Respectable schoolmaster returns from work on the eve of a wedding anniversary holiday to find a strange man dead in their bathroom and his wife missing.
The evil scientist Dr. Caronte plots to revive the brains of three dead scientists and use them to obtain the formula for the super-powerful neutron bomb.
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual.
A group of boys playing near the seashore in Tokyo find a goat, kill it in a tug of war for ownership, bury it with ceremony, and, except for one boy, run off in heedless laughter ready for more games.
Raja, the son of a rich man who was cheated of his wealth by Jambu, grows up in an orphanage. He becomes a famous poet in the city with the help of Jambu's family, unaware of his past.