In the middle of the 19th century, Japan was still closed off from the outside world. There were just the beginning signs of reformation in the long regime of Shogun Tokugawa. In the remote countryside, on the island of Shikoko, a young boy named Ryoma is growing up in a lower-class Samurai family. A decade later, he is to become on of the leading figures to topple the Shogun's reign and open Japan to the western wor...