Fuyu no Semi

In the final years of the shogunate, Touma Kusaka rejects the anti-foreign hostility common among his Choshu comrades and secretly studies English in the hope of seeing a wider world for Japan. He reunites with Keiichirou Akizuki, a Tokugawa retainer who once helped him escape, and the two begin studying together despite their families standing on opposing political sides.

Their secret meetings grow into a love neither can safely acknowledge. As war approaches between the forces they serve, every military decision becomes a direct threat to their relationship. They dream of a time when names and clans will no longer decide who must be an enemy, but the political winter around them grows harsher long before such a spring can arrive.