Nightsong of Splendor

The story unfolds in old Tokyo during August and September of 1923, a city caught between contrasts-tradition and modernity, wealth and poverty, virtue and vice. Horse-drawn carts share the streets with automobiles, swords clash with pistols, and aristocrats mingle with merchants. A highborn woman becomes drawn to Taka, a handsome young man entangled, along with his younger brother, in the city's criminal underworld, though their ties to the yakuza may not be entirely by choice. When the woman's maid, Sara, also encounters Taka, tensions rise, setting the stage for tragedy, passion, and disgrace. As time passes, an ominous date looms: September 1, 1923, at 11:58-the moment the Great Kanto Earthquake and tsunami devastate Tokyo, claiming nearly 100,000 lives in one of history's deadliest calamities.