he recovers an unprecedented passion and “words”. Each of them start to live the life of the “wasteland”. --JDramas Weblog