Asian Drama

During his high school days, Kokusho Hiroshi was the rugby club’s ace who attracted national attention. However, he sustained injuries owing to his self-centered and aggressive style of playing. He was criticized by his teammates and remained isolated until he stepped aside. After graduating from high school, he lived a carefree life without a regular job. Then one day, he has a brush with the law because of a fight that gets him sacked from his job at a construction site and evicted from the apartment that he had been living in for falling behind on the payment of his rent. Hiroshi is at his wits end when a man calls out that he will introduce the perfect job that comes with a fully equipped dorm and three meals a day for someone like him who is proud of his physical strength. It is to work for the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force which defends the country’s peace and security. “With a name like that, weren’t you born to become a member of the Self-Defense Force?” Hiroshi initially refuses but makes a half-hearted decision to become a trainee. Despite the grueling training, this turns out to be his true calling.

Kusakabe Gengo, a patrol officer of the Tsukigase domain in Western Japan, gets a visit from his son-in-law, Tsuda Iori. Tsuda probes if it is true that Gengo and the chief retainer, Matsuura Shogen, are truly childhood friends. Gengo and Shogen were childhood friends and went to the same kendo training school. 40 years ago, the two men were bound by such a firm friendship that they avenged Shogen’s parents together. However, they had differing opinions regarding an uprising raised by a mutual friend, Juzo, and fell out 20 years earlier. Gengo is handed a command from the lord of the domain to assassinate Shogen. Shogen, who quelled the uprising with ruthless methods, rose to become the chief retainer, but the rumours are that he has incurred displeasure because he is hindering the rise of the lord of the domain. However, Shogen is known to the public as an artist so it would look bad if he were publicly executed. Gengo, who has been ordered to handle it as a fight due to a personal grudge, searches for the place for Shogen to die. He decides to visit Shogen for the first time in 20 years. When the paths of the two men cross again as they approach old age, fate starts moving again.

Adapted from the 2007 historical novel "Ginkan no Fu" by Hamuro Rin.