Having botched his entrance exams to a prestigious university, the dim-witted but earnest Hikoichi Otsu (Fujio) refuses to swallow his pride by doing the decent thing and admitting his failure to his mother back home in the country. His plight is made more desperate by a recently opened department store in his hometown threatening to engulf the family business and his father's dying words that without a degree one has no future in a rapidly modernising Japan. Not wanting to lose face, he just puts on his uniform anyway and turns up to his literature classes as if he were a bona-fide freshman. He looks sure to get away with his charade too, until a chance encounter with the leader of a group of student radicals named Soratani (Itami) throws him way out of his depth.