The Summer 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Ōoku: The Inner Chambers

In an alternative timeline of feudal Japan, a strange disease that only affects men has caused a massive reduction in the male population; thus, women must pick up men's jobs, changing the social structure. After 80 years of the initial outbreak and the current man: woman ratio of 1:4, Japan has become completely matriarchal, with women holding important political positions and men being their consort. Only the most powerful woman -- head of the Tokugawa shogunate -- can keep a harem of handsome yet unproductive men, known as "Ooku."

Ōoku: The Inner Chambers is based on the award-winning manga by Fumi Yoshinaga. The entire anime series is streaming on Netflix.

I may be in the minority here, but I'm disappointed that neither the sub nor dub tracks for this show use the Elizabethan English of the manga's English translation. I felt that choice reflected both the setting of the piece (although it opens in 1716, so not Elizabethan) and the Shakespearean scope of the story. But even with that linguistic choice out of the picture, Ooku: The Inner Chamber captures the manga's first volume/story arc. That's a good thing on a few levels; at eighty minutes long, not doing a good job of it would have made this excruciating.

There are two main draws to this story, apart from Fumi Yoshinaga's art, although it must be said that the animation is pretty blah. The first is the alternate version of Japan, where in the 16th century, men began dying off of a mysterious and virulent form of smallpox. As the years went by, women's and men's roles gradually reversed, with women becoming the ruling gender. In 1716, a woman is the shogun, and her harem is filled with men, despite a lack of males causing many men outside the palace to prostitute themselves for financial reasons and the continuation of the population. When Yoshimune ascends to the throne, she starts to wonder why this is the way things are, both because of the population issue and discrepancies in the historical record. That becomes the impetus for the rest of the series as Yoshimune seeks information about what happened. In some ways, we can look at this episode as the framework for the rest of the story, although I believe that Yoshimune and Sugishita pop up a bit from time to time.

Yoshimune is the absolute best part of this episode. There's a lot of fascinating (and intricate) historical detail in all scenes that take place within the inner chambers – if you've ever wondered about the shaved heads in Japanese history, this is your moment – but all of that pales when Yoshimune is getting ready to dismantle a social system that makes very little sense to her. We see this unfold through the story of Mizuno, a young man who enters the Inner Chambers and rises to great heights very quickly; he's the impetus for Yoshimune's initial interest in changing how the harem system works. We get his complete story in this episode, but more interesting is how it becomes the lens through which Yoshimune gazes. She notices many strange details that simply don't make sense, such as double standards that treat women as inferior or more delicate (in the Victorian sense) or that dictate that rulers must appear male to foreign visitors. Why is it okay to sell a fourteen-year-old boy into sexual servitude but to kill the first man to have sex with the shogun and, therefore, "defile" her body?

As manga readers can tell you, this episode may not be the best way to judge the entire series. In many ways, it's better than what's to come, although the whole story is interesting and doesn't shy away from examining its themes of gender and power. But even if you stop here, this is a good eighty minutes, and Yoshimune is an exciting character who more than makes it worth the watch.

Man, I am torn on this one. On the one hand, the premiere of Ooku: The Inner Chambers contains some interesting ideas and some genuinely compelling high-court drama, with its gender-swapped societal dynamics and political intrigue. On the other hand, it is yet another opening "episode" that opts to take the form of a feature-length presentation. While I can see a little bit of the benefit that comes from spending so much time introducing the setting and all of the characters that are running around and trying to gain the favor of and deviously manipulate the new shogun, a fiery woman named Lord Yoshimune, it still feels too long by half. The bloated runtime ends up feeling incredibly self-indulgent when you realize at the very end of this premiere that everything we just witnessed is just the frame story and that the rest of the show is going to dive even deeper back into the past to uncover the secrets of Kasuga, the first female shogun to rule after the man-killing plague ravaged Japan.

The point is, one of the most significant issues with this premiere is that, despite spending a full 80-minutes getting introduced to the world of Ooku, you don't get the sense that you even really have a full grasp on what the story of the series is going to be about. As a standalone mood piece, this first episode works fine on paper, but I found myself feeling a bit ripped off by the end because I love Yoshimune as a character, and I'm bummed now that it seems like we won't be spending much time with her at all this season. That said, there's just enough potential on display here that I am curious to learn more about the secret histories and scandalous secrets that must be brewing throughout the rest of the season.

The much bigger issue, sadly, is likely to plague Ooku no matter how good future episodes may or may not be. To be blunt, the artwork and animation we're getting from Studio Deen are not up to rendering this lavish costume drama with the style it demands. A very good proportion of these 80 minutes are spent beating the audience over the head with how lavish and opulent the lives of the courtiers are and how beautiful all of the shogun's men-in-waiting are, so it is a colossal failure of this production that almost none of that comes across on-screen. Our main character of the episode, Mizuno, barely stands out from the dozens of other men he's surrounded by, and none of them stand out as being especially sexy or even interesting to look at. There is not a single drop of chemistry or saucy sensuality to be found in this entire hour-and-a-half, and that's to say nothing of the muted colors, flat character animation, and bland direction of the episode.

Ooku: The Inner Chambers seems like a show that could pop if injected with some flair and sex appeal, but as it stands, it is a story that works much more in concept than in execution. Perhaps future episodes will give us something juicier to work with and establish some characters we can become invested in for the long term. When you're asking your audience to devote nearly 90 minutes to watching your first episode, though, you've got to come out swinging harder than this.

Alright, everybody, I think we need to chill it with the feature-length premieres. I get the reasoning behind it, and I certainly loved Oshi no Ko's 90-minute first episode, but between this and the recently announced two-hour premiere of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, I am already clinging to the top of this potentially slippery slope with all my might.

That said, Ooku here solidifies its length for most of its runtime. By the end of the episode, it becomes clear that most of this story was a framing narrative to establish the unique society it takes place and that the meat of the show will focus on the beginnings of this gender-flipped hierarchy and how its various quirks and traditions developed. That's undoubtedly what the story is mainly focused on: imagining the various ways a suddenly matriarchal society might develop within the legacy of a collapsed patriarchy and how that might change (or not change) how humans within that system view themselves and each other.

That's an excellent hook, raising a ton of questions that, in the right hands, have the potential to comment on the often arbitrary or gender-essentialist ways that real-life societies can behave. It's fascinating to see it adjust certain ideas like marriage and sex work compared to other period pieces, and there's been a lot of thought to how new societal norms would emerge from this status quo rather than a more cheap and straightforward flipping of men and women. Things like the royal court obfuscating that the shogun is a woman when meeting with foreign dignitaries or how the shogun's virginity is still treated as "sacred" bear the signs of patriarchal expectations and misogyny that persist even after generations of women exclusively in power. That's interesting, and finding out more about how this world works – and what it might be commenting on through those details – kept me engaged throughout.

Granted, that means this extra-long episode is more interesting as a thought experiment than a proper narrative, and that likely comes down to this all being a framing story. The characters featured are nice enough and have some personality and pathos to call their own. Still, they function more as vehicles for exploring the politics of the shogun's horde of male concubines than as full-fledged subjects. Mizuno's story is nice enough, but he leaves the narrative with a good 20 minutes left, and Yoshimune shows up so late in the story that it's hard to get a read on her before we shift into what will presumably be a season-long flashback. I found her interesting, but knowing we probably won't see much of her in the future stymies any interest in getting attached to her.

The bigger issue, though, is the visuals. Whether it is direction, color, or animation, nothing here rises above functionality and saps a lot of the energy from the premise and setting. Every scene has the lighting and staging of a daytime TV drama, complete with cheap-feeling costumes and sets. Perhaps that's a decision to keep the world grounded and mundane, but even stronger lighting or shadows could have complemented the atmosphere here. It's not bad, but the production lacks any real punch to match the story's hook.

With that said, I did enjoy my time with this premiere, and the fact that its world is more engaging than the characters is perhaps a good thing, considering we're leaving that cast behind after this episode. There are a lot of interesting ideas to be had here, with enough care and craft to assure me that it won't just turn into a jumbled mess of high concepts without a point.

We get a few of these every season: an anime with a double-length or feature-length first episode. Sometimes, this is very much needed—as was the case with last season's Oshi no Ko. However, that's not the case with Ōoku: The Inner Chambers. Not only is this first episode three separate episodes rolled into one, but the entire series was also released at once on Netflix—meaning anyone who wanted to see where the story would go after the first 22 minutes always had that option. The 80-minute length comes across like a ploy to trick unsuspecting casual viewers into watching the first three episodes when they were only planning to watch one—hoping this would get them hooked. It feels a bit skeevy—like those behind the anime didn't have faith that the start of their story would be appealing enough.

All that said, I think I would have been okay with a double-length premiere. After all, the first two-thirds of the feature-length episode is a solid, self-contained story about Mizuno, a samurai from a poor family entering the empress' harem. He's a generally likable character; through him, we learn about the harem—along with its inner workings and politics. Moreover, once Yoshimune enters the story, we get an outsider's look at the situation and the start of the show's driving mystery: "How did things come to this, and where will they go from here?"

Through Mizuno and Yoshimune's story, we also get acquainted with the real star of the show: the setting. This is, frankly, historical fiction at its best—a deep dive into Japan's history and feudal society through the lens of "What if?" In this world, the male population of feudal Japan decreased to the point where a matriarchy became necessary to preserve the government and social order in a recognizable form.

The result is far more than a simple swapping of gender roles. We have men as a commodity to be sold rather than people. Marriage is something for the rich and mighty alone—with poor women forced to buy a man for a night if they wish to continue their families. And as for marrying for love, well, that's the rarest thing of all.

Overall, it's a great concept that only gets better the more you know about real Japanese history and how things are supposed to have gone. While I still have qualms about the 80-minute runtime of this episode, I will say if you are interested in Japanese history during its centuries of self-isolation or just flat-out love historical fiction, you'll probably enjoy this one.

When Netflix announced they were making an anime of Fumi Yoshinaga's beloved historical fiction manga Ooku, I was considerably less thrilled than most of the shojo fans around me. I think my mistrust of the streaming service is well-earned, what with the hideous disaster that was 7SEEDS and the glorified motion comic ““““anime””””” of Way of the Househusband. Yoshinaga's art style is famously difficult to animate and the lavishness and intricacy of the setting's period called for an attention to detail that few production houses can achieve. Shojo manga tends to get a raw deal when it comes to anime adaptations, too, hampered by stiff animation and other poor adaptational choices. And so, it was with great trepidation that I turned on the Ooku's first 80-minute episode.

Wait, eighty minutes? Are you serious? I thought Oshi no Ko was being daring with its 90-minute premiere, but if this ends up as a trend, I'm going to be seriously cranky about it.

(Note: Minutes after writing this sentence, I got the news that Frieren's premiere next season is going to be TWO HOURS. Are you trying to kill the preview guide writers, studios???)

Ahem. Anyhoo…

Fortunately, Netflix surpassed my expectations. Exceeded them, even. Relief flooded every cell of my body as I realized their adaptation of a truly incredible manga could be deemed… satisfactory. It's fine. Competent. It's basically a shot-for-shot reproduction of the original, but with color, voice acting, and animation. Now, Yoshinaga's manga is extremely strong, so it can get away with this. The episode, which adapts the entire first volume, makes a compelling short story in and of itself as Yunoshin and Yoshimune encounter one another in a gender-reversed Edo-era court. There's a distinct arc and all the characters have coherent motivations and personalities.

What's more, I completely adore Yoshimune, which should surprise no one who has taken note of my love of no-nonsense, assertive female characters over the years. She arrives at the Edo court like a tornado to take over for the departed child shogun, aggressively questioning everything that has been taken for granted for years—fashions that use excessive fabric, the waste of maintaining a harem of men when there's a semen shortage in the outside world, and just why, in a nation ruled by women, they continue to uphold patriarchal standards. Why do feminine names sound silly paired with titles held largely by women? Why must they perform as men in front of foreign dignitaries? Every time she pointed out these nonsensical rules, I wanted to clap my hands and cheer. Though I could have lived without her tendency to randomly pull men from the inner court into the bushes for a good fuck because consent issues are consent issues, regardless of the genders involved (and wouldn't care for it if it were a man pulling women aside like that).

But more than that, the production has the same lack of creative spark as most overly-faithful manga adaptations. There's no life—no verve—to it, as each shot recreates a manga panel without any thought toward the different demands of different media. A stylistic flourish or two would have gone a long way toward adding some life to the production, something that only animation can offer. Instead, it mostly comes off as cold—even the sex scene lacks anything resembling heat, as the production fails to insert any chemistry. It brings to mind how in an interview, Chiaki Kon commented that the producers at Netflix want their anime to stay as close to the manga as humanly possible. With over 30 years directing and some beloved series under his belt, I can only assume Noriyuki Abe was acting under similar demands.

But, a Netflix subscription is more affordable several volumes of manga, so I don't begrudge that this opens Ooku up to a new audience. However, if you have the means and the inclination, I urge you to pick up Yoshinaga's manga in lieu of this workmanlike adaptation.