Based on real characters and events, Storm Rider is a vivid historical portrait of Japan and America in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as an exciting high-seas adventure and a moving story of a man lost between two cultures.

At the age of thirteen, Hikotaro is orphaned and left to a life at sea. When the merchant vessel he sails on is caught in a violent storm on the Pacific, an American ship comes to the rescue and takes the young boy to San Francisco. With trepidation and hope, the boy-now dubbed Hikozo-accepts his new country. Still, he dreams of returning to Japan, but shogunate policy forbids reentry to Japanese who have been abroad. He tries anyway, only to be refused and returned to America, where a wealthy American adopts Hikozo and introduces him to a world of influence and power. Some ten years later, Hikozo returns to a Japan stirred into violence by the opening of the country. At the same time, America is in the midst of its bloody Civil War, and Hikozo finds that there is no place he can call home.