Tora-san is a man with nothing but a suitcase and the road, and somehow that makes him freer than everyone stuck in one place. He drifts into your town, sells you something you didn't know you needed, falls for someone he can't have, and leaves before it gets complicated. The magic is that he never stops doing this, never learns, never settles, and you never want him to.

Kuruma Torajirou, better known as Tora-san, is a traveling salesman who owns little more than a small suitcase, the clothes he wears and a bit of spending money. He moves from one town to the next, selling his goods wherever he lands. This one-episode special adapts Youji Yamada's long-running Otoko wa Tsurai yo film series into animation, bringing the wandering peddler's story to the screen as a comedy with a romantic streak.