Plot Synopsis by DramaWiki Staff ©
Three stories from the Shiratsuna Island:
**Mikan no Hana
Shiratsuna Island is the only remaining island city in Japan, but it is being merged with a city on the opposite shore. Housewife Tomita Misato (Hirosue Ryoko) lives on the island. At a ceremony to mark the end of city, she stares intently at someone dressed in the clothes of an urbanite who has stepped up to the podium. This person is the novelist Katsuragi Shoko (Mizuno Miki). She is the older sister that Misato hates. Shoko left the island 20 years ago for Tokyo and never once came back. Now a successful writer, Shoko reads an essay with feelings of homesickness out loud as a guest at the ceremony. Misato is intercepted by Shoko’s classmate, Miyashita Kunikazu (Mizuhashi Kenji), just as she is leaving the venue after the ceremony finished. Then Shoko appears and Misato expresses her feelings of disgust. However, Shoko is completely unapologetic. She hitches a ride with Misato in Kunikazu’s car and heads home to where her mother, Misato’s husband (Nakamura Yasuhi) and daughter (Tanabe Momoko) are waiting. Misato thinks of the past … One summer 20 years ago, a young man called Okudera Kenichi (Tanaka Kei) came backpacking from Tokyo. He brought a breath of fresh air to the Tomita family which had been struggling to live after their father died in an accident. After helping with the orange harvest, he stayed with the family and became Misato’s first love. Misato (Yamaguchi Mayu) made a promise with Kenichi. However, he did not keep his word and Misato grew to hate Shoko. The older sister who left the island. And the younger sister who remained on the island. 20 years have passed. Their mother Yasue (Baisho Mitsuko) suffers from dementia. Misato has some misgivings. Then Shoko starts to talk about a surprising truth.
**Umi no Hoshi
Hamasaki Yohei (Ito Atsushi), who was born on Shiratsuna Island, lives in an apartment in the outskirts of Tokyo with his wife Tomomi (Konno Mahiru) and their son Taichi (Igarashi Hinata). One day, a postcard addressed to Yohei is delivered. It is from Mano Misaki (Hirayama Aya), his classmate from high school days. She insists on meeting and talking to him about his father because she is coming to Tokyo for work. 20 years ago, in the autumn when Yohei (Kato Seishiro) was a sixth-grade elementary school student, his father Hideo (Hashimoto Jun) disappeared all of a sudden. He left the house saying he was going to buy cigarettes and went missing. No one knew if he was involved in an accident or what. Yohei would accompany his mother Yoshiko (Wakamura Mayumi) in her search for her husband every night. After his father’s disappearance, his mother started to work. Seeing her work non-stop from morning to night regardless of the holidays, Yohei took out his father’s fishing rod from the storeroom in an attempt to help out with the household expenses a little. When he was fishing, Mano Kosaku (Shiina Kippei) approached with a cooler box on his shoulder. Kosaku said he was a fisherman and shared the fish in his cooler box with Yohei. He even visited Yohei’s house frequently but grew estranged as a result of some incident and they never met after that. Misaki, the sender of the postcard, is Kosaku’s daughter. She says she must speak to Yohei regarding a secret that her father recently revealed to her.
**Kumo no Ito
Popular artist Kurosaki Hirotaka (Hamada Gaku), who is a native of Shiratsuna Island, goes back to his hometown after seven years. However, he fell into the sea and remains in a coma. He did not leave a note and the mass media speculate on the possibility of foul play. The famous Hirotaka has a past that he does not want his hometown to know. He had a tough childhood enduring bullying because of an incident that his mother Ritsuko (Aso Yumi) caused when he was still a baby. One month earlier, Hirotaka had received a phone call from an ex-classmate, Matoba Yuya. Yuya’s father (Nishioka Tokuma) is the president of Matoba Iron Works, a large company on the island. The company is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding this year and Yuya wanted Hirotaka to come as a guest of this commemorative party. Hirotaka asked him to go through his office but was unable to turn down the pushy Yuya. He reluctantly set foot on Shiratsuna Island. Although the people welcomed Hirotaka with tremendous applause and cheers, he could not help feeling uncomfortable. What exactly happened to him?