Every day in Japan, 2500 people die due to any number of causes. Do you think you'll be one of the ones to die? No, of course not. Do you think you'll win the lottery? You'd like to think so, we all would. But Sumida is different. He wants the status quo to remain in every way; live a normal life, get a normal job, have normal kids, never to be anyone fortunate or unfortunate, content in normalcy. Anyone who doesn't agree is foolish, doomed to live their life scraping up a mountain that they can never conquer, fated to die in despair wishing things had been better.
When his mother kicks his father out of the house and onto the streets, he thinks he'll be fine. When his mother leaves him to live with her boyfriend, he makes the best of it. When he realizes that he's no longer average, he strives to make his life worthwhile the only way he knows how. When the demons in the back of his mind speak to him, he tries his best to ignore them.
