By Fumi Yoshinaga
Published by Viz, 216 pp.
Rating: Mature (18+)

You may have gleaned from my glowing review of Flower of Life’s fourth volume that I have a deep love for Fumi Yoshinaga’s manga. With that great love, the cold-hearted critic in me has great expectations. In many cases, I am let down (was Ral Grad the best you could do, Takeshi Obata? Really?). Fumi Yoshinaga on the other hand has yet to disappoint. While some of her earlier works like Truly, Kindly are somewhat less substantial in comparison to her more recent masterpieces like Flower of Life and Antique Bakery, they all contain the same qualities that set Fumi Yoshinaga apart: deep and sympathetic characters and a completely down-to-earth world.

To my great surprise, Ooku: The Inner Chambers has done what no other Yoshinaga work has and thrown that second positive quality of a realistic world out the window. In the alternate universe feudal Japan of Ooku: The Inner Chambers, the male population has been decimated by an unknown malady. Whether the force that wipes out Japan’s men is spiritual or simply an epidemic is never revealed when it is unleashed by an innocent rural boy who is brought back to his village after being fatally wounded by a somewhat rabid-looking bear. Since they are now a precious and extremely limited commodity, men’s roles in society quickly shift from powerful to subservient, from the rulers to facilitators of reproduction.

In many ways, Ooku: The Inner Chambersis a feminist exploration of how Japanese feudal society would have functioned had women been in charge. The world is not, in fact, so different. The result of rule by women seems to have resulted in business continuing exactly as it would have otherwise, albeit more peacefully. In the world of Ooku: The Inner Chambers the main value men have in society is as hyper-objectified bargaining chips for family prosperity. The men are whored by their families for income and married off for wealth and prestige. As rightly horrifying as the men’s lot in this story is, I believe that Yoshinaga is making an important point: the denigrating role that men fill in the world of Ooku: The Inner Chambers that shocks the reader so profoundly is essentially the same role that real-life women filled in feudal Japan and continue to fill in much of the world to this day. By turning the tables on our socially defined gender roles, where we expect women to be the objectified tools for procreation, and placing instead that unjust burden on men, Fumi Yoshinaga compels us to question why these sexist prejudices and discriminatory attitudes can be allowed to permeate the modern world.

Feminist critique aside, Ooku: The Inner Chambers has many other stellar qualities. The protagonist of the story of the manga is unclear even by the end of the first volume, thanks to Yoshinaga’s masterful storytelling skills. The man whom we follow for most of the volume, Mizuno Yunoshin, is removed from the spotlight near its end through the complicated politics of the Inner Chambers, the glorified harem of men that serves the female shogun, where he resides. The really riveting character becomes instead the shogun herself, a practical and sharp-witted woman who plans to tackle Japan’s festering social tension over gender politics head-on. Ooku: The Inner Chambers also has noticeably improved art from Yoshinaga’s characteristic minimalist style, and the clothing of the characters is a marvel to look at it. Ooku: The Inner Chambers is many firsts for Yoshinaga: it is her first gander at a universe noticeably unlike our own, her first story featuring a female protagonist, and truly her first work with an epic scope.

Ooku: The Inner Chambers deserves its many accolades, which include both the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize and an Excellence Prize in the 2006 Japan Media Arts Festival. Ooku: The Inner Chambers is easily Fumi Yoshinaga’s most compelling and thought-provoking work to date. I whole-heartedly recommend this series as perhaps her best to date, and with her body of work that is no small feat.

Volume one of Ooku: The Inner Chambers is out now