During a steampunk industrial revolution, Japan's population survives behind fortified stations connected by armored locomotives, the only safe passage through hordes of Kabane, undead whose hearts glow behind an iron cage of bone. When Kabane breach Aragane Station, engineer Ikoma uses a weapon of his own design to fight back, but the bite he sustains transforms him into a Kabaneri, a hybrid who retains his mind but craves blood. Aboard the fleeing Koutetsujou, Ikoma joins forces with Mumei, a mysterious Kabaneri girl serving the shogunate, as the survivors push toward the last safe stronghold.