Kazuyuki Yamamura is a tall, good-looking man in his 30s, who was also good at his job. In fact, not so long ago he bought a house for himself, his wife and their kindergarten-age daughter in a leafy suburb of Tokyo. Then, unexpectedly, his company found itself in choppy financial waters -- and he was thrown overboard in the name of "restructuring."

Now, Yamamura stays home. While he dons an apron and busies himself in the kitchen, sweats over the cleaning and does battle with the rudiments of cooking, his wife Miki spends most of her days in meetings or staring at a computer screen at the publishing house where she's started to work.

Though Yamamura is struggling to master his new duties as a househusband, he has no complaints about that -- and only slightly mixed feelings about his wife's lively work-life. In fact, besides so far failing to find a new job for himself, his major difficulty appears to be being accepted into a circle of housewives he's constantly bumping into.