Since the Heian era relocation, humans, tanuki, and tengu have maintained a delicate balance. But none of that matter as a young tanuki is tasked by an older tengu to deliver a dangerous letter.
Yasaburou visits Yajirou, who lives in the bottom of a well as a frog and forgot how to transform back into himself. When a storm comes, the three non-frog Shimogamo brothers race to help their mother, who is terrified of thunder.
In order to uphold a Shimogamo family tradition, Yasaburou needs to do what Yaichirou could not and come up with a leisure cruiser for them to launch. He asks to borrow Yakushibou's flying inner parlor, but ends up having to make a dangerous deal with Benten.
During the traditional Daimonji leisure cruise, the Ebisugawas come to pick on the Shimogamo family. Yasaburou fights bravely, but loses the Fujin Raijin folding fan. Fearing Benten's wrath, he goes into hiding after the inner parlor crashes.
Yasaburou had been hiding from Benten in Osaka, but thanks to Kinkaku and Ginkaku she catches him during a visit to Kyoto and makes him perform tanuki tricks for the Friday Fellows. It is revealed that Yasaburou's mother was saved by a man who gave her onigiri and also that one of the Friday Fellows, Hotei, has loved tanuki ever since he saved one and fed it onigiri...
Professor Yodogawa chases down Benten and Yasaburou, and they check out some autumn foliage. When she ditches them, Yodogawa has a lot to say about his philosophy of eating and Yasaburou also gets told a story about a conversation between Yodogawa and Benten's first tanuki hot pot victim, which he promptly reports to Yajirou.
Yasaburou, Yashirou, and Yaichirou convince Prof. Akadama to take a much-needed bath, but they run into the Ebisugawa twins at the bathhouse. After a brief scuffle it is revealed that Yajirou was at least partly responsible for Soichirou Shimogamo's death in the Friday Fellow's hot pot.
Yajirou tells Yasaburou and Yaichirou his account of the night their father was eaten. Later Yasaburou hears a continuation of the story Yajirou doesn't know: Soichirou bumped into Prof. Akadama on his way to the afterlife.
Yasaburou gets interrupted while warming his butt and sent to convince Prof. Akadama to attend the council where the new Nise-emon will be decided. He later succeeds in his quest for warmth, but over the wall splitting the men's and women's baths, he receives an ominous apology from Kaisei; her brothers are plotting something.
The meaning of Kaisei's mysterious apology becomes clear as the Ebisugawa plot to boil Yaichirou in a hot pot is revealed on the day of the Nise-emon election. The day is also the anniversary of Soichirou's death, for which it turns out Souun was responsible.
After Yasaburou gets a hand from Benten to escape Soun and his Elite Guard, the Ebisugawas manage to nab him anyway through a clever Kinkaku-Ginkaku plot. Meanwhile, Kaisei helps Yashirou escape the Electric Brandy factory and Yaichirou is handed over to the Friday Fellows as the primary ingredient for their year-end hot pot.
Yashirou comes up with a plan to get Yajirou back in the game, leading to the trouncing of Kinkaku and Ginkaku. Yashirou stalls the Nise-emon decision meeting while Yasaburou saves Yaichirou, but their mom is still in danger of becoming Friday Fellow hot pot.
Tanuki and human worlds collide as both the Nise-emon ceremony and Friday Fellow year-end bash descend into chaos. The scale of the disturbance increases when Prof. Akadama starts brandishing the Fujin Raijin folding fan, but by New Year’s everything settles down and Yasaburo and co. are able to calmly consider their hopes for the future.
