Hiroshi Tanaka, a twenty-eight-year-old construction worker with a distinctive natural afro, finds himself at a crossroads. His employer, Asahi Construction, offers him a promotion to foreman, and the prospect of a stable but unremarkable future weighs on him. At the same time, his longtime friend Daisuke Murata calls him to Kanagawa with a proposal: renovate a dilapidated old folk house in the port town of Misaki and turn it into a guest house. Tanaka quits his job and moves to Misaki, where he takes a part-time job at a frozen-tuna processing plant to support himself while he and Murata work on the building. The physical labor is grueling, the money is tight, and Tanaka, separated from his girlfriend Nanako Yamada who lives in Tokyo pursuing a career as a manga artist, finds himself easily distracted by the local women.

The core of the story follows Tanaka's chaotic pursuit of his own version of happiness. After nearly a year of effort, the guest house is completed, but a fire burns it to the ground shortly after, destroying the dream. Tanaka returns to Asahi Construction to rebuild his savings, this time with a new goal: opening a fishing pond. He reunites with Nanako, and the two begin living together, but their relationship is strained by his lingering immaturity and her demanding work as a new serialized manga artist. A younger, awkward virgin coworker joins the construction crew, and Tanaka, now in a more stable position, finds himself unknowingly passing on the same bad advice and frustrated energy he once received from his own friends. The narrative is episodic, built around recurring themes of male libido, friendship, financial insecurity, and the gap between grand aspirations and everyday reality.

The series ends as Tanaka and Nanako, on their sixth anniversary, take a trip to a hot spring. Nanako discovers an engagement ring Tanaka had hidden and becomes anxious about his intentions. Tanaka, in a moment of genuine sincerity, proposes to her in a helicopter, closing the volume with a decisive step forward. The story concludes with Tanaka having moved beyond aimless drifting, having found his answer not in a grand project but in committing to the person beside him.