Ooku 2

Fumi Yoshinaga – Viz – 2009 – 5+ volumes

I wondered about the format of this series, but this volume answered my question.  I think.  Here, we jump backward in time to the first female shogun and a monk she coerces into becoming her catamite.  The story this time is much darker than the first volume, and I was quite shocked when the story actually went down the dark path it promised, rather than whimsically taking all its threats back at the threshold to show that the shogun wasn’t a bad person.  This happens twice, the first as a measure to get the pious monk into the inner chambers, and the second when the shogun finally appears in front of the monk.

Unlike Yoshimune in the first volume, the Shogun in this volume (who is without a name, officially, and is covered up to the best of everyone’s abilities) is very much a villain for most of the volume.  I kept trying to sympathize with her.  For awhile, the nurse/advisor character took the majority of my wrath, since everything can easily be blamed on her.  But the Shogun isn’t that pleasant, either.  From the first time she appears, she gives the reader reason to hate her, and most of the good things she does, or anything sympathetic, is balanced out with something obnoxious.  But by the end of the book, Yoshinaga turns the tables, and in the last few pages, I begrudgingly admitted that the match between the poor monk forced to give up his vows and the Shogun looked to be a good one.  I couldn’t believe how masterfully revealing her backstory explained every heinous thing she did, and even made me feel bad for her.  I hated her so much.  There is no other story that could make me hate a character, then make me like her, all in a single volume.

The monk character was a good one, and balances out the Shogun’s evil quite well.  His role is apparently based on a true story, though with the genders switched.  He’s very sincere about his vows, and we find out later that the position he reached at the beginning of the story was his main goal in life.  He really, really does not want to join the harem, but does anyway in an incredibly powerful scene that borrows some of the devices and expectations mentioned above.  He continues to hold his own in the court, speaking up when he feels strongly and bending when something isn’t worth fighting for.

The only link between this volume and the first, other than the premise of the men dying out, is the fact that the other members of the harem wage jealous wars on one another over who gets more of the Shogun’s attention.  I like this element of it, and it’s pretty hilarious given the fact that you can easily imagine the scenarios playing out in a court of women as well.

I rarely mention artwork, but I very much enjoy Yoshinaga’s art.  It’s sparse, but well-composed, and the composition and subtle ways she conveys emotion through facial expression and repetition are absolutely masterful in this story.  It just wouldn’t be the same without the soft touch and insight the artwork offers.  The last page is one of my favorite illustrations in the book, it looks very much like a woodblock print piece.

About the only thing I don’t like about it is the Early Modern English that all the characters use.  It takes me out of the story, especially when words like “quack” come up and I have to look it up and verify that it actually is a ridiculous slang word from 500 years ago.  But otherwise the presentation is quite good.  There are translation notes in the back that help out with the difficult Japanese historical references, and the book itself maintains all the bells and whistles from the first, like the flaps on the cover and the vellum title page before the color illustration in the front.  I’m also very fond of the minimalist design of the whole thing, and I love that there are no ads in the back to shatter the mood.

Basically, this volume is much different than the first, but no less amazing.  I was very fond of the fact it took the expectations from the first volume and warped them to make the story much darker than it could have been otherwise.  And even with the darker and depressing story, the ending still managed to make the reader sympathize with the characters.  I don’t think anyone has a talent for making characters quite like Fumi Yoshinaga, and this really is one of her best and most well-developed series.  I do wonder if each volume will have a different story to tell with different sets of characters, or if they will all tie together in the end, as her series tend to do.  I can’t wait to read more.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.