The Grapes of Joy

Haruna’s dream is making confectionaries who bring happiness to people who eat them. After graduating high school, she applies for work at Minamoto Kitchoan, a company that makes Japanese style confectionaries. Her winning smile convinces the company president to hire her, but her trainee assignments to shop sales, production, and product development do not go well, and she is sent out to assist at one of the vineyards that supply alexandria grapes, which are used for one of the company’s famous confectionaries. The farmer, Akiyoshi, does not want her help and tells her to leave, but she persists. Akiyoshi, it turns out, lost his only son Taro ten years before, and is determined that his vineyard will end with him. Vines his son grafted just before he died are about to reach the end of their productive life, and Akiyoshi plans to have them and their greenhouse destroyed. Haruna tries and fails to convince him to regraft these vines and thus keep Taro’s memory alive. When Haruna is about to quit the company and return her hometown, the area is hit with massive floods that leave Taro’s former greenhouse buried in a sea of mud. Haruna goes out to the vineyard and sets to work digging...