Capeta

After losing his mother early in life, elementary schooler Capeta Taira learns to take care of himself so his overworked father won’t have even more to worry about. With his father putting in long hours at a paving company just to get by, Capeta keeps a tough face at home while quietly dealing with loneliness—made worse by constant trouble from bully Nobu Andou, even as classmate Monami Suzuki offers him support.

Everything shifts when Capeta’s father watches young drivers tearing around a go-kart track and decides to build something for his son from discarded parts. When Capeta and Monami sneak into the workplace to see what he’s hiding, they find a battered but functional kart labeled with Capeta’s name—still missing an engine, but unmistakably real. Unable to resist, Capeta takes it out in the pouring rain, and a downhill run on slick roads turns a near-disaster into the spark of a new obsession, pulling him toward the world of racing.