Television dramatization of bestselling author Kanae Minato’s heart-wrenching, romance-thriller of the same name, a novel which earned her a best new mystery writer award in 2007. Nozomi is a female college student who together with friends, Naruse, Ando and Nishizaki, came up with a certain “scheme” that put them on the scene of a horrific family murder. Nishizaki was arrested on the spot as a suspect in the murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison by virtue of a voluntary confession. A decade later, an ex-cop named Takano begins to reinvestigate what he believes was an unsolved murder that somehow entwined 6 young adults all with the initial “N” in their names. Clues from the past and present cross as Takano tries to puzzle together the truth and find out what really happened.

Two years have passed since Jin slipped through a time warp and landed in the Edo period at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate’s reign. Worried about the state of depression into which Saki has fallen, Jin pays a visit to her native home when it is revealed that her mother, Ei has been stricken with beriberi disease. According to her elder brother Kyotaro, Saki had come home to urge her mother to see a doctor only to be sent away without even being allowed in the home as Ei had not yet forgiven Saki for previously breaking off an arranged marriage proposal. In hopes of somehow saving Ei, Jin comes up with a scheme to administer medicine-laced sweets, for which Ei has a weakness.

A fired-up high-school teacher who teaches his baseball team the importance of having a dream, and the students he leads, burning with this dream of a national championship. A group of modern young people of the baseball club at Futakotamagawa High School: they have no hope for the future, and no idea of what they want to do. ‘The world is full of hope,’ a new teacher, Kawato shouts at them. ‘Don’t make fun of people who have dreams.’ Overcoming problems with the new players, and an injury to their captain, with Kawato, they move into the semifinal tournament that leads to their final chance at a national championship. Will the dreams of the Futakotamagawa baseball team come true? Meanwhile, graduation day draws near..…

A brain surgeon, Jin Minakata, is hurtled back in time to the Edo period at the time of the fall of the Tokugawa government. He finds himself having to save lives without the luxury of modern medical equipment or medicine, and unwittingly thrown into the middle of the tumultuous political times. Taking to heart the words, “God only presents you with challenges that you can overcome,” Jin endeavors to make the most of his new lot in life, as if convinced that he will rediscover something in the past which he has lost in the present. Awash in a different time and a different world of epic scale and grandeur, Jin finds that history now turns on him.

The setting is Futakotamagawa Gakuen High School. Upset that the baseball club has been forced to suspend its activities after a scandal caused by one of its members, the boys have slipped into delinquency. This is an inspiring story of blood, sweat and tears as Kawato, the dedicated schoolteacher, tries to open up communications with the toughs through baseball, and we see the boys clawing their way back from delinquency as they set their sights on Koshien despite their lack of skill.