Kouhei Araki has been working at the Genbu Publishing house for several years, in the dictionary department. He's committed most of his time to his work and he's the responsible for a great amount of dictionaries. However his time is coming, and he's now looking to go into retirement and take care of his sickly wife. In order to do this he's last mission is to find a suitable replacement with the required abilities ton conduct his last project: "The Great Passage", a brand new dictionary. After long unsuccessful searches, his choice lays upon Mitsuya Majime.