Maya's raw hunger to become an actress crashes into Ayumi's inherited certainty, and neither girl understands that they need each other more than they need to win. The show spends forty years of animation asking what it costs a kid to choose greatness, then makes you watch her pay it. By the time she auditions for the Crimson Goddess, you realize you've been watching her transform into someone her thirteen-year-old self wouldn't recognize, and you're not sure if that's beautiful or tragic.

Kitajima Maya is a 13-year-old with a natural gift for acting when Tsukikage, a reclusive actress, discovers her. As Maya grows up, trains hard and faces one challenge after another, she develops into the leading actress of her generation. Her greatest rival is Himekawa Ayumi, the beautiful daughter of a famous film couple, and the two end up competing for the most coveted part of all, the Crimson Goddess. Complicating everything is Hayami Masumi, a handsome and ruthless entertainment mogul who quietly becomes her biggest fan. Their romance is repeatedly thwarted by misunderstandings and bad timing. The result is a drama about ambition and growing into an artist.