The story follows the Nakamori family in Yokote, Akita Prefecture, where half of the year is buried by deep snow.

After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait. While working on this project Akutsu becomes involved with Tae Makimura leading to his estrangement from his wife.

Hiroshi Kakurai is an assassin who was thinking of retiring. He travels to an island in the Seto Inland Sea and begins to live peacefully with Shinobu, a woman he has fallen in love with, but the intensity of his love for her begins to drive him towards destruction...

A student, running late on the day of the University of Tokyo entrance exams, calls in a fake bomb threat in order to arrive on time.