Hyouge Mono

In faraway Japan, three hundred years before a famous Russian literary hero asked whether the world should go to ruin or he should go without his tea, Lord Sasuke Furuta, a vassal of the great Oda Nobunaga, was going through a midlife crisis. A skilled warrior and courtier, as well as a refined connoisseur of beauty, he began to ponder his purpose in life. He understood that as a military commander he could never surpass his liege, and there were more than enough mighty warriors and political geniuses around him. And so Sasuke decided to devote himself to the art of the tea ceremony, dreaming of becoming the greatest master in the Land of the Rising Sun and outdoing Oda himself.

His plans, however, are disrupted by Nobunaga's order to go and punish a faithless ally, Lord Matsunaga, and to recover the unique Hiragumo teakettle, which resembles a flat spider. Following the way of chado, Sasuke now seeks on his campaigns not gold and glory but rare objects and the secrets of the tea ceremony. His new passion makes him an eccentric and an oddball in the eyes of those around him, but he is convinced that the way of tea is worth it. After all, as the saying goes, to be or not to be, but tea must be drunk all the same!