The first film in the Popular Encyclopedia series consists of three stories: 1 – Vision Defects (a popular explanation of nearsightedness and farsightedness); 2 – "Marine Fauna" (with a visit to the national aquarium); 3 – "How a Cartoon Is Made" (a brief description of the process of creating cartoons).
Munich cab driver Herbert Sponer picks up American businessman Jack Mortimer at the train station. Suddenly Mortimer is shot while driving and Sponer has to try to avoid being suspected as the perpetrator.
It's a crisp autumn morning. Marta prepares breakfast and goes to work. Little Jenda has a sore throat, so she has to go to her grandfather's to look after the boy.
When a former artisan is tricked into putting his sister up as collateral for a loan by a gangster boss in a crooked gambling casino it sets in motion the story of Ooka Echizen, the famed magistrate of Edo during the reign of Shogun Tsuneyoshi.