In an alternate 1946, Japan surrenders only after a devastating ground war on its home islands. The Soviet Union and the Allied powers occupy the country, which later splits into two independent states: the Japan Democratic Republic (East Japan) under Soviet influence and the Japan (West Japan) aligned with the United States. Cold War tensions harden the division, and a fortified wall is built across Tokyo, cutting the city into East Tokyo and West Tokyo.

The story begins in East Tokyo, 1962. Nineteen-year-old Emilia Sugiura lives with her mother in the Oshiage district. By day she works as a waitress at the October Revolution Station (formerly Ueno Station) people’s canteen, where she is known for her brusque manner and an almost total lack of smiles. By night she operates as a secret escape contractor, smuggling people from the east to the free west across the heavily guarded border. She takes on dangerous missions for clients ranging from persecuted intellectuals and artists to defecting soldiers and political dissidents. Her motivation stems from the death of her older half-brother, Shigeru Sugiura, who died while trying to help his Austrian lover, Maria, escape to the west. His fate drives Emilia’s quiet, determined commitment to her work.

Each story arc follows a different escape operation, revealing the personal stakes of the people Emilia helps. She crosses paths with a police sketch artist obsessed with Paris, a former baseball player longing for the game, a British agent who defects from the west to the east, and an American pilot who crash‑lands in East Tokyo. She also encounters a man she believed dead—her own brother, who has resurfaced on a mission to assassinate the pilot. These episodes showcase the human cost of the divided nation and the moral complexities of Emilia’s trade.

As the series progresses, a larger conspiracy emerges. The Soviet leadership devises a plan to mount ballistic missiles on a super‑wide‑gauge railway built in East Japan, aiming them at the American mainland. A small resistance group learns of the scheme and seeks Emilia’s help. They launch a daring counter‑plan: to physically break the wall using a massive locomotive and thus shatter the Cold War stalemate in Japan. The narrative builds toward a climactic confrontation between the regime’s forces and the resistance, with Emilia at the centre of the struggle to tear down the barrier that has defined her life.

The manga presents a richly imagined “what‑if” Japan, blending 1960s aesthetics with Soviet‑era iconography. The setting’s details—renamed stations, red‑star emblems, Russian loanwords, the ever‑present militia—ground the alternate history in a gritty, believable reality. Through episodic escapades and a final overarching plot, the story explores themes of freedom, sacrifice, and the human desire to cross borders both physical and ideological.