The Last Blossom

As an ageing ex-Yakuza serving time in prison, Akutsu’s life could come to an end in any number of ways. But few would expect him to spend his days reminiscing in his cell with a talking balsam plant (Hōsenka), an outspoken little plant that repeatedly contradicts him. Above all, it insists that the 73-year-old inmate has led a miserable life, a view Akutsu himself only partly shares. Determined to set the record straight, he begins to tell his story: of Nana and little Kensuke back in the 1980s, of the house surrounded by balsam flowers, of his time as a Yakuza member, and of the events that ultimately landed him in this prison cell. He takes us back to a past that was sometimes gentle, sometimes turbulent, and sometimes narrow-minded, but not necessarily miserable.