A review by misssusan
Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 5 by Fumi Yoshinaga

4.0

one of the most interesting things about ooku is that despite first appearances it's not about a matriarchy or a straightforward flip of current gender roles

in fact, in terms of how it deal with gender it makes me think of the world wars

i'm no expert but if i recall correctly both wars saw women moving more visibly into the public sphere out of war time necessity

this didn't mean gender constraints disappeared but that they became more malleable for a time

and that the post-war period saw pushback in a desire to return to 'normal'

and the interesting thing about ooku is that the plague acts as a similar change agent

because for all that women rule publically as a shoguns in the series they are still subject to the same restrictive ideas of womenhood as their predecessors

and i think i get the point of tsunayoshi now because her story is all about that

she's both clever and politically savvy but she's constantly told that her only duty is to produce a heir

not particularly surprising that would make her cruel then. she parallels her mother iemetsu but she lacks the support her mother received in arikoto

after seeing ietsuna and tsunayoshi i'm pretty excited to get back to yoshimune tbh, she's even more a breath of fresh air compared to the shoguns who ruled before her

4 stars