Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 1

gender reversal + court intrigue!

Fun, clever, refreshing. I had no idea what this was going to be about, and I was DELIGHTED when it was a strange, feminist, sci-fi alt history of 18th century Japan.

Similar to Y: The Last Man and that one short story by Ursula Le Guin about a planet with a super lopsided sex ratio leading to a weird medieval matriarchy - ARGH, WHAT IS THAT STORY CALLED, I'VE LOST IT - anyway: it's about a super lopsided sex ratio leading to a weird medieval matriarchy.

In Ooku, it happens due to a weird “pox” that kills many, many dudes in the early 18th century, and so we have a female shogun visiting her harem of pretty boys, and we follow one very pretty young man as he tries to make it and provide for his family. Just like in the (brilliant and argh what's it called!!) Ursula Le Guin story, having very, very few men turns the remaining men into studs who need to be farmed out to, ahem, spread their seed. Men are seen as fragile things, super important for procreation. Marriage is central to a man's life. Women take on all manual labor (lest men hurt themselves!), and the entire samurai and aristocratic structure is led by women. Interestingly, all women in leadership positions take male names - leading to, ahem, not a blip on the record keeping. And this matriarchy - it is just as oppressive!

In Vol. 1, we follow Mizuno, a handsome young buck who decides to join the shogun's “inner chambers” (male harem) to try to provide for his family. He is devastated to leave his girlfriend, O-Nobu, but understands that, for his poor-ish family, this is the best way. Once he's in the harem, he's confronted with the usual haremy stereotypes of eunuchs, gossip, cat fighting, and homosexuality - except it's all dudes, this time! Everyone is scrambling to get to the top and be seen by the new shogun, a tough, lusty, no-frills military lady named Yoshimune.

What I really loved about this was how deft the pacing and plot was. If you had no idea what it was about, as I did, the story orients you quickly and delightfully - from a child going into the forest and accidentally bringing the “red pox” back, to the visit by a Dutch traveller - these are wonderful little set-pieces which reveal this world without telling us. They show us! So that was masterful. I also really enjoyed how “real” the inner chambers felt; when I googled the author and saw that she's also know for manga slash fic (arghh what's that genre called; anyway I call it “slash fic” cuz I was once a fanfic person, and that just means m/m homoerotica written by women), I was like, “oh is this going to get silly”. (If you've read a lot of slash fic, you know that it can get oh so very silly - pregnant Harry Potter!) But the slashiness never felt indulgent; instead, it felt restrained (considering we're in a man harem!!!) and sweet and real. For example, Mizuno's servant - a young tailor - has a GIANT, adorable crush on him, and the way this is handled feels like the way, well, it COULD be handled.

Anyway, fun, different, LUSTY (ho ho), I'm definitely going to be reading Vol. 2.

At first glance this is very similar to Y: The Last Man and while I did enjoy those, Ōoku is telling a story much more intriguing to me. I think maybe because it is written by a female we're missing those moments of annoying sexism that were pretty prevalent in Y: The Last Man. Also, in Y the decimation of the male population is much more present. Here, we're 80 years past the first case in a time when some people don't even remember when there were just as many men as women. So we're focused less on why this has happened and more so on ‘now what?'.

I really enjoy Fumi Yoshigana's art and storytelling. While this is much more serious than Antique Bakery (my only other exposure to Yoshigana's work) she still inserts small moments of humor into the panels to break up the tension. She's written something much more complicated and revealing than I expected.

The story begins with the introduction of the Redface Pox and it's devastating effects. Shorty thereafter we skip ahead 80 years and get a glimpse of life as it stands with women in power and carrying the burdens of a country reinvented. Yunoshin is a handsome man who has very little care until his mother arranges for him a fortunate marriage. Instead he offers to put himself in service to the Shogun at the Ōoku. Once there he learns quickly that living with only men has its downsides.

When the young Shogun dies a newer, more experienced and shrewd Shogun steps into her place and she has big plans for turning everything around. She is smart and no-nonsense, yet she is compassionate and caring in her dealings with the men in her employ. She has suspicions of the state of affairs in her country and she intends to get to the bottom of everything.

So you have some romance and some political intrigue all wrapped up with some gorgeous art!