In Tokyo, Wataru and Kiyoko Hirayama believe their eldest daughter, Setsuko Hirayama, is at a marrying age. Wataru wants to arrange a marriage for her - something that their younger daughter, Hisako Hirayama, has already told them she doesn't want, she wanting to determine her own happiness in marriage - but leaves talking to Setsuko as Kiyoko's responsibility. In those mother-daughter discussions, Setsuko has so far remained mum on the issue. As such, Wataru decides to find that husband for her. But when a young man named Masahiko Taniguchi approaches Wataru saying that he wants to marry Setsuko, something that Setsuko eventually confirms that she too wants in return, Wataru has a definite opinion in that he believes on what little he knows that Taniguchi is not suitable marriage material for his daughter. Setsuko's reluctance to mention Taniguchi previously to her family was because she knew that her father in particular would not have chosen a man like him, although kind and considerate and loving toward her, not from a prosperous family and not with that guaranteed economic future. Taniguchi in turn bypassed Setsuko to speak to her father directly if only because of his imminent transfer to Hiroshima for work. As Wataru does whatever he can to find out more about Taniguchi while still having a closed mind about him as his potential son-in-law, Wataru may get a broader perspective of the entire generational issue of arranged marriages as was standard when he and Kiyoko got married, and the new modern sensibility of people getting married on their own volition as he speaks to friends and acquaintances his own age about their issues in dealing with their marriage aged children.
—Huggo