When Tora-san's infatuation with his nephew's school teacher causes family turmoil, he leaves on his travels again. When he returns, he falls in love with the teacher's mother.
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.
Tora-san befriends the descendant of a feudal lord. The man asks Tora to locate his deceased son's wife who resides somewhere in Tokyo.
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 befriends a pretty barbershop owner and runs into Izumi. When Tora twists his ankle, Mitsuo comes to care for him and see Izumi. Meanwhile, Izumi must choose between her new job in Tokyo and returning to Nagoya to care for her mother.
Tora-san leaves Shibamata once again after an argument with his family and finds himself at an inn where he meets Tomekichi, a young man who looks up to Tora-san.
Tora-san's nephew Mitsuo is exchanging letters with Izumi, a former classmate whose parents divorced and took her out of Tokyo.
When Izumi can't stand seeing her mother flirt with other men, she leaves home. She sends a letter to Mitsuo and Mitsuo goes looking for her. But Izumi unexpectedly meets Tora-san.
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.
When cabaret singer Lily writes Toraya about her illness, Tora-san rushes to Okinawa to be by her side.
Tora-san helps out a runaway bride.
After a chance encounter with Hiroshi's father on a bus, Tora decides to get serious and reflect on the mortality of man. His plans are derailed when a beautiful lady starts working at Toraya.
When his travels take him to rural Hokkaido, Tora-san helps a cantankerous old veterinarian (Mifune) in his relationships with his estranged daughter, and a woman in whom he is secretly interested.
Traveling salesman Kuruma Torajirō falls in love with an inn manager as New Year's approaches.
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.
Tora-san's opinions about Americans get challenged when another wandering peddler Michael Jordan stops by Shibamata.
Tora-san spends several days at the home of a hard-working salaryman ("salaried worker"), who abruptly disappears. When the man's wife asks Tora-san to help find him, he falls in love with her, and secretly hopes the husband will not be found.
Carrying a bag full of samples, Mitsuo makes rounds to shoe stores in remote cities. While staying at budget hotels, his thoughts turn to Tora-san.
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.
Kuruma Torajiro is discovered looking around Kyoto for someone special to him.