Set in the Taisho era, which might be regarded as Japan's Hippie Phase, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Because of her independent, anti-war and often erotic poetry, she was a lightning rod for revolutionaries and other extremists, many of whom were destined to glamorous, yet ultimately pointless, deaths. The closest parallels might be the Byron/Shelley group or the people drawn to the Beat Generation.
Yumechiyo, a geisha house madam recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, yearns to do something constructive with the little time she has left. Through her responsibility lies in taking care of her girls, she finds purpose in providing a man innocent of a false murder charge and in the process discovers love for the first time in his arms.
