In this sequel to Children in the Wind, Shimizu unfolds the further adventures of Zenta and Sanpei. Against the poetic background of the four seasons, the brothers become a bit more seasoned themselves following the death of their father. Forced to find work, they are taken in by their grandfather (unbeknownst to them, due to a family feud, he is an old man who lives in the next village). The family fortunes continue to seesaw while the two robust boys weather it all with their inherent optimism. "The child and adult worlds collide in scenes showing the over-indulgent and absolutely blind love for children which is so much a part of the traditionally Japanese attitude. Shimizu, while showing it, and even engaging in it himself, did not hesitate to criticize it, much of the power of the film deriving from the children's natural aversion to adult sentimentality" (Donald Richie). John Gillett notes, "(Here) is an expressive fusion of all Shimizu's thematic and stylistic preoccupations: distant shooting of figures placed in a living, open-air landscape, a loving regard for children (and their early experiences of adult chicanery), and a traveling camera which always reveals. The passage of time is conveyed in sequences of limpid, lyrical impressionism (laced with humor) which look forward to early Satyajit Ray..."