Following the 2009 financial crash, Waseda University graduate Takeshi lost his job in Tokyo and retreated to his family home in Sendai. While he resumed his role as heir to the family construction company with a diligent attitude, his hidebound father resents that his son left and that at the age of 35 Takeshi is still single. However, wider events will force father and son to overcome their differences as the Otsunahiki, a great tug-of-war featuring thousands of participants, will pull them together in a family tradition just as Takeshi meets Jiheyun, a beautiful Korean doctor on an exchange programme... The ties of family bind people tightly as characters struggle with the push of their own ambitious urges and the pull of family commitments but the Otsunahiki ropes things together in a family drama rich with events and the culture of Sendai, that will tug and the heartstrings of viewers whilst providing to the desire to visit the beautiful and storied region.

As a family-run confectionery shop in Kagoshima struggles to stay in business with increasing competition from local supermarkets, the family's three daughters experience various troubles in their private lives.

25 years ago, the Nagiri Brothers—once feared nationwide—lost their family’s backbone when their father, Tsuyoshi Nagiri (played by Kim Sunjin), was suddenly assassinated. “Even as yakuza, we never strayed from the path of humanity. Everyone in the Nagiri family is our comrade,” were the words their father left behind. Carrying on his will, the second son, Kaname Nagiri (Choi Chul-ho), took over the Nagiri-gumi. However, just as the ex-Nagiri member-turned-politician Masashi Fukuzawa (Koichi Miura) is preparing for an election, and Danba Takeshi (Daisuke Nagakura), head of the Tanba-gumi under the same Doushinkai syndicate, is released from prison, a violent incident breaks out—triggered by the drug trade. When their youngest brother Minato (Seiji Fukushi), a respected figure in Osaka, falls into danger, the eldest, Shun Nagiri (Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi), steps in to save him. The brothers reunite and head to Kaname’s side—just as he’s about to clash with their former allies…