Furukehashi Shonosuke is a young samurai and the second son of Sozaemon of Togane Domain, Kazusa Province. Sozaemon serves as an attendant, but one day, he is suddenly suspected of accepting bribes. Forged documents written in handwriting startlingly identical to his offer incontrovertible evidence. Framed for accepting bribes he knows nothing about, Sozaemon commits ritual suicide for his “crime”. Shonosuke’s elder brother Katsunosuke, an assistant instructor at the domain’s training hall, is placed under house arrest. Because of that, Shonosuke leaves for Edo alone in order to clear the name of his beloved father. He starts living at a tenement house in Edo Fukagawa and earns a living making manuscripts for the book dealer, Murataya. Shonosuke has the trusting nature of a person from the country and is utterly weak in swordplay, but excels in studies. He is helped by the people of Edo who have strong personalities but are compassionate as he runs about Edo in search of the criminal that created the forged documents with exactly the same handwriting as his father’s. This is where he meets the enigmatic Waka, the daughter of the tailor Wadaya, who should be called the incarnation of cherry blossoms, and gets a clue...