[Manga] Ôoku / 大奥 by Yoshinaga Fumi (よしながふみ) and the pronoun of “she”
Cover image of Vol.5 of "Ôoku" by Yoshinaga Fumi. On the cover is the third female shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.
Ôoku must be the first shoujo/josei manga in which the heroine (or at least one of the heroines) had been raped, killed the rapist and given birth to a stillborn child from the first time you see her.
The story is currently being serialized on the manga magazine Melody and it is a historical fantasy set in an alternative Edo era in which:
- The male population had been decimated by an infectious disease, leaving Japan with a male-to-female ratio somewhere between 1 to 4 and 1 to 5.
- Japan implemented the close country policy in order to conceal this demographic crisis from foreigners.
- Gradually women took over the labours of men, and men were free from labour, became very sheltered and had only one contribution to society (ie. reproduction).
- The shogunate came to be headed by a lineage of female shoguns and the Ôoku (the shogun’s harem) was filled by men as i) a reserve military force to protect the shogun in the event of war and ii) to mate with the shogun.
I know you are probably thinking that this must be some sort of escapist fantasy, but I can endorse my name that it is not. It is more like apocalyptic fiction about a demographic crisis that spans across generations. In that alternative world, women for the most part live their lives without fathers, husbands and sons. The female shoguns in the story do find something like romantic love with men (though it seems to me that it is not really in the pattern of what is typically recognized as romantic love – I mean this in a positive way).
Vol. 2-3 tells of how Tokugawa Iemitsu, the first female shogun, grew from being violent-tempered into a mature ruler, and the viccissitudes of her love with Made no Kouji Arikoto.
Unfortunately, I am not good at discussing gender and love, and in any case I have only read up to the fifth volume of this still continuing series, so as much as I have enjoyed this manga immensely, I am hesitant to say the final word on it. I heard that the English translation for this series are being published by VIZ Media LLC, so I imagine that the internet will soon have other reviews that would tell you all about gender and love in this story. For now, I will only confine myself to recommend this manga series if you also like manga stories told with restraint (ie. sparse dialogue that tells a lot in the unspoken), with a shade of sadness that is light in touch and wu nai. Ôoku is about a succession of men and women from youth, to middle age, to old age and death.
(For the record, allow me to add that I was shocked to see official summaries of the English edition of this manga couched in melodramatic language. This manga is decidedly not melodramatic.)
(Interestingly, I think this series is really a disguised commentary on the demographic crisis that Japan is currently facing. I would be happy to discuss further under a spoiler curtain.)
Before I end this post, I just want to touch upon the pronoun of “she” and how it enables the story to seem so compelling “real” that you feel as though you were reading about the “real” Edo history that no one ever knew about. (Of course, to produce that effect Yoshinaga-sensei also incorporated a lot of historical events but framed them in the context of the demographic crisis, but that would get into spoilers.)
In the story, character A (who had been reading historical records) was wondering aloud as to what sort of man Kasuga no Tsubone [春日局] was, and character B (who is a historian) replied that Kasuga no Tsubone was not a man but a woman. Character A was shocked to hear that.
This point requires some explanation and I am not sure if they will ever include that in the English translation.
Made no Kouji Arikoto, born of an aristocratic family in Kyoto, was a Buddhist monk at one time but was forced to serve in Ôoku. Above is an image of him in female guise.
I think this misunderstanding is linguistically possible, especially given that in the story when women take on a public post they also take on a masculine-sounding name. Up to the Meiji era, the language in which official records and correspondences in Japan was written is kanbun [漢文], or archaic Chinese. There was no pronoun for “she” or possessive pronoun for “her” in archaic Chinese, so it is linguistically possible to not know for sure whether a given historical personage was a man or a woman. In other words, you can read pages upon pages about the public deeds of so-and-so and never know if so-and-so was male or female. You can usually get around this problem by studying the lineage of so-and-so (ex. “she was the third daughter born between C and D”) and his/her private life. But what if the lineage was fabricated for political reasons (ie. to conceal from foreign invaders your country’s demographic crisis) and no textual evidence remains of so-and-so’s private life? How can you tell for sure whether it was a man or a woman who did X, Y, Z?
That is quite a revelation, if you think about that.
Just the intro of this gets you hooked I guess. My question is: you wanna say about the ‘she’ issue that perhaps in real-time Japan female leaders might have existed?
ayame:
I am no conspiracy theorist and I did not go so far as to say that. All I said was that it is within the *linguistic possibility* (ie. the grammar and vocabulary allow it) of kanbun that a subject’s gender is never revealed. That is what makes the story so compelling.
Also, not too sure if it will get more people hooked on manga, but let me just mention that Arikoto has become my favorite male character in shoujo/josei of all time.
I’ve only read a short-story collection by the author (Aisubeki musumetachi) but was impressed by how she handled different kinds of emotions and complicated relationships. Historical manga isn’t my thing but I’ll probably read this too– only I prefer picking up a story after it’s finished, so will just have to wait a while to check this out. I didn’t realize it was already up to volume 5!
Oooku looks very interesting to me. Much more subtle than the American realization of the superficially similar idea in Y: The Last Man. Now I am in a position to buy manga directly from Japan, so I am no more dependent on translations, online or not, and if the first delivery turns out well, Oooku will be one of the titles to buy. :)
Tan:
Aisubeki musumetachi is a manga that I also plan to read next. I have heard goods things said about it. It just seems to be Yoshinaga-sensei’s forte to handle emotional complexities. Even if the characters don’t say anything, you can just feel the emotions flow through the page.
On a side note, I tend not to wait. The world is a transient place – you never know what happens tomorrow. ^-^
Ridiculus:
I was worried that my main post may not be doing the manga justice but I see that I have at least persuaded you. For instance, the manga has some of the best depictions of love I have seen (in the story, love just doesn’t happen in a vacuum), but I am not good at talking about that sort of thing at all. Suffice to say, I ended up being shaken by this manga in spite of myself. Yoshinaga sensei’s stories leave an aftertaste – a vaguely sad feeling that just hovers out of reach.
By the way, how is your order of The Summer of Ubume coming along?
“By the way, how is your order of The Summer of Ubume coming along?”
Pending. But it’s just a matter of days…
Ridiculus:
How about watching Mouryou no Hako? (I remember you said you were quite busy a while ago.)
“How about watching Mouryou no Hako? (I remember you said you were quite busy a while ago.)”
Yes, I am still busy, and it will be so till the end of the month. But I managed to watch 9 episodes. My initial idea was to watch them in Japanese, without subtitles, which didn’t cover every sentence anyway. But, my Japanese is at JLPT 4 level (a beginner, in other words), so when I heard the names of the poets of Kokinshu being spoken, I dropped the idea. Still, I haven’t found the titles for the last episode yet.
Ridiculus:
Thanks for letting me know. Take your time to enjoy. ^-^
I am still waiting for the second vol of Oouku from Viz.
“For the record, allow me to add that I was shocked to see official summaries of the English edition of this manga couched in melodramatic language. This manga is decidedly not melodramatic.”
So true. It is more a comedy than a melodrama.
A, first time comment here. Nice to meet you.
Potato:
Nice to meet you too. Please come back often. ^-^
Vol 1 is probably the only comedy in the series. Vol 2 is where the meat of the drama begins.
Really? So no more comedy? I really like Yoshinaga Fumi’s sense of humor. Anyway, I am still waiting for vol 2 (Fumi’s drama is not bad as well)
I will come back very often, cause I really your blog (lot of interesting idea and info).
Potato:
Many thanks for your kind support.
Be sure to spread the word to your friends. ^-^
Thanks for featuring this! I finished reading volume 1 last night. I liked it; the cover/paper was very nice too. I hope Viz will be able to complete this. I won’t be able to read this in Japanese–I can’t purchase anything else because I still have piles of unread stuff I bought when I was still in Japan.
hayase:
Long time no hear! How are you doing?
Vol 1. is probably the weakest volume in the series. If you liked it, I am sure you will like the following volumes even better. ^-^
>>Long time no hear! How are you doing?
Actually I read your posts but I just lurk most of the time hehehe. Right now suffering from neck pain–one of the side-effects of taking JLPT lol.
hayase:
I remember that you told me you were taking the JLPT Level 2 exam last year too.
Hope to hear more from you from time to time!
Here is another one, who got was persuaded to this title by your main post.
I was huddling around it for two years now, trying to decide, whether to go for the Japanese version, French version or English version.
In the end, I went for the English one, and you are right, there is not a single explanation for the non-existent “she” pronoun. (Despite having quite an amount of end notes.) But it quite surprised me with this archaic-styled English.
I only made now the bad mistake to have only ordered the first two volumes, as the second and third belong together. But all the long time to decide has its merit now, I won’t have to wait so long for the releases for a little while.
[...] There is a nice introductory post about the title here at the Iwanihana blog. [...]