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A review by juliemawesome
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 1 by Fumi Yoshinaga
5.0
I read this because it made the Tiptree Award list this year. I really enjoyed it. It's an alternate history of Japan in which a plague has wiped out most of the men. At first, it was reminding me of A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer.
Then we get to the "inner chamber" of the shogun. Traditionally, this was full of women. But because of this alternate history, it's full of men. Really greedy of the ruler to keep all of these men just for herself, when they could be out reproducing. Men are still in scarce supply.
There are all these rules, and customs, and traditions of the inner chamber that we slowly learn about. Even as the main character in this volume is learning about them, being a new arrival to it himself. There are different levels of men and it can all get rather confusing if you don't pay close attention.
The one negative comment I do have to say about it is that I felt like some of the rules were being contradicted in later chapter by different rules. Which is a problem I've seen in other manga. It may be a result of the serial nature of most manga. The author thinks of some cool thing to add and doesn't care or doesn't remember what's gone before that might not match up with the new idea. And of course that earlier bit has been published, so it's a little too late to revise it.
So, I don't know. We'll see if the further volumes make other bits make more sense, or if it brings up new problems for me.
It did convince me that I want to read other things by this mangaka.
Then we get to the "inner chamber" of the shogun. Traditionally, this was full of women. But because of this alternate history, it's full of men. Really greedy of the ruler to keep all of these men just for herself, when they could be out reproducing. Men are still in scarce supply.
There are all these rules, and customs, and traditions of the inner chamber that we slowly learn about. Even as the main character in this volume is learning about them, being a new arrival to it himself. There are different levels of men and it can all get rather confusing if you don't pay close attention.
The one negative comment I do have to say about it is that I felt like some of the rules were being contradicted in later chapter by different rules. Which is a problem I've seen in other manga. It may be a result of the serial nature of most manga. The author thinks of some cool thing to add and doesn't care or doesn't remember what's gone before that might not match up with the new idea. And of course that earlier bit has been published, so it's a little too late to revise it.
So, I don't know. We'll see if the further volumes make other bits make more sense, or if it brings up new problems for me.
It did convince me that I want to read other things by this mangaka.