[1][2][3] Kyōko, daughter of successful writer Hirayama, rejects several marriage prospects before taking Ryōkichi, owner of a small used book store, as her husband.
A few years into the marriage, Kyōko has to start selling parts of the household, as the manuscripts of Ryōkichi, who is ambitious to become a novelist, keep getting returned by publishers.
Yagihara, a magazine editor and acquaintance of Hirayama, outspokenly tells Ryōkichi that his work lacks originality and an elaborate style.
Kyōko suggests that Ryōkichi shows his manuscripts to her father, but he declines, arguing that it is Hirayama's overpowering presence which hinders him in his writing.
In his 2005 review for Slant Magazine, Keith Uhlich called Anzukko "a loving portrait of a woman tragically caught between her wants and her responsibilities, fated to tread a potentially never-ending path between the trials of her marriage and the refuge of her past.