Ooku: The Inner Chambers

Watched all ten episodes of Japan's 2023 anime Ooku: Thr Inner Chambers, about the late Edo period in Japan, when a pandemic called the red-face smallpox reduced the male population to one-fourth, women comprised the labor force, and the country was ruled by a succession of female shoguns. The series focuses on the Tokugawa period and is based on the royal documents titled The Chronicle of the Dying Day. The bulk of the narrative occurs in one long, protracted flashback.

According to the chronicle, men during that time were either hired or borrowed to impregnate women, and the female shogun had an inner chamber called the ooku, where 800 handsome men served her and from whom she chose her concubines.

While this production showcases two female shoguns (Yoshimune and Iemitsu) and the admirable way they ruled their empires. I do recall watching a movie on RED some years ago, that one about a female shogun (neither of the two featured in the anime) who was barren, was somewhat a nymphomaniac who insisted on choosing men not only from the ooku but also from outside the castle to have sex with, and was hated by her followers. This particular series is not about that--it is about the birth of the first female shogun.  

It is just as well that the series was animated rather than used actual performers; it buffers the potential shock of viewers unprepared for scenes of male prostitution, homoeroticism, men raping boys and girls, the kidnapping of young monks to serve in the ooku, the assassination of courtesans, seppuku, famine, and the abandonment of elderly men to die in forests, among others. It would otherwise have come across as an immature sex drama, like a Tennessee Williams play. While drawings and illustrated scenes do create the necessary detachment, however, they are also confusing when some characters are referred to as "beautiful" and "handsome"; all of the faces looked alike to me. Moreover, the episodes are not balanced; some end rather abruptly.

I found it interesting that, despite their being obsessive-compulsive and control freaks, the Japanese seem to have not been treated very kindly by Nature (the red-face smallpox, drought and famine, earthquakes, tsunami, raging floods). Living in the Philippines, of course, could not be worse, but I must say that Filipinos tend to hang loose in the face of disasters. 

Could it be possible, though, that, in the present time, the male population is being decimated in other ways?