Synopsis

Edo in 1814—a sprawling, chaotic city packed with peasants, samurai, merchants, nobles, and artists. Maybe even ghosts. Tetsuzo is in his mid-fifties and already a legend. Artists across Japan know his work. His house is basically a controlled disaster, but somehow masterpieces keep coming out of it. He paints enormous Bodhidharmas on sheets the size of buildings, then turns around and paints sparrows on grains of rice. He's got a sharp tongue, hates pretense, and charges exorbitant fees for work that bores him. His daughter O-Ei—23, outspoken, and his child from his second marriage—inherited both his talent and his stubbornness. More often than not, she's the one actually painting, though her name never appears anywhere. Her work is genuinely powerful. "We're father and daughter," she says. "Two brushes and four chopsticks—we'll figure it out." Years down the line, Europe would finally discover Tetsuzo under one of his many names: Katsushika Hokusai. Renoir, van Gogh, Monet, Klimt—they'd all be captivated by his work. But almost nobody knows about O-Ei. The woman who spent her whole life at his side, who poured her talent into his art, stayed invisible. This is her story—a vivid portrait of a spirited, independent woman completely eclipsed by her legendary father, told across the changing seasons.

Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.

Genres