Manga Rec: Ōoku - The Inner Chambers
Dec. 5th, 2018 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crane_among_celandinesSo, I'm going to inaugurate this place with a recommendation for something insufficiently well known: the manga Ōoku.
Ōoku is a historical(ish) drama series set in an alternate-history version of the Tokugawa shogunate, all following from the premise: "What if a deadly disease killed off 3/4 of the male population?"
The posited answer is that -- with bloodline succession being considered paramount among families of the samurai caste at the time -- they would legitimise succession through the female line, beginning with the ruling Tokugawa clan. This leads over time to a matriarchal society, wherein the roles of men and women become very different from what we're accustomed to. Men, being rare, become principally valued as sources of children, creating an interesting situation where the majority of actual work is done by women, while men, depending on the status of their family, become either sheltered princes to be spent in marriage alliances, or human stud-horses being whored out for money to women who want to beget a child.
The series has an extraordinary scope, covering multiple generations of the Tokugawa shoguns over a period of centuries. The eponymous "Inner Chambers", which are the personal harem of noblemen kept for the use of the shogun, provide the setting for many of the arcs, especially early on, but as the series continues we are given a broader view of this alternate version of Japan. The device of the Red Pox and the skewed gender balance are cunningly employed as an alternate explanation for the Tokugawa shogunate's isolationist policies, with a concern that foreign powers might view Japan as weak if they realised it was a nation populated mostly by women. (Though somewhat to my disappointment, no-one suggests infecting the West with the Pox as a counter-gambit.)
The basic concept, "what if all the social power was given to women" is one which is often clumsily handled in fiction, but Ōoku deftly avoids the common pitfalls and produces a logically consistent world with its own set of social structures and stereotypes that both lampoon and interrogate those of reality. Both male and female characters are treated throughout as people with agency, struggling with the roles imposed by that society.
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All in all, I would rank it as one of the great underlooked classics of manga, especially for anyone with an interest in sociology or gender roles.
(Also testing crossposting to Tumblr...)
Ōoku is a historical(ish) drama series set in an alternate-history version of the Tokugawa shogunate, all following from the premise: "What if a deadly disease killed off 3/4 of the male population?"
The posited answer is that -- with bloodline succession being considered paramount among families of the samurai caste at the time -- they would legitimise succession through the female line, beginning with the ruling Tokugawa clan. This leads over time to a matriarchal society, wherein the roles of men and women become very different from what we're accustomed to. Men, being rare, become principally valued as sources of children, creating an interesting situation where the majority of actual work is done by women, while men, depending on the status of their family, become either sheltered princes to be spent in marriage alliances, or human stud-horses being whored out for money to women who want to beget a child.
The series has an extraordinary scope, covering multiple generations of the Tokugawa shoguns over a period of centuries. The eponymous "Inner Chambers", which are the personal harem of noblemen kept for the use of the shogun, provide the setting for many of the arcs, especially early on, but as the series continues we are given a broader view of this alternate version of Japan. The device of the Red Pox and the skewed gender balance are cunningly employed as an alternate explanation for the Tokugawa shogunate's isolationist policies, with a concern that foreign powers might view Japan as weak if they realised it was a nation populated mostly by women. (Though somewhat to my disappointment, no-one suggests infecting the West with the Pox as a counter-gambit.)
The basic concept, "what if all the social power was given to women" is one which is often clumsily handled in fiction, but Ōoku deftly avoids the common pitfalls and produces a logically consistent world with its own set of social structures and stereotypes that both lampoon and interrogate those of reality. Both male and female characters are treated throughout as people with agency, struggling with the roles imposed by that society.
-
All in all, I would rank it as one of the great underlooked classics of manga, especially for anyone with an interest in sociology or gender roles.
(Also testing crossposting to Tumblr...)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-07 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-07 09:56 am (UTC)I'm sorry the translation turned you off though. I admit it took me a little while to get used to, but in the end I thought it was a neat idea. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the original Japanese was also written in an archaic style, because it seems unlikely to me that a translator would make a choice like this just at random.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-08 11:15 pm (UTC)