Ichirō Kure awakens with total amnesia in Kyushu University Hospital's psychiatric ward, undergoing experimental "madman liberation therapy" after a violent incident. Medical authorities connect him to multiple crimes: he strangled his cousin and fiancée Moyoko Kure during a sleepwalking episode on their wedding eve, and witnessed his mother’s strangulation years earlier while claiming no memory of the event. These incidents drive his institutionalization and psychological investigation.

Born into the wealthy Kure family as an illegitimate child after his mother fled the household, Ichirō’s lineage traces to Chinese ancestor Go Seishu (Wu Ching-Hsiu), a painter who murdered his wife centuries prior. Doctors theorize his violence stems from latent psychological inheritances—ancestral memories genetically transmitted through his cells, manifesting as traumatic compulsions.

Physicians Wakabayashi and Masaki develop opposing diagnoses: one attributes his madness to external brain experimentation, the other to resurgent inherited traumas. This fractures his perceived identity, constantly questioning whether he is truly Ichirō Kure or another entity.

Adaptations maintain this core narrative. The 1988 film explores his amnesia, alleged crimes, and doctors' manipulation via ancestral scrolls triggering genetic memories. The 2012 CG anime OVA transplants events to a spaceship but retains his amnesia, Moyoko’s death, and ancestral theories, expanding roles for Moyoko and an investigator without altering Ichirō’s backstory. All iterations conclude ambiguously, deploying a final twist that challenges assumptions about his crimes and identity, leaving his fate and culpability unresolved.