Synopsis

17 year old Yatabe Mineko grew up among a family of seven in a mountain village in northeastern Ibariki Prefecture. She hasn’t seen her father since he left for Tokyo to work in order to earn extra money. When he doesn’t return for the New Year she requests her family to let her go and look for him in Tokyo and assures them she will send money home. She finds work at a small factory in Tokyo’s working class neighborhood, but as she continues the search for her father, she begins to get disheartened with her lack of progress. As she overcomes her own challenges and begins to make a life for herself in Tokyo surrounded by friends and colleagues, she wonders if she will ever manage to find her father.