Öcsi is lying sick in bed but he doesn’t like the bitter medicine prescribed by the doctor for his sore throat. He calls on the Magician for help, who takes him to Nobody-Here Land where all Öcsi’s wishes come true.
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.
When a worker digging up a rose bed in the garden of a rich, influential factory owner uncovers a skeleton, suspicion spreads: Is the man who is so respected in the town possibly a murderer?