A student travels back to Kobe for the summer. Once there, he meets his friend Rat, hangs on the usual place, listening to the Beach Boys and meets a mysterious twin girl.
Yuichi prides himself on the fact that he is a family man but contrary to his conception of an ideal family life, at age 24, his wife has already run out on him. In utter confusion, he tries to reason out where he had gone amiss that such a thing should happen out of the clear blue sky. About this time, Yuichi helps Ayako, a young girl, embroiled in trouble. She returns Yuichi's kindness by making off with his precious camera. Then she returns and since his wife has washed her hands of him, he forces himself on Ayako who acts as if she had been waiting for him to enter her. Suddenly, Yuichi's wife returns...
The story revolves around Ogino, who is in the last year of his medical studies. Between lectures, exams, on field training, his commitment as a pro-reformist militant and his girlfriend, Ogino is starting to wonder if he's really cut out to be a doctor.
This biopic is centered on New Year's Day of 1894, when Kitamura is recovering from a suicide attempt. Japan is then under the spell of fervent patriotism because the government wants to build up public support for a war with China. Kitamura's literary friends and militant comrades come to visit. They wonder why Kitamura wants to kill himself. Kitamura at first refuses to receive them, then he sits down with them and looks back on his days as a civil rights militant, his stormy love life and his ardent but destructive desire to live literature to the full.
