It is 1841. Japanese fisherman Shima and his younger brother are wrecked on an uninhabited island by a typhoon. Rescued by a passing Yankee whaling ship, they become unwilling passengers in a world filled with foreign faces, an unfamiliar language, and a hostile chief mate. But when the reclusive captain suddenly falls ill, Shima and third mate Daniel Ellis stumble upon a secret from his past that brings together their previously isolated worlds. Inspired by the true story of John Manjiro, one of the first Japanese-Americans and later interpreter to the shogun, "The Sea-God at Sunrise" is a tale of friendship and forgiveness across two cultures at the height of America's Golden Age of Whaling.