Ooku: The Inner Chambers

Ooku: The Inner Chambers Volume 1 by Fumi Yoshinaga

This was one of my most anticipated new manga series, because I naturally expect that anything by Yoshinaga will be excellent and I was incredibly intrigued by the premise of the book. Ooku takes place in an alternate universe during the Edo period, where a mysterious disease has wiped out most of the male population. Gender roles have reversed, with women taking on men’s work, while the remaining men are protected, pampered, and cosseted due to their increasingly rare and important sperm. A new shogun takes over and a young man enters service in her harem aka The Inner Chambers.

Yunoshin is from an impoverished samurai family, and he’s been educated in the art of fencing. He’s hopelessly in love with a childhood friend O-Nobu. She’s the daughter of a prosperous merchant and thus not likely to marry into a poor family. Unlike other men who sell sex to women who are desperate to attempt to conceive a child, Yunoshin sleeps with whoever asks him, even women who are older or less attractive. Yunoshin’s mother announces that he’s received an offer of marriage. He announces his intention to enter the Ooku, saying that he’ll send his allowance home so his sister can use the money to find a husband. Yunoshin gives up on his love for O-Nobu and enters the small world of the Inner Chambers, a society comprised of men devoted to decadence and an elaborate social hierarchy that proves to be complex for a newcomer to navigate.

When Yunoshin enters the Ooku, the shogun is a young child. The men have nothing to do but bicker with each other and perform administrative duties. Yunoshin is now called only by his family name Mizuno. When some of the men make an attempt at hazing Mizuno he defends himself both physically and verbally. When they make fun of him for his hairstyle, he condemns the cloistered men for not keeping current with the latest trends in fashion. Mizuno actually proves to be fairly canny at adapting to his new circumstances, but he’s also being manipulated and set up as the perfect scapegoat as he rises in the ranks in the Ooku, reaching the level where he may capture the shogun’s attention.

When the new shogun takes command the pampered men of the inner chamber are shocked by her radically different ideas. Nobu is the third child of a noble family that lived in a far province. She regards the Ooku as an irresponsible drain on the country’s treasury. Nobu decides that she’s most comfortable dressed in plain robes. She bluntly speaks her opinions. When a lady-in-waiting dresses her in an elaborate gown Nobu fires her, saying “At a time when the shogunate’s coffers are near empty, it strikes me as sheer folly for one who is charged with ruling the nation and rebuilding its finances to pad around dressed in such opulance. ‘Tis something only a lunatic would do. And it strikes me also that thou art afflicted with precisely such lunacy, Manabe. My regrets, but I cannot have such a madwoman serving as a privy councilor, for that is an important government post. Surely thou dost agree?”

While she has simple tastes Nobu is not afraid to make strong political statements by firing old officials and installing her own trusted advisers. Some of the nicest moments in Ooku occur when Nobu and her right hand woman Kano meet to talk about strategy and share some laughter in the gilded palace. Nobu has the self awareness and curiosity to regard some of the customs of the shogun’s office with suspicion. Why must she meet foreign visitors by wearing male clothing and sitting behind a screen?

Nobu and the inner chamber are introduced through Mizuno’s experiences, setting up an intriguing world with an interesting ruler. I thought learning about the societal details of a gender-flipped Japan combined with engaging characters like Nobu and Mizuno was entertaining and thought-provoking. Yoshinaga’s art style uses more variation in tone and texture in Ooku, bringing out the details in the elaborate costumes worn by the characters. I always appreciate her facility with facial expressions as her characters interact with each other. This manga definitely deserves the excellent production work of the Viz Signature line, and I’m looking forward to reading future volumes of the series.

September Previews

This is what I’m thinking of getting:


Aurora

After months of no solicitations, they’ve listed Queen of Ragtonia #2. I’ll order this even though I didn’t think the first volume was very strong, because I generally like Shiomi’s work. I just hope this volume actually comes out. Honestly, I tend to think that no news is bad news on the manga publishing front, and after not hearing much from either Aurora or Go Comi, I’m wondering if both of them will still be around in 2010.


CMX

Emma #10 – Emma and William get married!

Del Rey Manga

Night Head Genesis – This is a You Higuri series about psychic brothers who escape from the research center that imprisoned them, so there is no way I’m not picking this up.

DMP

Izakura Na Kiss #1 – Classic shoujo title in an omnibus edition. I’m excited to read this.

Tokyopop

Your and My Secret #5
Future Diary #4 – I’m reminded that I need to go back and pick up the earlier volumes of this series. I liked the first volume and meant to check out volume 2.

Viz

Butterflies, Flowers #1 – FINALLY a new josei title. I have heard that Yuki Yoshihara is hilarious so this is one of the new series I am really looking forward to reading. I do not see how a manga about a girl from a rich family who gets a job at an office where her family’s former servant happens to be her sadistic boss could fail to be entertaining. I wish this was coming out now. Can you tell how much I want to read this? I really, really do. Seriously.

Children of the Sea #2 – Such a lovely series.

20th Century Boys #6 – A great manga, but I don’t need to tell you that.

Rasetsu #3 – I think I’m on the fence about this series. Volume one was okish, but I think I’ll wait to see how much I enjoyed the second volume before I decide if I want to continue with it. I liked Night of the Beasts a bunch, but some of the other Chika Shiomi series aren’t really measuring up for me.

Ooku #2 – Just got my copy of Ooku 1 yesterday. Haven’t read it yet, but I’m sure I’ll want to get this.

Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #4 – Third mini series

At last, the conclusion of the final Amethyst mini series. The cover shows Amethyst soaring above Topaz Keep.

The text on the cover says “The Last Enchantment!” and the title of the issue is “After the Fall.”

The issue opens at the Diamond Vatican, the rebuilt dwelling of the diamond priests. All remaining houses of the Gemworld have gathered together to judge Mordru. They are not in a good mood.

Several houses have been ravaged by Mordru’s magic. Garnet in is ruins, Sardonyx is buried under the sand, Aquamarine was drowned in the sea, and even worse things happened to Topaz and Turquoise.

Mordru offers no words in his defense and the lords and ladies of the Gemworld render a unanimous verdict, including Mordru’s mother and father.

Guilty! Lord Ruby comments that Mordru’s death has been called for.

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Tokyopop quick takes – Maria Holic and Mad Love Chase

Maria Holic Volume 1 by Minari Endou

I have difficulties seeing people be humiliated. Even when I’m watching something really innocuous like a sitcom, I’ll sometimes switch channels if I sense that a character is about to be horrifically embarrassed. So while I can defiantly see how someone might find Maria Holic funny, it just doesn’t jibe well with my sense of humor.

Kanoko enrolls in an all-girls school with the hope of finding her soulmate. Her parents met at the school years ago when her mother was a student and her father a teacher. Kanoko has a pathological fear of men that has a physical symptom – if a boy touches her she breaks out in horrible hives. After arriving at the school Kanoko makes the unfortunate discovery that one of her fellow students is a cross-dresser. Mariya is a sadistic boy who attends school as a girl. In order to make sure that Kanoko won’t reveal his secret he insinuates himself into her life. He decides he’ll displace her roommate.

Kanoko’s life is filled with hazing incidents and threats from Mariya and other students. While some of the pranks are funny (strange animal in a school bag, oozing gelatin in her desk, sudden protector patrolling the hallway kendo gear, random incidents with sea animals) she just spends most of her time wearing a grimace of anguish. The characters were portrayed too broadly for me to really sympathize with anyone. Kanoko just seems too pathetic, and Mariya’s teasing about Kanoko’s supposed lesbianism is just mean.

Mad Love Chase by Kazusa Takashima

This book is by the yaoi author Kazusa Takashima, and thus Mad Love Chase is filled with attractive men. The demon prince Kaito escapes to earth accomanied by his pet cat Rebun. On earth he is a wispy high school student named Yamato and Rebun has transformed into human form in order to become the sexy school nurse named Haga at Yamato’s high school. Scores of people from the demon kingdom arrive on earth to track down the lost prince, so Yamato is often the victim of plots to steal his clothes so the demons in disguise can take a look at the tattoo on his back to confirm his identity.

It is strange that most of the people Yamato comes in contact with are demons. There’s the creepy groundskeeper, his buff fellow student Taiki, and the sadistic new guidance counselor is actually his demonic fiancee. The transitions between scenes were often a little confusing. I thought that there would be more switching back and fourth between the demon world and Earth, but Mad Love Chase settles into high school comedy mode fairly quickly. I liked it more than Maria Holic, but the manga left me with a general impression of haphazardness. Reading the author’s note about going through multiple editors during the development process of the manga explained the manga’s lack of focus.


Review copies provided by the publisher.

Books Read, August 2009

Books

Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood
The Lord of the Sands of TIme by Issui Ogawa
The Barbed Rose by Gail Dayton
Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic by Kathleen Duey

Manga and Graphic Novels

High School Debut #10
Nana #17
Bloody Kiss #1
Game X Rush #1
Vampire Knight #1, 2 (reread)
Honey Hunt #2
Marmalade Boy #1-8
Maid Sama #2
Tsubasa: Those With Wings #2
Phantom Dream #2
Ludwig II #1
Fruits Basket #23
Children of the Sea #1
Maria Holic #1
Rasetsu #1
Tail of the Moon Prequel: The Other Hanzo(u)
The Color of Earth
The Color of Water

The Color of Earth and The Color of Water

The Color of Earth by Dong Hwa Kim



The Color of Earth
lives up to its title by being extremely earthy. The characters are drenched in nature and preoccupied with relationships. Ehwa’s mother is a tavern owner and her father is long gone, so the seven year old girl must deal with snide comments from her playmates and remarks from the tavern’s customers that she barely understands. As Ehwa goes through puberty, she begins to understand what’s going on with her changing body and she has a brief first love when she encounters a young monk on a narrow bridge. Ehwa’s mother holds herself apart from her male customers, pinning her hopes and dreams on a traveling salesman nicknamed “The Picture Man” due to his ability to express the meaning of names in calligraphy.

This is a quiet, meditative book. While events happen there is no urgency to the plot. I found myself having to work a little in order to sustain the momentum to finish the book. Ehwa and her mother discuss the events of the day and their changing lives in language that refers to the natural world around them. Seldom have I encountered a book where flowers were mentioned so often. Here is a sampling of dialog:

“Do you want to plant the hollyhock seeds tomorrow? Didn’t you say you wanted to cover the entire front yard with those flowers?”
“No…I’d rather plant them on the roadside. All along the road to the orchard farm…that way the peach orchard butterfly can rest from flower to flower.”
“And, finally, rest on your heart?”

Ehwa exchanges flowers with the monk Chung-Myung and decides that her favorite flower is now the tiger lily because it reminds her of the scent of grey robes. Ehwa’s mother plants gourd flowers all over her house because these flowers only open at night, hoping that the scent will somehow summon the Picture Man back to her. Ehwa is distracted by the arrival of the young scholar Sunoo, and begins to make up excuses to gather plants in the orchards near his home. There’s an element of melancholy to this book as Ehwa becomes a young woman and leaves her first loves behind.

The characters are simply drawn but the pastoral backgrounds are rendered in meticulous detail. The plants, wildlife, and flowers that the characters constantly refer to are highlighted, providing a contrast with the simplicity of the characters’ expressions.

The Color of Water by Dong Hwa Kim

There’s more dramatic tension to The Color of Water, as Ehwa’s mother begins to experience a little bit of jealousy about her younger, prettier daughter. Ehwa has a fateful encounter with a young man named Duksam from a nearby village and begins wonder if he’ll be her future husband. The second volume was much easier for me to read than the first. As the characters aged, I found myself more invested in what happened to them. Also there were background details weaved into the storyline that I thought provided more of a window into Korean culture at the time, like an acquaintance of Ehwa’s being betrothed to a 9 year old fiance and having to care for both her new child husband and her grandmother-in-law.

I had mixed feelings about this manhwa but I think it is worth sampling although I think requires more cultural context than the average American will have about manhwa. Most of the other manhwa that makes it over here seems fairly derivative of the standard shoujo and shonen type stuff that everybody’s used to reading. There was something about the style of writing in these books that I just wasn’t able to completely connect with as a reader. For me, the symbolism used in these books would have had more impact if it wasn’t so overwhelming. On the other hand, there were several moments in the series that seemed naturistic and expressive: the arrangement of shoes having an unspoken meaning, walking across a field of flowers, and silently hanging brushes on the wall.

By the end of the second volume I was left curious enough about what would happen to Ehwa that I think I’ll try to read out the third volume of the trilogy, The Color of Heaven. I wanted to like these books more than I did, but I was much more engaged in the series after reading the second book, so I wonder if by the time I finish the third I’ll like the series that much more. If you’re curious to read manhwa with a unique sensibility and literary ambitions, The Color of Earth and the Color of Water are worth checking out.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Fighting Librarians Anime

I enjoyed Toshokan Senso (Library War) but I’m not sure about Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, as some of the characters seem to be having issues with their cleavage. Here’s the summary from Sea Slugs Anime Blog:

In a world where “Books” are the crystallized forms of the dead, Tonisu has his memory erased and a bomb implanted in his chest. Books are stored in the Bantorra Library where anyone who reads a book can learn their past. Bantorra Library is maintained by Armed Librarians who wield psychic powers and their enemy is a religious society known as Sindeki Kyoudan. Tonisu is ordered to kill the most powerful armed librarian Hamyuttsu Meseta. However, he falls in love and is caught up in the ongoing battle of the library.

Here’s a link to one of the promo trailers.

Sigikki Series

It has taken some time for me to check out the series online at Sigikki, which worked in my advantage because many of them have two chapters up now. Here are my favorites:

Afterschool Charisma – This series takes place in a school filled with clones of famous people from history. Napolean seems to be in the middle of a growth spurt, Mozart is an arrogant jerk, Marie Curie wants to play the piano instead of studying radium, and Freud is a creepy teen with a pageboy haircut. The ordinary boy Shiro Kamiya attends school along with the clones. His father is in charge of the school and cloning project. Shiro innocently asks his father to help Marie with her musical ambitions, but what happens to her is not what Shiro intended. Will Shiro find out the truth behind the school? The art in Afterschool Charisma looked the most shoujoish to me out of all the Siggiki series. Sometimes it was difficult to tell apart the female characters, but the male characters were a bit more individual and had more personality. Teen clone Freud is hilarious, and I’m looking forward to future chapters of this series.

House of Five Leaves – Masanosuke is a poor masterless samurai with a personality defect. He falls apart when he attracts attention. Thus he does a poor job of acting intimidating and keeps getting fired from his bodyguard jobs. Yaichi hires him for a day’ work. Masanosuke is struck by Yaichi’s confident air. But it turns out that Yaichi is a member of the criminal group the House of Five Leaves. Will Masanosuke continue to work for kidnappers in the hopes that Yaichi’s calm demeanor will wear off on him? I enjoyed the art of this series, as Ono has a loose and fluid style of drawing which serves to highlight Masanosuke’s defeated body language and his eyes, which look hollow eyes of someone who isn’t eating very well. Most samurai stories feature a main character who is more of a traditional bad-ass type, so I thought this twist on the genre was interesting.

Bokurano: Ours – This seemed like a combination of Battle Royale and a mecha series. A group of children visiting a beach stumble across a lair filled with computers hidden in a cave. A man appears and introduces himself as Kokopelli asks if they want to play a game that involves piloting a giant robot. Everyone agrees, except for the youngest of the group, the 4th grader Kana. Kitoh’s character designs and expressions are distinct which is useful when juggling a large cast of 15 children. When the giant robot materializes in reality, all the kids are very surprised. It’ll be interesting to see if this develops as a parody or commentary on the giant robot anime genre.

Saturn Apartments – Many years in the future Earth has been evacuated and set aside from human habitation. The humans live in a large ring surrounding the earth, with different levels of apartments based on class. Mitsu has just graduated from school and is going to follow in his dead father’s footsteps as a window washer, cleaning the giant ring from the outside. His father died on the job when attempting to clean the ring around the lower levels where the poor people live. It was hard to tell if I’d really like this series based on one chapter, but I think it would definitely appeal to fans of intelligent science fiction like Planetes.

Kingyo Used Books
– This series might end up being a little too low-key for me, but I thought the first chapter captured some truths about fandom and childhood hobbies. Tazawa walks into a strange used bookstore and inquires about selling his manga collection. As an adult, he thinks he doesn’t have the space for it anymore. The store clerk covers his mouth with her hands because she doesn’t want the owner in the back to hear Tazawa bad mouthing manga. Tazawa goes to a gathering of his high school friends, and becomes energizes by the memory of the manga they would share and swap together. As a librarian, I do enjoy series that focus on the power of reading. So while I wasn’t completely sold by the first chapter I very much like the idea of a manga centered around a used bookstore, and I’ll be reading the next few chapters of this series.

Children of the Sea

Children of the Sea Volume 1 by Daisuke Igarashi

Children of the Sea is as beautiful, deep, and mysterious as the ocean that the characters inhabit. Ruka is a young girl who gets in trouble at school for violently retaliating against a teammate at sports practice. She decides not go home and goes on a quest to see the ocean. She travels on the train reaching Tokyo at night and reaches an ocean view. A mysterious boy makes the pronouncement “The sea in Tokyo is kinda like a broken toy” and leaps over her into the sea. Ruka runs down to rescue him. Umi was raised in the ocean along with another boy named Sora by dugongs. They maintain their connection to the sea, their skin becomes unbearably dry if they aren’t submerged in water very long.

Mysterious ocean animal disappearances have started to plague scientists. Animals seem to become spotted with light before they vanish like ghosts. Ruka’s father works in an aquarium where Umi often hangs out. As Ruka tries to escape her troubles in school she spends more and more time in the aquarium, meeting Umi and Sora’s foster father Jim. He’s a foreigner with mystical tattoos who loves to surf. Sora is sickly and spends a lot of time in the hospital. He’s suspicious of Ruka even though Umi says that she “smells like them.” Ruka sees Umi and Sora occasionally glowing with the unearthly light that the ocean ghosts emit. Are they going to be the next to disappear?

Children of the Sea
is available to read on the Sigikki web site. Even though it was available online, I just waited to read it until I had the print volume in my hands. The production quality for Viz’s signature line is excellent as always, and I think Children of the Sea had some of the nicest color pages that I’ve ever seen in manga. There’s an image of a diver floating in the ocean during coral spawning that is just exquisite.

The first volume sets up the plot and character relationships but the story is intriguing, with just enough mystery to leave the reader wanting more. I’m curious to find out what is going to happen to Umi and Sora in the wake of the mysterious ocean life disappearances. Ruka’s special bond with the boys and the sea seems to be developing more and more, so I’ll be interested to see if she becomes a witness to the ghost animals or something more. Children of the Sea is a very special and unique series, and it is definitely worth checking out the online preview to see if you want to buy the print version.

Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #3 – Third mini series

The cover of this issue shows a giant ghostly purple Amethyst looming in the background as the brothers Donal and Mordu square off for a fight. The text on the cover says “The Sacrifice!” The title of the issue is “Bloody Sun at Noon.”

That all sounds fairly ominous, doesn’t it?

When we left off last issue, Flaw had kidnapped the grown-up Emmy from Earth and brought her back to the Gemworld. Flaw dangles Emmy in front of Amethyst, saying “Touch one hair on Mordu’s head, kiddo and the Princess Emerald is dragon meat.”

Flaw is possessed by Amethyst’s old nemesis the Child and he proposes a deal: Amethyst leaves, Chaos takes everything, and they are also going to keep Emmy as collateral. Amethyst is not amused.

She says “Order’s patience with children is at an end.” Flaw flings Emmy aside, yelling “You are a fool to taunt me Amethyst!”

In another part of the castle, Topaz discusses Turquoise’s condition with Donal. She lapsed into a depressed coma after seeing her people slaughtered by a mystical beast. Topaz threw his dagger in the beast’s heart and they were startled when it wasn’t wounded but decided to speak to them.

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