Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, tagged alternate history, Arikoto, Aso Yumi, Ôoku: Tanjô, female sexuality, Gender, gender expression, genderswap, Gyokuei, Iemitsu, J-drama, Kasuga, Masakatsu, Matsudaira, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, Sakai Masato, samurai, shipping, Tabe Mikako, Tanaka Koki, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku on 2013/05/04 | 1 Comment »
First of all, a bit of (old?) news from the entertainment world: Kanno Miho, who played Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi in the film Ôoku: Eien, and Sakai Masato, who played Arikoto in the drama and Emonosuke in the film, registered their marriage on 2 April. おめでとうございます！May your work in excellent gender-based dramas lead to you happiness. (Sources: Oricon, Tokyo Hive)
Source: Oricon
Posted in Ôoku, Gender, tagged alternate history, Arikoto, Aso Yumi, Ôoku: Tanjô, Gender, gender expression, genderswap, Gyokuei, Iemitsu, J-drama, Kasuga, Masakatsu, Matsudaira, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, Sakai Masato, samurai, Tabe Mikako, Tanaka Koki, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku on 2013/03/07 | 2 Comments »
Have no fear–I didn’t forget about this project!
Aired Nov. 14, 2012, on TBS.
This recap contains spoilers for the drama and the manga. Episode 5 recap here; manga analysis here; Ôoku category (film, manga, and drama) here.
Image via TBS. http://www.tbs.co.jp/ohoku2012/gallery/p06-04.html
Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, tagged Arikoto, Aso Yumi, 男女逆転大奥, drama, genderswap, Iemitsu, KUBOTA Masataka, manga, Ohoku, Oooku, Sakai Masato, Tabe Mikako, Tokugawa, Yoshinaga Fumi on 2012/12/26 | 8 Comments »
After Ep. 3, my will to watch this show waned a lot. Fortunately, the drama picks up more in this episode, and there are points I was willing to overlook or accept for the sake of adapting this manga for TV. Arikoto’s cross-dressing scene in Ep. 3 was not one of them, so I’m still a bit sore about that.
Warnings: spoilers for the manga and drama, including some from later episodes/chapters.
More Ôoku here.
Posted in Ôoku, Gender, Manga, Visual Culture, tagged Arikoto, よしながふみ, 男女逆転大奥, drama, Gender, genderswap, graphic novel, Iemitsu, manga, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Sakai Masato, Tabe Mikako, Tanaka Koki, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku, 大奥 on 2012/12/06 | 5 Comments »
Ooku, Vol. 2, p. 205
Ooku, Ep. 3. Ain’t no party like an ooku drag party… Image via TBS
Hello to my new readers from d-addicts, where my blog was linked on the Ôoku drama thread. I know I’m rather behind on the write-ups, but I do hope you enjoy them as I get them out.
Episode 2 recap here. For other past posts about the films, manga, and drama, see the Ôoku category.
Warning: spoilers, rape, violence.
I’m a great fan of stories (regardless of medium) that make me experience a range of complex and subtle emotions. Or, as one might say, something that hits me right in the feels. The events of Vol. 2, Ch. 4 in the manga–Ep. 3 in the drama (aired 26 Oct. 2012)– are the precursor to a truly epic emotional roller coaster.
Posted in Ôoku, Gender, Manga, Media, tagged Arikoto, Emonosuke, genderswap, Iemitsu, Kaneko Fuminori, Kanno Miho, manga, movie, Ohoku, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, Sakai Masato, Shogun, Tabe Mikako, Tsunayoshi on 2012/02/02 | 3 Comments »
Image from news.livedoor.com
Followers of this blog know both how much I love Yoshinaga Fumi’s Ôoku (男女逆転大奥)–both the 2010 film version of vol. 1 (Yoshimune-Mizuno) and especially the Iemitsu-Arikoto story arc in vols. 2-4. One of my Yoshinaga-fan friends and I have often talked about how great it would be if there were movies or a TV show of the other story arcs in the manga, particularly the Iemitsu arc, and now our wish has been granted. The Arikoto-Iemitsu storyline (vol. 2-4) will be made into a serial drama to be aired on TBS starting in October 2012, and the Emonosuke-Tsunayoshi arc (vol. 4-6) will be made into a film, which will open in theaters nationwide on Dec. 22, 2012, after the airing of the drama finishes.
There are some spoilers below, so be warned.
Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, Media, tagged よしながふみ, Chie, 男女逆転大奥, Denemon, genderswap, Iemitsu, Kasuga, Madenokouji Arikoto, manga, Ohoku, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, The Lady Shogun and Her Men, Yoshinaga Fumi, 大奥 on 2011/05/15 | 7 Comments »
Part 3: The New Culture
Image from Amazon.co.jp
In the final installment of my look at the cultural revolution during Iemitsu’s reign in Yoshinaga Fumi’s manga 『大奥』 (Ôoku), I’d like to explore the political and cultural changes to the (female) Iemitsu’s Edo through the connection between fashion and political power.
Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, Media, tagged よしながふみ, carnivore women, 男女逆転, Gender, gender non-conformity, genderswap, herbivore men, Madenokouji Arikoto, manga, Ohoku, Oooku, Shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku, 大奥 on 2011/04/09 | 1 Comment »
Part 2: Political Power and Female Daimyô
As the events happening within the ôoku reflect the changes in sexual culture this reimagined Edo Period, Yoshinaga, with her wonderful knack for world-building, shows the full societal impact that the decimation of the male population and the unbalanced sex ratio have on the greater political and social culture.
"A woman's voice?" (Vol. 3, p. 215)
Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, Media, tagged Arikoto, よしながふみ, birth dearth, 男女逆転大奥, Edo period, female shogun, Gender, genderswap, Kasuga, Masako, Ohoku, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oraku, The Lady Shogun and Her Men, Tokugawa Iemitsu, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku, 大奥 on 2011/03/07 | 12 Comments »
Part 1: The Sexual Revolution Within the Ôoku
There’s a line in Volume 1 that really defines the larger work of Ôoku, where a character notes that the men there kept like goldfish: a luxury item to have simply for the sake of having. For the third and (part of) the fourth volumes of Ôoku, I’d like to shift the focus from the narrative itself to the larger cultural issues presented in the volume. No work of art or literature exists in a vacuum, and the third and fourth volumes of Ôoku address the present issue of “herbivore men” and their counterpart, “carnivore women.” Unlike Otomen, though, the story of Ôoku is not directly about this issue, but there’s no denying the connection between contemporary culture and the work. The content of this volume is largely meant to explain the changes in Japanese (alternate history) culture caused by the Red Pox, or how the culture in the world that Yoshinaga created evolved from the Shogunate of Iemitsu to that of Yoshimune.
I’d like to address this in multiple parts—first the sexual revolution within the ôoku; next, the changing political and social world; and finally the lasting cultural impact that the revolutions within and without the castle have on the world. The issues addressed here are fairly lengthy, so I’ve divided up Part 1 into subsections. Spoilers are a given; also, one image contains some potentially NSFW cleavage.
Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, Media, tagged よしながふみ, 男女逆転大奥, Edo period, female shogun, Gender, genderswap, Kasuga, Madenokouji Arikoto, manga, Ohoku, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Oooku, Shogun, The Lady Shogun and Her Men, Tokugawa Iemitsu, Yoshinaga Fumi on 2011/02/07 | 16 Comments »
Manga Review: 『大奥』（Ōoku：The Inner Chambers), Vol. 2
Image from Amazon.co.jp
Read the review of Vol. 1 here.
Sad to leave Yoshimune and Mizuno of vol. 1 behind for the next story arc, I reluctantly started vol. 2 of Ôoku, but I quickly left my regrets behind as I got absorbed in the story. Readers, this manga is a tour de force. It’s not just the art or the writing– this volume put me through an emotional wringer in a way that only the endings of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and The Rose of Versailles have.
As Yoshimune reads the records of the ōoku, we travel back in time to the 1630s. The manga starts with an explanation: The first two Tokugawa shoguns, Ieyasu and Hidetada, were men. However, the third shogun, Iemitsu, fell victim to the Red Pox. Little by little, we piece together the (disturbing) story of how the female Tokugawa line started.
Spoilers, of course, follow.
Posted in Ôoku, Culture, Gender, Manga, Media, tagged Edo period, female shogun, film, genderswap, manga, Mizuno Yunoshin, Ohoku, Oooku, sex vs gender, Shogun, The Lady Shogun and Her Men, Tokugawa Yoshimune, Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku, 大奥 on 2011/01/25 | 16 Comments »
Manga Review: 「大奥」（Ōoku：The Inner Chambers), Vol. 1
Image from Amazon.co.jp
Although a friend of mine had suggested I read 「男女逆転大奥」(Ōoku: The Inner Chambers) back in May, I didn’t really get the Ōoku fever till August, when I went to see my first movie in a theater in Japan. (For 1700 yen–and that is why I will probably stop at three movies while here.) On the cover of the movie magazine you get with your ticket was a photo of a man and woman in period clothing, which I thought nothing of till I opened the magazine to this page:
シネコン. August 2010. pp. 26-7.
“This is the Shogun. This is her retainer,” it read.
Well, sign me up!
I saw the movie in November, and I finally read the first volume of the manga in December. I loved the movie, but because I’m not accustomed to the non-contemporary language—the Japanese equivalent of Shakespearean English—I had a little trouble on the finer points of the film. I was really worried that the manga would be too difficult for me, but after looking up some of the words (thank god for Japanese-Japanese dictionaries), I actually got through it in a reasonable amount of time.
There are spoilers here for the film and the manga. This refers to the Japanese version, not from the official English version form Viz.
