On her sixteenth birthday, Washington D.C. foster kid Elle Zoellner discovers that her long-lost father, Kenji Takahari, is actually a Japanese hotel mogul and wants her to come live with him. She meets her father, aunt, and grandmother in Tokyo. In an effort to please her new family Elle falls in with the Ex-Brats, a troupe of über-cool international kids at the International Collegiate School of Tokyo, who spend money like it's air. She starts to crush on a boy named Ryuu, who is despised by her new family, putting her already tenuous living situation at risk. -- adapted from jacket