Aspiring picture book author Takashi Shiratori, who faced a three-hour train ride from his family home to his vocational school, impulsively decides to move to Tokyo. He settles into "Narutaki-so," an apartment run by his mother's cousin. However, Narutaki-so is filled with residents who are all quite eccentric in their own ways, and from the very first day of his move, Takashi finds himself constantly swept up in their antics. Yet, the most unusual of them all is the landlady, Kozue Aoba.