The Garden of Words

言の葉の庭

Takao Akizuki, a fifteen-year-old aspiring shoemaker, skips morning classes on rainy days to sketch designs at Shinjuku Gyoen garden. There he keeps meeting Yukari Yukino, a woman twelve years his senior who sits alone on the same gazebo bench. Over the rainy season their mornings settle into a quiet routine—Takao sketching shoes, Yukari sipping beer and reciting tanka—until he decides to make a pair of shoes for her.