Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate from Hokkaido, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit packer in a department store as part of a government programme.

He drops out of various jobs, is caught while secretly trying to board a ship to the U.S., and is rejected when he volunteers for military service.

Halfway into the film, a flashback sequence tells of Yamada's poor upbringing as the seventh child of eight of a submissive woman and her irresponsible husband.

[4] In Kinema Junpo magazine's list of the 10 best Japanese films of the year, Live Today, Die Tomorrow!

with Nagisa Ōshima's earlier juvenile delinquency dramas for their "inherent critique of postwar Japanese society".