Akira Hojo and Chiaki Asami live different lives in Tokyo, Japan: Hojo is the leader of a small but rising Yakuza clan, while Asami is a politician aiming to become the youngest member of the Japanese parliament. But while they both live in different ways, Hojo and Asami share the same past; both of them were survivors of the Killing Fields of Cambodia. With the aggression and survival instincts they learned in the Cambodian jungles, Hojo and Asami strive in both the Yakuza and political world to reform Japan into their own sanctuary.

When eight-year-old Tistou is sent home from school after being unable to stop falling asleep at lessons, his father decides that he will continue his education by learning from observation of real life, and where better to start than in the garden! With the gardener Mr. Moustache, Tistou discovers he has a remarkable gift—the green thumbs: everything he touches grows into beautiful plants. His next lesson is with the stern Mr. Turnbull, manager of his father's armament factory who takes Tistou to visit the town to learn about "order." Over the course of the next few days Tistou learns many new things as he visits the town prison, the slums, and the hospital, and everywhere he tries to change the world into a better place with his new extraordinary power. Finally, he learns about war, and upon visiting his father's factory, he finds out that they supply the two countries at war with their weapons...

Final part of epic drama about war and its effects upon human beings, follows the fortunes of the Godai family through the Sino-Japanese War through the Soviet Union's sudden attack upon Japanese troops at the end of the war.