Saturn Apartments / Iwaoka, Hisae

Sixteen-year-old Mitsu, a window-washer on the Ring System, a space colony in orbit around Earth, must decide if he should descend to the Earth in an experimental device to try to change the Ring System.

When sixteen-year-old Mitsu, a window-washer on the Ring System, a space colony in orbit around Earth, is asked to man an illegal craft headed for the planet's surface, he must decide between duty and obeying the law and taking the journey of a lifetime.

As Mitsu becomes accustomed to his window-washing job, he meets two new clients, each lonely in their own way, and draws the attention of other employers. And, Sohta takes out his frustration on the Earth's surface after he is demoted from his power-plant job, for which he was overqualified anyway.

While the people of Earth live in a stratified society on a ring surrounding the planet, Mitsu's father has disappeared and Mitsu is forced to undertake his father's profession as a window washer shortly after his junior high school graduation, which allows him a view of the higher levels of society through their windows.