1787-1868

In 1841, having been shipwrecked and picked up by an American whaling ship outside Japanese territorial waters, fifteen-year-old Manjiro decides to go live in America and work towards opening trade between his country and the West.

Jacob de Zoet, having arrived in Nagasaki Harbor's Dejima in 1799, has intentions to make a fortune in five years and return home to Holland to win the hand of his finac?e, but he meets the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and finds his plans changing and his life in danger.

Explains how the end of the shoguns, which led to the birth of modern Japan, was one of the world's pivotal moments.