Yoshinaga Fumis Ōoku: Historical Imagination and the Potential of Japanese Womens Manga

Abstract

This article analyzes three aspects of Yoshinaga Fumis Ōoku: The Inner Chambers: its rereading of Japanese history from a female perspective, its reconstruction of gender relations as entertainment, and its incorporation of the legacy of girls (shōjo) and Boys Love manga. Heavily influenced by Yoshiya Nobukos novel, Wives of the Tokugawa Family, Ōoku depicts a number of female shoguns and their male companions across generations in order to highlight the problems of the existing, oppressive social structure and portray relationships between the genders as initiated by women. A comprehensive description of the rise and fall of a female shogunate allows Yoshinaga to illustrate the transformation and reconstruction of gender as a social construct. This manner of storytelling is rooted in the tradition of girls manga, which explores the use of androgynous heroines. Ōoku also shares much in common with Yaoi manga, which successfully explores the theme of gender difference in depicting male homosexuality. By blurring the conventional boundaries between girls, Yaoi, and amateur fanwork manga (dōjinshi) and creatively incorporating the legacies of each genre, Yoshinagas Ōoku demonstrates the potential of Japanese womens manga, a feat deserving of high critical praise. In this work, Yoshinaga succeeds in adroitly challenging readers notions of gender while remaining firmly within the bounds of popular entertainment.