Sakuya

A 40-something disillusioned novelist, Yazoe, haunted by a failed marriage and a crippling personal secret, navigates hollow affairs with a courtesan named Chieko while projecting his emotional void onto the protagonists of his love novels—until an accidental encounter with a naive college student, Noriko Seyawa, unravels his guarded solitude, forcing him to confront his fear of intimacy and the buried trauma shaping his twisted philosophy on love.

The 1923 Kanto earthquake sparks fears of a Korean uprising in Japan. Many anti-colonial and leftist activists are arrested, including Fumiko and her partner Yeol. Accused of a plot to assassinate the Crown Prince, they are sentenced to death, later reduced to life in prison.