Synopsis

Amo Kenji (Oguri Shun), a Japanese-American nisei born in America, received his education in Japan before studying at UCLA. After graduation, he worked as a reporter for the Japanese-language newspaper “Kashu Shinpo” in Los Angeles. In his editorials, Kenji advocated that “striving to be a good Japanese person enables one to become an exemplary American citizen,” and he sought to live by this philosophy himself.

 

However, when the Pacific War began, Kenji‘s circumstances changed dramatically. Kenji, along with his father Otoshichi (Matsushige Yutaka), mother Teru (Aso Yumi), and other Japanese-Americans, was sent to the Manzanar internment camp, forced to live under restrictive conditions. Eventually, the military began recruiting Japanese-Americans for the U.S. Army, forcing nisei to choose which country to pledge their loyalty to – America or Japan.

 

What fate awaits Kenji, caught between his “two homelands” of Japan and America?