#oooku: the inner chambers

[khattikeri]

if you're interested in japanese history and/or alternate history fiction you Need to read oooku: the inner chambers

[ydotome]

Sugishita: I have bedded with men more than once myself. - Ōoku: The Inner Chambers - Episode 01

[daeva-agas]

Dang Ōoku has an anime too now. This thing is really going to places.

[genrerolereversal]

#so might as well play with the trope. have a woman surrounded by hot and attractive dudes vying for her attention #she could be average looking, or older, or charismatic

I've seen some examples of this in media aimed at straight women, although the woman is always young & attractive too since that's the default for women in media lol.

Examples I know of:

Bloodbound 2 from Choices: Stories You Play app has a cover with the LIs (including 1 of the female LIs) surrounding her whilst she's sat down.

Finding Twilight webtoon from the Lezhin website/app has a cover where the guys literally have half open shirts whilst the f!MC sits on a throne lol.

Lady & Maid from Tapas website has a cover where the female character is sat in a suit whilst the male characters are sat around her in maid costumes.

Love & Thirst, an upcoming otome game has a cover with the f!MC sat on a chair surrounded by guys.

"Reverse harem" books seem popular on TikTok so maybe there's more there?

Thank you for the tip, Anon! And sorry for the late reply, I kept wanting to add more to the post haha. I don't want to derail the original thread so I will compile the examples here.

(^ Finding Twilight)

I'm always down for women in suits :P And I like that the guys are casually wearing maid outfits, not looking humiliated or embarrassed.

Baka-Updates also has a number of reverse harem stories, though it might take some effort to find the ones you like.

As for the ones I know... There's Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, a josei manga by Fumi Yoshinaga. It's an alternate history of Tokugawa Japan, depicting the shoguns from this era as female. It starts with polyandry as the premise, explained as the result of a plague reducing the number of men in society. Because the shoguns are now women, the inner chambers employ hundreds of men as concubines.

(The live-action adaptation)

I would argue that Ōoku is more diverse than average when it comes to women who aren't conventionally attractive. One of the shoguns, Ieshige, has a speech defect and other health problems like her historical counterpart. The rest of the court underestimates her because of it, but she isn't dehumanised or vilified by the story (imho).

Baka-Updates was actually how I found out about Queen's Palace/Empress's Harem :D It's set in a matriarchal society, has a dominant female lead, and a whole bevy of other GRR stuff/flipping gendered tropes. It's one of my personal favourites.

Like you said, many of the examples are still young, light-skinned, conventionally attractive women, so I'd love to see more variation. And for the men too--they don't have to be skinny anime boys or muscle-bound hunks all the time :P

[anime-of-the-day]

Anime of the Day: ​​Oooku

Alt title: Ōoku: The Inner Chambers

Released: 2023

The Redface Pox has decimated the male population. Women now dominate the workforce and the country. The few men that are left are a precocious resource. However, the most coveted of these men are sent to the Shogun. But it will take far more than a beautiful face to keep up in the Inner Chambers.

[takeshitakyuuto]

[animemakeblog]

“Oooku” The Manga For Gets Anime Series in Summer 2023

The Netflix Anime Special Stage at AnimeJapan 2023 revealed an animated version of the Oooku (Ooku: The Inner Chambers) novel by Fumi Yoshinaga. In the summer of 2023, the anime will debut solely on Netflix.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Oooku Monogatari[大奥物語]: Inner Chambers* Story

*specifically refers to the harem chamber of the Imperial palace

Oooku Monogatari SPECIAL[大奥物語スペシャル]

Midare Oooku Monogatari[乱れ大奥物語]: Top secrets the inner holls[sic] of a palace story.

Oooku Adare Onna Jou[大奥暴れ女情]: Inner Chamber (acts of) Violence (a) Woman's Feelings/Passion

[cravingmoremangacaps]

[fierce-little-miana]

So I wrote a thing and I thought it could interest @fleeting-blossom-of-the-dawn , @lescahiersdesable and @queengurako (or not I don’t know).

[takeshitakyuuto]

im sooooooo hyped for oooku but i also dont trust netflix with shoujo anime adaptations anymore. please be good please be good please b

[littleeyesofpallas]

Isekai Oooku de JK wa Koi o suru[異世界大奥でJKは恋をする]: Highschool Girl falls in love with the Inner Palace* (of) Another World

(*"Inner Palace" specifically as in the ladies' chambers of a edo era shogun; a harem's chambers.)

[daeva-agas]

I’m a long-time reader of this manga… Finally they’re hitting the Bakumatsu and I’m eager to see how it completes. Also Shinsengumi LOL. Since the entire premise was “Japan entered isolation to hide the fact that the shoguns were girls”, there’s been a bunch of random famous ministers and courtiers who were genderbent in this universe.

I wanna see if they do the same with Shinsengumi haha… By the Bakumatsu, the “male disease” that forced women to take up men’s roles in the government were cured so it’s mostly “normal” by this point. Shogun Iesada and Iemochi are girls, but Yoshinobu is a man. Most of the courtiers and Big Name characters are also properly men.  

A lot of the Bakumatsu stories out there focuses on the rabble on the streets, like the Shinsengumi or Sakamoto. Even if there’s the shogun, well… court intrigues are minimal. But this manga focuses on the court intrigues so it’s interesting.

I’m happy whenever I can identify subtle references to Other Stuff, because Edo-Bakumatsu is not my “expertise”. I love the Magistrate Kinshirou scene ahaha. The author made a totally forced scenario where his sleeves got blown by the wind so we can see his sakura tattoos. I mean, he’s famously known as Kinshirou, but because circumstances he’s only referred to by “Magistrate Toyama”, so yeah, cute reference. 

It’s really funny how Sakamoto was introduced by the way. Katsu Kaishuu came to visit the shogun and was like “Oh by the way, a weirdo called Sakamoto Ryouma came to my house to kill me the other day. I sat him down and made him chill out, though.” 

Shogun: WTF, why are you so calm 

Wiki did not really mention this event, but it was apparently a popular/well-known situation in pop culture, though the details is debatable LOL. Some were of the opinion that Katsu was exaggerating to seem cool when he said Ryouma was there to murder him.

https://rekijin.com/?p=30879

[daeva-agas]

... I translated Edgeworth’s long-ass Steel Samurai rambling because I’m curious just what it is that he was blathering about, and nobody else seems to have a translation for it. Now we know about the Steel Samurai lore. Yay. 

I opted to Westernize the names because... There’s already terms that may need explanation, it might be even more confusing if I use the Japanese names :’D

Didn’t translate the rest of the manga because you can find it in Court Records.

“Menacing Monks”: “茶坊S”, derived from chabouzu. Didn’t have an English translation so I made one up. This is not actually a monk, but I had no better ideas. In feudal Japan a chabouzu is an attendant who entertains the guests and serves them tea. They are shaved like monks, but is part of the samurai ranks.

“Steel Samurai Smelting”: トノサマン御乱心大乱舞 Tonosaman Oranshin Dai Ranbu. Translation taken from one of the combo moves in Marvel VS Capcom (except because it’s Maya, “Tonosaman” is replaced with Mayoi)

“Inner Chambers”: 大奥 Oooku. The shogun’s harem. 

“Survivan”: サバイバン Sabaiban, the original draft for Ace Attorney’s title. Scrapped in favour of Gyakuten Saiban.

The robot LOL:

Ｂｏｎｕｓ: The Steel Samurai being specified as being the “third son” of a feudal lord might be an allusion to the famous Japanese TV drama “Abarenbou Shogun”. In this drama, the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune often spends days in town disguised as the third son of a hatamoto (samurai vassal) and fights various evildoers (corrupt officials, corrupt merchants, fake money scams, etc). 

The shogun in the show also often carries a trademark fan with “justice” written on it.