The story of Makino Mantaro (Kamiki Ryunosuke), a botanist who ran through the Meiji era (1868-1912) in full bloom, begins. Born the heir to the Tosa sake brewery Mineya, Mantaro (Yurito Mori) is a boy who loves plants and flowers. He is sickly from birth and soon falls ill with a fever. Deeply hurt by his relatives' unkind words, "Mantaro should never have been born at all", Mantaro runs away from home, defying his mother Hisa (Ryoko Hirosue), who is lying in bed ill. He ends up at a shrine in the mountains behind his house, where he has a mysterious encounter with a mysterious warrior.