Mio is 20 years old. Having lost her parents early, she and her grandmother run a traditional inn in Nagano. However, her grandmother gets sick. Mio moves to Tokyo and lives with her father’s best friend, Kyosuke. He runs a public bath. She begins to work at the public bath, but it is scheduled to be demolished to make way for redevelopment.
27-year-old Hatsumi Takimoto is a former teacher and now waitress. She holds a secret. Three years after her boyfriend died, she receives a letter from him. After meeting a former student, Hatsumi Takimoto confesses about her past.
Ninko is a virtuous Buddhist monk who’s embarrassed to discover that he’s irresistible to many women (and some men). After a particularly troubling encounter with a masked woman, he undertakes a journey to "purify" himself, hoping that this will equip him to rebuff sexual advances. He meets the samurai Kanzo and hears of a village decimated by the rapacious mountain goddess Yama-onna, who kills men to absorb their energy. Finally Ninko has a quest to fulfill…
