Genji loves a woman he can never have, and the show spends eleven episodes proving that knowing this from episode one doesn't make it hurt any less. The animation moves like calligraphy, each pan and filter dissolve doing the work of dialogue, turning longing into something you can see. A story about a man with everything learning that some desires survive even the Emperor's power.

In the Heian period, Genji Hikaru is the beloved second son of the Emperor, born to a concubine of low rank whom his father dearly loved. She dies when he is only three. Known as the Shining Prince, Genji cannot inherit his father's throne, yet he grows up with every pleasure and every kind of love within reach. When he meets Fujitsubo, a woman who looks just like his late mother, he falls for her. To escape that painful longing, one that even an Emperor's power cannot fulfill, he turns to relationships with many other women. The result is a romantic drama about desire that no privilege can satisfy.