The upstart Godai family conglomerate plans to strengthen ties with the hardliners in the Kwantung Army as they plan military expansion into Manchuria.
Second part of an epic drama of war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family from 1935 through Japan's invasion of China. Based on the novels by Jumpei Gomikawa, who also penned The Human Condition.
A group of teenagers grow up in Okinawa amid the protests and resistance against the presence of the American base in the island.
Tadashi Iki returns to Japan from a Soviet gulag 11 years after being captured during the invasion of Manchuria. He is offered a position in the expansive Kinki Corporation, but rival corporations are competing for a government contract to produce fighter planes.