halfamoon | Day 3: Blood, Sweat, and Tears, the first female shogun of an alternate historical Japan

I watched Ooku: The Inner Chambers, an anime series on Netflix, last year. It chronicled an alternative history of feudal Japan where men were often afflicted with a fatal disease, resulting in a majority-women nation and a matriarchal society. The anime follows how the first female shogun and her harem of men who could never leave the palace’s inner chambers — the Ooku — came to be.

This shogun, Tokugawa Chie, and her story really stayed with me. And she definitely shed blood, sweat and tears. Lots of it.

It wasn’t like Chie wanted to be shogun, or to even be in the palace. Alas, the male-only epidemic just started, and it made its way into the palace eventually. Her father, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third IRL shogun of Japan, passed away from it, and his wet nurse, Lady Kasuga (also an IRL figure) was fearful it marked the end of the Tokugawa clan. Because Iemitsu only had one illegitimate daughter left alive: Chie.

Lady Kasuga had a young Chie brought into the palace by force, cut her hair, put her in male dress and made her adopt her father’s identity (and is thus addressed as Iemitsu), then told her to bear male heirs so the Tokugawa line can continue.

So this is about how Chie claws her way into a sense of identity and her struggle for power. She’s effectively shogun, so no one can technically stop her if she, say, demands an all-men harem. But with Kasuga around, does she actually have agency? In my opinion, she does, based on the actions she takes in the anime, but whether or not Chie herself believes it is questionable — and this conflict turns her into a complex, terrifying and tragic character.

Chie’s made to present as male (thus starting a trend where women in power would adopt alternate male names for generations onwards, puzzling future shoguns who nevertheless adhered to tradition). But she still identifies as a woman, and this really fucks with her. Lady Kasuga raised her like her child, but Kasuga was also the one who told her Chie was only ever meant to be a vessel for birthing Tokugawa boys. How did Chie cope with that? How did that — and other inner chamber political drama — influence the way Chie saw herself and approached love as well as her duty as shogun? These drove her behaviour, which drove the show’s plot and made her stunning to follow onscreen.

Ooku features plenty of other characters, as well as glimpses of how everyday commoner life transformed drastically since the epidemic. A quote that stood with me and solidified by decision to watch the show for real:

Due to the bureaucratisation of samurai society, inverting the roles previously held by men to women was a simple feat.

All in all, Ooku’s a fascinating exploration of gender roles. Plus, gender-flipping this segment of history exposes how ridiculous the patriarchal system of oppression can be. One of the lines uttered by a woman to a man early in episode one: “But men have weaker constitutions than women, even if they are physically stronger.” Those two characters were people in love. I saw the guy accept the statement as fact, and I went, “That’s just bullsh— oh. Wait.”

tldr: Chie’s character blew me away, and this anime and the original manga deserve some pimping! Highly recommended if you like intensely entertaining shows or if you like stories set in the Edo period! Netflix trailer here.

Admins, may I have a Ooku: The Inner Chambers tag please? :)