The Sower

Original title: 種をまく人

Little Chie knows that her sister, 3 year-old Itsuki, is unlike her. Chie’s uncle, Mitsuo, is also unusual. Suntanned and adorned in a rustic-looking floppy hat he couldn’t look less like Chie’s neat and respectable father. But Chie is overjoyed when Mitsuo walks back into their lives, having spent three years in a mental institution, and Mitsuo, overwhelmed with emotion, dotes on his two little nieces. This brief harmony is short lived. Frustrated by her little sister, Chie drops her, causing fatal injuries. Unable to allow his niece to take the blame, Mitsuo claims responsibility, shouldering all the condemnation that ensues.