It is based on Seiichi Yashiro's stage play on the life of Japanese artist Hokusai.

[1][2][3] Tetsuzō is an unsuccessful ukiyo-e (woodblock) painter who lives in poverty with his daughter Ōei over a geta shop owned by Ōyaku, the older wife of the aspirant writer Sashichi, who is a childhood friend of Tetsuzō.

Tetsuzō lives by borrowing money from his adoptive father, mirror-maker Nakajima Ise.

Ōnao, a sadist with a traumatic past, psychologically torments Nakajima until he hangs himself, and leaves.

After Ōyaku dies, Sashichi, adopting the pen name Bakin, devotes his life to writing and ignores Ōei's advances who has intimate feelings for him.