In March 1945, American bombers destroy most of Kobe during the waning days of the Pacific War. Children of an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, Seita and his sister Setsuko, survive, but their mother dies. Seita conceals their mother's death from Setsuko. The siblings move in with a distant aunt, and Seita retrieves supplies he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops, which he gives to Setsuko. The aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimonos for rice, which devastates Setsuko.