The Board of Directors at the Daitoku Automobile Corporation is locked in a bitter dispute over the appointment of a new director. Split between two factions, they seek the opinion of the company's founder, who is on his deathbed and only semi-conscious. The two men dispatched to solicit the founder's opinion get an unexpected response: "What ever happened to Namijirou Hira?" They don't realize that he was merely reminiscing about an old friend, and had no idea what the question was. And so, passing over many qualified candidates, the Board selects a nobody from a remote branch office—Mr. Namijirou Hira. (Source: Mangajin)

Excerpts of the first volume of Torishimariyaku Hira Namijirou were published with English annotations in issues 43 through 46 of the Japanese language learning magazine Mangajin from March 1995 to June 1995.