A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

A fishing union depends on two brothers to make up the losses caused by the dishonest captains they replaced.

The story of the trials and tribulations of a lighthouse keeper and his wife.