Ooku 4

Fumi Yoshinaga – Viz – 2010 – 7+ volumes

To be three volumes behind on this series is a tragedy. I’m not sure why I suddenly stopped reading new volumes of this, but taking in three at a time is a good idea. It’s a lot easier to follow the characters and the relationships between the shogun this way.

One thing that this brings to light, though, is just how much I was missing by being completely unfamiliar with Japanese history. Yoshinaga is re-telling the story of every shogun in order, I assume all the way through the Meiji Restoration. The gender flip is interesting, but I bet it is even more fascinating if you have grown up listening to the history of the male Shogun. Similarly, she adds twists, such as lovers and whatnot, that I’m sure add some light to historical rumors, and I wonder how much different her version is from the rumors, or even the documented history. I still enjoy it, even without that knowledge, but every volume makes it clear that it was not written for me.

But Yoshinaga is an excellent storyteller, and the characters, their struggles, and just how hard one shogun tries while another enjoys leisure time comes across wonderfully, even without the history lesson. The loves, the losses, the struggle with disease, trouble with social standing and laws both inside and outside the palace… all of it is interesting stuff, and watching the very human characters fight against these things will never get old, I think.

Arikoto is still a major player in this volume, and we see him stand through the rules of both Iemitsu and Ietsuna. In fact, he periodically re-appears through the next several volumes, since his disciple stays and becomes a major player in the life of the third shogun, Tsunayoshi.

Having all three shogun in one book is an interesting contrast in governing styles. Iemitsu is extremely involved and believes in doing good, and tries her best to overcome the disappearing male problem, trying to balance power until the male population is re-established. The problem only gets worse, and during her reign, women slowly assume all the power in Edo. Her passing is grieved by all those around her. Conversely, Ietsuna has an extremely hands-off approach, and simply lets her counselors and cabinet do what they think is best.

Interestingly, save for her relationship to Arikoto, Ietsuna’s life is glossed over. She assumes power at the age of fourteen, and passes away at the age of forty-two. Compared to the amount of story time for the troubled Tsunayoshi, it’s interesting that we aren’t given many details or much insight into the life of Ietsuna.

Tsunayoshi is portrayed rather selfishly early on, and we are shown much about her sex life. It is important for the Shogun to bear many children, and while Tsunayoshi has one daughter when she becomes shogun, her father and consort try everything in their power to keep her interested in men so that she can bear more children. There is a lot of entertaining, a family destroyed for little reason, and power plays by both the consort and her father concerning handsome men and how she might favor them.

It’s difficult to describe why this section of story is interesting. While Tsunayoshi can do cruel things, like take her favorite advisor’s husband as a lover, then her son, she’s not really uncaring or a villain. What’s interesting is that she’s not nearly as bad as a handful of her most influential people, and is mostly a product of her environment. And honestly, what can you expect from her, when everyone around her thinks that her most important duty should be to bear children? That’s simply her job, to oogle men all day and have sex with them at night. It’s a terrible life, and later, it’s no wonder she’s not very popular… she’s not really allowed to do anything else. She’s young in this volume, but it becomes a problem later in the story.

But I’ll talk about this more later. It really was an absolute pleasure reading three volumes of this at once, and helps to keep all the historical details in order. It’s very much worth reading, and I’m thinking of starting from the beginning in order to make sure I have the timeline in order.