ABSTRACT
In the manga series Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (2005–2021), Yoshinaga Fumi presents an imagined history of Japan’s Edo Period in which women rule the country. A plague reduces the male population to one quarter of the female, forcing a reassignment of gender roles. Women take over the government and all levels of public and private life, with the few surviving men valued primarily as breeding stock. The story follows the succession of female shoguns and the men of the Inner Chambers, kept as a male harem. The gender-swapped premise of Ōoku allows Yoshinaga to explore not only Japanese history but also the conventions of the shōjo manga genre. Yoshinaga, who got her start as a manga artist creating Rose of Versailles dōjinshi (fan fiction), alternately celebrates and critiques the bishōnen (pretty boy) aesthetics of shōjo manga and the reliance on homosexual and homosocial themes. This chapter discusses how Ōoku plays with shōjo manga genre conventions and ultimately transcends those conventions to give a more nuanced critique of received gender roles.
