Posted in Ôoku, 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 2014/02/14| 3 Comments »
Posted in Ôoku, 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 2013/11/22| 1 Comment »
Finally reunited with my manga and it feels so good!
Aired Dec. 7, 2012, on TBS.
This recap contains spoilers for the drama and the manga. Episode 8 recap here; manga analysis here; Ôoku category (film, manga, and drama) here.
In this episode of Things I Started Recapping a Year Ago Ôoku:
After Iemitsu gives her speech about being the Shogun and a woman, her audience bows. When they raise their heads again, the camera pans around the room to show not just Terutsuna smiling at her, but many of the other young heirs who appear to be girls dressed as boys.
Posted in Ôoku, 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 2013/08/15| 2 Comments »
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| 3 Comments »
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, 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| 8 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 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| 14 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| 22 Comments »
Manga Review: 『大奥』（Ōoku：The Inner Chambers), Vol. 2
Image from Amazon.co.jp
Read the review of Vol. 1 here. Ôoku masterpost 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.
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