45-year-old Hiro Kamon works as a librarian because she loves books. Although she is worshiped as the "aloof beauty" and "ideal female" for her beautiful, gentle smile and amiability, she actually dislikes people. Hiro has been hurt countless times, and Chōji, the only guy she loved wholeheartedly in university, also fled in one night. She has become a person who no longer believes in love and has decided to live alone for life. But she ends up acting as a "fake married couple" with Chōji, whom she happens to meet again, for the sake of his mother, Teruno, who has been given a short time to live.

Set in the 1990s during Japan's "band boom" era, the film tells the tale of a girl in high school, Asako, who goes to a concert and meets Natsu, vocalist of the new band LANDS. Asako ends up being the band manager, but as the band's popularity starts to soar, the band's friendship begins to suffer.

1944, in the depths of World War II. Toyomatsu Shimizu is a completely typical barber from a remote sea-side town who lives frugally but happily with his wife Fusae and their five-year-old son. Eventually, though, the army beckons and he is drafted. One day an officer on the battle-field orders him to kill a captive U.S. soldier. Although Toyomatsu lacks the spirit to kill the man, and only wounds him in the arm, the victorious U.S. soldiers will not accept this, and Toyomatsu is arrested and tried as a war-criminal. And he receives the cruelest sentence possible...