Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 2

This is all about political intrigue. The language is jarring. It's trying to mimic old English and it doesn't land very well. There's violence and scenes alluding to rape. Vol 2 absolutely does have rape included in it. Nothing explicit is shown on page but you know what's happening. It's text heavy, know this going in as it is not a quick read.

Overall, it's an interesting premise and I'm here for the ride.

The fun, strange, imaginative story continues.

You know the male gaze? Yeah, this manga is aaaalll about the female gaze. Or, more specifically, the fanfiction gaze (which I would argue is still basically the female gaze). I read through this with great nostalgia, after each fanfic trope was rolled out: strong male/male homoeroticism, angst and hurt/comfort, plots that center around STRONG EMOTIONS and not much else, ah yes. Ah, the fanfic ways, I had forgotten about these. How I miss you, fanfic! Someday I'll de-anonymize myself and share my most excellent Obi-Wan Kenobi fic.

I mean, I guess a more charitable interpretation of this is that it's all about fluid gender expression and fluid sexuality, and it's also super feminist. But hey: SO IS FANFIC! And given that the first line of Fumi Yoshinaga's wiki is that she's known for shōjo (manga aimed at teen girls) and yaoi (boy/boy manga), well, yeah. I stand by my thesis: if you fanfic, you will definitely love this.

So this manga picks up in the same time period as Ooku Vol. 1: it's 17th century Japan, a “red pox” has killed more than half the men of the land, and the Shogun is now (secretly) a woman with a (now reversed) male harem called the “inner chambers”. Like Vol. 1, our protagonist is a very pretty man indeed, called Arikoto - a traveling Buddhist monk who, because of his stunning good looks (remarked upon or the loving focus of every third panel or so), is forced to disrobe (pun semi-intended) and join the inner chambers, ostensibly as a “catamite” for the “male” shogun (actually as a stud for the female shogun). His young assistant monk (WHO LOVES HIM A LOT) also disrobes and joins him to be his valet in the castle.

Thus begineth the drama. And forsooth the awful Shakespearean translationeth. Oof.

Anyway, the shogun is a young lady (18 years old?) who is (1) kinda awful, (2) but she's had a tough life, ya know. There is a lot of drama around a kitten. Arikoto just basically emits waves and waves of golden compassion and good looks and something I like to call SOUL HONOR. Sexual and romantic tension is set to high: between Arikoto and his valet, between Arikoto and the shogun. A lot of bad stuff happens, but in the style of fanfic where it kinda feels earnest but also trivializing? Uh, trigger warning for sexual assault. (Also, fwiw “trigger warning” originated in the fanfic world, since that is actually, weirdly, also a fanfic trope: sexual assault scenes used as plot devices for additional angst/romantic tension.) Oh, here's some survey results of fanfic tropes.

This takes us back almost eighty years beginning around 6 years after the death of the last male shogun. In the previous volume Yoshimune goes to Murase to ask about the Chronicle of the Dying Day and in this volume two the Chronicle plays out.

In the first volume there was some humor and attempts at lightheartedness. Here is just a lot of bleakness, violence and tragedy. Kasuga will not let anything stop her from saving the Tokugawa name. Murder, kidnapping, whatever, she'll do it. She is a terrifying character.

There was just a lot of sadness, but we got to see the transition from being a place that housed women for the shogun to a place that housed men who thought that their male shogun was still alive and favored men. The secrets that were kept and doled out to a select few who were then doomed never to leave the Inner Chambers.

I am anxious to get back to Yoshimune to see how she will have taken this account and what she will do, if anything, to change the state of affairs in Japan. And also, how she will deal with the Inner Chambers.