Pepe is a Spanish cyclist competing in the Vuelta a España, a multi-stage Iberian cycling race similar to the Tour de France. He is a support rider for one of the teams competing in the race, and his role is to assist the team's top rider in winning the overall race. As the story unfolds, the racers are set to ride through Pepe's home town in Andalusia on the same day as the wedding of his elder brother Ángel to his former girlfriend Carmen. Their relationship was a factor in his decision to leave the town to pursue professional cycling, and the wedding is a frustrating reminder that his career hasn't turned out as he would have liked. Now, with the sponsor planning to drop him from the team and his family and friends cheering him on, Pepe abandons his assigned role and strives for glory. 
(Source: Anime News Network, edited)

Team Pao Pao Beer travel east to participate in the Japan Cup in what is very likely to be their final season together. Pepe Benengeli and teammate Jean Luigi Ciocci face an uncertain future and are also yet to come to terms with the suicide of one their heroes, Marco Rondanini. What follows is an introspective into the important things in life from the perspective of the professional cyclist.

Nasu is a collection of stories, focusing on a returning series of characters, such as Takama, a farmer, and a young girl named Aya Takashi, who begins the series abandoned by her father and residing in Tokyo with her two younger siblings, and as the manga progresses to its second volume, leaves the city to reside in the countryside with her relatives, near Takama's farm. Apart from the chapters concerning Takama and Aya, other stories are also featured, such as one telling the chronicles of samurai in the Edo period hunting forbidden eggplant (nasu), another set atop a futuristic Mount Fuji, another tale concerning a truck driver, and also Summer in Andalusia, the story concerning the professional Spanish bicyclist Pepe Benengeli, from which the film was adapted.

A cyclist races in a criterium so that a woman may be allowed to travel to England, where she will recieve an abortion.

Music video for the song Jitensha Show-ka by Kiyoshirou Imawano. The song was used as the ending theme for Nasu: Andalusia no Natsu.

Tags