After Hiroshi is injured in a workplace accident, Torajiro gives Sakura the money he has saved and leaves to work as a traveling salesman once again. During his travels, Torajiro meets a father who shares a drink with him. In the morning, Torajiro is shocked to learn that the man has left his baby behind and a note asking Tora to take care of the child.
Torajiro becomes homesick during his travels after watching a television report about his hometown and meeting a young woman that reminds him of his sister Sakura. Meanwhile, a new tenant moves into Toraya restaurant.
When Tora-san returns to visit his family, he is surprised to find an arrogant professor occupying his room. The professor and Tora-san become rivals for the affection of Chiyo.
While Sakura and Hiroshi struggle to save funds to build a house, Torajiro befriends three young women on vacation during his travels.
After a quarrel with his mother, Torajiro sets off to find a bride.
After an encounter with a dying yakuza's son and at his sister Sakura's urging, Torajiro attempts to change his vagrant lifestyle and become an honest worker with a steady job.
Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajirō falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.
Taking a message from Hiroshi's father to heart, Torajiro attempts to give up his wandering ways.
On the road again, Torajiro meets a kindred spirit in Lily, a lounge singer.
Tora-San returns to Shibamata just before his family leaves on a trip for Kyushu. Later, he encounters an old school chum and begins to have feeling for his artist sister.
After winning big at the races, Torajiro Kuruma wants to take his aunt and uncle on a trip to Hawaii to partly pay the great filial debt he feels he owes them, but the plan hits a snag. Also, a pretty kindergarten teacher rents a room at Toraya.
Tora-san, an itinerant peddler who is thrown out of his father's house twenty years before but reconnects with his aunt, uncle and sister Sakura. Tora wreaks some havoc in their lives, like getting drunk and silly at a marriage meeting and ruining Sakura's chance to marry someone, as well as just being a real pain to those around him. There is a sentimental side to him also, and the best way to describe him is that he grows on you.
Tora-san is inspired to pursue an education after a visit to the grave of a woman he met years ago. When he returns to Shibamata with the intent to study, he falls for Toraya's new tenant instead.
After Torajiro's latest attempt to find a bride goes awry, he starts traveling again and runs into Utako (last seen in Tora-san's Dear Old Home), now a widow.
Mitsuo, unhappy in his new job as a shoe salesman, is invited to a festival and is introduced to a friend’s sister. Tora-san meanwhile helps an injured housewife on her yearly vacation.
Tora-san's opinions about Americans get challenged when another wandering peddler Michael Jordan stops by Shibamata.
Tora-san arrives in Shibamata on Mitsuo's first day of school only to find that on his account, Mitsuo was embarrassed. After a fight with his family, he goes to a bar to drink, then brings home a surly old man with a sad story, whose identity will surprise everyone. Later, Tora meets Botan, a geisha.
In Nagasaki, Tora-san and an acquaintance help an old woman who has fallen and injured herself. She invites them to her home where the three share a night of eating and drinking. The old woman's health deteriorates and she dies. At her funeral, Tora-san falls in love with the old woman's daughter, but winds up acting as a go-between for her and a young law student.
Tora-san becomes friends with Toraya's newest tenant, a pachinko-playing electrician that goes by the nickname Watt. Tora attempts to match Watt with a young waitress.
Tora-san's nephew Mitsuo is exchanging letters with Izumi, a former classmate whose parents divorced and took her out of Tokyo.