History Manga / Ooku

[[redirect:OokuTheInnerChambers]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ooku_1.png]]
During the reign of Shogun Iemitsu, a plague appears out of nowhere. It's presence is marked by a fever and red boils. Starting in a small mountain village, it soon spreads to the wider population. Oddly, the only people who catch it are men, and every four out of five them perish.

The effects this has on wider society are felt even four generations later. Traditionally male roles are now taken up by woman, including the position of Shogun. The Inner Chambers- which was once home to female concubines- now house the male consorts of the current Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune. Now in a position to enact lasting change, Yoshimune is determined to fix the rampant inequality and wastefulness of her country.

''Ōoku: The Inner Chambers'' (大奥, ''Ōoku'', lit. "Great Interior") is an [[AlternateHistory alternate history]] [[ShoujoDemographic shōjo]] manga by Fumi Yoshinaga. It was serialized in the magazine ''Melody'' from [[LongRunners 2004 to 2020]], and compiled into nineteen volumes. Creator/VizMedia holds the license to release the series in English.

A film adaptation of the first four chapters was released in 2010. Two years later, a ten episode drama aired on TBS.
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!!''Ooku'' contains examples of the following:
* ZeroPercentApprovalRating:
** Tsunayoshi becomes deeply unpopular as Shogun, some of it due to natural disasters she has no control over (as well as the 47 Ronin incident), but also due to her mercurial nature and indulging her father. [[spoiler:By the time she is killed she all but welcomes the prospect of death as she believes no-one truly wants her alive at that point... And sadly, she may have been right on that account.]]
** While she rules through Ienari and thus the people have no opinion of her, amongst the courtiers Harusada proves to be so vile that [[spoiler:when she's found poisoned the entire court agrees she's 'tragically' suffered a stroke and quickly set her aside, with no-one speaking up in her defence]].
* AbdicateTheThrone: Shogun Yoshimune steps down in favor of her eldest daughter Ieshige in vol. 8. Of course she failed to ''move out'' so....
--> '''Ieshige''': [[note]](after telling the officials seeking her advice to deal with ongoing famine and rioting as they see fit)[[/note]] "I-I-I know wha' the s-senior c-councillors will do. As always, they'll go s-stray to my muvva. S-so werefo' c-come to me at all?"
** Ieshige later steps down herself in favor of her daughter Ieharu. Unlike Yoshimune, she's hardly missed.
** Harusada doesn't even get to the throne before she abdicates it in favor of Ienari. She remains in power behind the scenes, explaining that she does not want the pressure of creating more heirs to get in the way of ruling.
** Ienari later does the same in favor of Ieyoshi, for much the same reason as Harusada: to wield more power without the need to create heirs.
* AbsurdlyElderlyMother: {{Justified}}. Due to the {{Gendercide}} plague killing off the vast majority of men in Japan, the shogunate has been transferred to the female line. Even though the country is globally at peace, the need to have heirs and many of said heirs dying before adulthood results in some shoguns getting pregnant at advanced ages.
* AbusiveParent: Plenty all around. Of particular note are Sakyo's mother and Ieyoshi, who both molest their own children.
* AllForNothing: Practically every generation of Shogun encounter a problem they spend an incredible amount of time and effort trying to overcome, only for their efforts to be completely thwarthed anyway. Usually, this involves the line of succession.
** Lady Kasuga's attempts to get Arikoto to serve as Iemitsu the Younger's consort are rendered pointless [[spoiler:by the fact that he's sterile, although Arikoto and Iemitsu only learn this ''after'' they've fallen in love.]]
** All of Tsunayoshi's attempts at producing an heir or a stable succession fail. She is only able to adopt a successor at a very advanced age, and [[spoiler:permanently alienates her father -- the only person besides Emmonosuke who she could rely on -- as Ienobu's grandfather was one of Keisho-in's rivals.]]
** Ienobu spends a lot of time and effort trying to produce a heir to ensure the line of succession, and to implement at this point necessary reforms to a woman-dominated Japan. [[spoiler:Her only daughter is sickly and dies shortly after she does, causing a SuccessionCrisis, and her reforms are stalled by vicious infighting between court factions as a result of her early death. Only an intense amount of court intrigue manages to save some of her legacy by making the pro-reform Yoshimune the next Shogun: Yoshimune promptly purges the Inner Court of Ienobu's followers, unaware or uncaring of how much effort they put into ensuring her accession.]]
** Ieharu similarly sinks a lot of time and effort into attempts at defeating the Redface Pox, [[spoiler:only to be foiled by her daughter's death and ensuing succession crisis leading to a reactionary backlash that destroys all the work of her followers. Ultimately subverted, [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture as some of the assistants survive the purge]] and are later instrumental to Ienari's efforts to eliminate the Pox.]]
** Ultimately, all of Iemochi's attempts [[spoiler:to reverse the ''bakumatsu'' -- marrying into the Imperial family, repeated negotiations with the pro-Emperor faction, appointing her cousin Guardian, and rapid modernization -- fail, and Yoshinobu's accession ensures the fall of the Shogunate. All evidence of the Ooku and the ''Chronicle of a Dying Day'', a record of the shogunate started during Iemitsu the Younger's reign and continued all the way up until the day the Tokugawa regime fell, are burned up to hide the fact that women used to rule Japan to the world.]]
* AllMenArePerverts: Deconstructed like AllWomenAreLustful. Men are expected to help their neighbors' womenfolk conceive...for a price. While a few men enjoy the constant sex, many view sleeping with women as an irksome chore, and some suffer harassment or sexual assault because of the expectation that their services are for sale.
* AllWomenAreLustful:
** Deconstructed, as it is the prospect of ''children'' that so many women who cannot afford a husband are primarily paying for. Sakyo's story demonstrates, however, that most women still want the ''hottest'' sperm donor they can afford.
** Yoshimune was already known for going through several men while in her province. As shogun, she has a habit of grabbing random men and dragging them into cover for a quickie, to their consternation/delight.
* AlternateHistory: Diverges during the reign of the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, as the Red Face Pox dramatically alters the gender balance of Japan as a nation and then kills all the remaining male claimants to the shogunate.
* AnimalWrongsGroup: Tsunayoshi's "Edicts on Compassion for Living Things" turn Japan's government into this, with punishment for swatting insects and ''execution'' for harming the packs of stray dogs wandering Edo.
* AnimationAnatomyAging: Most noticeable with Tsunayoshi and Yoshiyasu since they're seen at various stages from girlhood to old age. On the male side, we see Gyokuei go from adolescent boy to senile grandfather. Several other long-lived characters turn up in later arcs.
* ApocalypticLog: The "Chronicle of a Dying Day" (and apparent source material for arcs 2-6) was commissioned as one by the Reverend Kasuga on her deathbed. It is not likely that she anticipated the man assigned to write it, the scribe Murase, being 97 when Shogun Yoshimune called on him for clarification on several traditions whose rationale has been forgotten.
* ArrangedMarriage: Part and parcel of the aristocratic life and a sign of a family's prosperity and status. As the effects of the Redface Pox grow worse, being able to marry at ALL becomes a sign of considerable prosperity. The shogun's formal consort is usually chosen from among the Imperial courtiers, in order to maintain Tokugawa influence in Kyoto, although of course she is also free to take concubines. Iemochi is arranged to marry none other than the emperor's own brother, Kazu, to try to sway Komei to the pro-foreigner side. [[spoiler:However, Kazu is a woman.]]
* ArtShift: The art style occasionally shifts to highly stylized figures that resemble old-fashioned Japanese woodcuts, usually for generic scenes of everyday life that do not involve actual characters.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: The end of Volume 3. Strictly speaking it was only the annual ceremony of tribute and fealty to the long-reigning Shogun Iemitsu, not an actual coronation, but the moment the screen behind which said Shogun [[ElCidPloy (supposedly)]] sat was raised for the first time in the better part of a decade and a young woman commanded all to look upon her as their new ruler? Still counts.
* BadassBookworm: When an assassin tries to kill Tsunayoshi, Akimoto of all people bursts in and, ah, unhands the villain.
* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Several characters are noted to be much more likeable once they've fathered or given birth to a girl.
* BearsAreBadNews: The manga starts with a little boy being mauled by a bear, and then his brother becomes the first victim of the Redface Pox. [[spoiler:In volume 9, Hiraga Gennai discovers that bears are the reservoirs of the Red-Face Pox, and thus often the cause of every new major outbreak. The mountain villagers who hunt the bears have lived with the disease the longest and have developed traditions to protect themselves from it.]]
* {{Bifauxnen}}: Hiragai Gennai looks like she would qualify as a member of the Ooku, and is quite popular with the ladies because of it. Aonuma was surprised when the other officials told him that she's a woman. [[spoiler:Then there's Kazu, who managed to hide she was a woman until being undressed for a bath-''after'' officially marrying Iemochi.]]
* BishieSparkle: Aonuma occasionally emits these.
* {{Bishonen}}: By the bucket--at least in the Ooku itself. The rest of the country is a bit short on them.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The imperial forces retake control of the government from the shogunate and their first task is to burn any evidence that the shoguns had been women, but Tensho-in finally gets closure on Iesada's death, Takiyama adopts Nakano and becomes a successful mercantile businessman, and Chikako is finally acknowledged to exist and is allowed to retire to a monastery to mourn Iemochi. The series ends on Tensho-in, now Takiyama's employee, telling a young girl traveling to America about how Japan used to be ruled by women.]]
* BookEnds: The first volume of the series, after we've learned how the Redface Pox is inflicting a {{Gendercide}} on Japan, ends with Shogun Yoshimune visiting the ancient scribe of the Inner Chambers, who shows her his ''Chronicle of a Dying Day'' and reveals that, many years ago, Japan was ruled by men. The final volume of the series, [[spoiler:after Saigo Takamori destroys the Inner Chambers and suppresses all knowledge of the Tokugawa Shogunate being women, ends with Tensho-in revealing to O-Ume that, many years ago, Japan was ruled by women.]]
* BungledSuicide: [[spoiler:Taniyama]] attempts to kill himself after [[spoiler:the Inner Chamber is closed down for good, but because he's in too much of a hurry he doesn't undress himself properly, leading to the pocket watch he carried as a memento of Iesada becoming a PocketProtector to his initial stab and leaving him with a non-fatal wound]].
* BrokenBird: Iemitsu as a teenager, '''so much'''. While she matures into a formidable woman, Iemitsu is still deeply traumatized by everything she's been forced to endure.
* BrotherSisterIncest: Akimoto and his sister Kinu slept together, resulting in a daughter. Emonnosuke was ''quite'' amused when he found out, and notes that even the origin of Japan was based on this trope. At least it appears to have been quite consensual, because Akimoto and Kinu clearly adore each other and did not wish to be separated [[spoiler: and live together with their daughter/niece after Akimoto retires from the Ooku, one of the few unambiguous happy endings to come from this story.]]
* BrutalHonesty: Zenjiro got his scar when one of the women demanded to know if he'd been sleeping around. He immediately said that he had, since they were paying him, much like she had. She didn't take it well.
* ButchLesbian: The {{Gender Flip}}ped ''Ooku''-verse Hiraga Gennai always appears in male dress, freely enters the Inner Chambers without taking any notice of the hordes of pretty men, and shamelessly crushes on Lady Tanuma and Okitomo while carrying on an affair with a kabuki actress. She's masculine enough to pass for male in most circumstances and quite amused by the consternation this causes.
* CainAndAbel: Munetake toward Ieshige, a rare case of the younger sibling in the Cain role. Carrying a lifelong resentment at being passed over in favor of the older sister she deems incompetent, she passes it on to her daughter Sadanobu, whom she has groomed as a future shogun and a rival for Ieharu's daughter Chiyo. Ieharu anticipates a powergrab and appoints Sadanobu as the head of another family to remove her from the succession altogether. [[spoiler:Look below to see who has the last laugh.]]
** CainAndAbelAndSeth: Yoshimune's third daughter Munetada also founds a branch house, and her daughter Harusada is the one who convinces Ieharu to remove Sadanobu from the succession, making the Hitotsubashi branch next in line. [[spoiler: The next shogun is her son Toyochiyo (formerly Takechiyo), who takes the shogun name Ienari, and once his accession is secure Harusada has Sadanobu dismissed as senior councilor (for a rather petty reason, at that).]]
* CanOnlyMoveTheEyes: [[spoiler: Harusada survives her poisoning, but is left incapacitated and only able to moan. The official word is that she suffered a stroke, and while few believe it, they're too relieved that she's out of the way to care.]]
* CarpetOfVirility: Ejima has such a case of it that his terrified bride cancels the marriage.
* CastFullOfPrettyBoys: The Inner Chambers are this by design. The men serving in Edo Castle are divided into two groups based on whether they are considered pretty and accomplished enough to appear before the shogun. Those who are not are restricted to menial or administrative work.
* ChekhovsGun: Gyokuei murders the cat Murasaki and frames it on Shigesato as revenge for the attacks on himself and Arikoto. [[spoiler: He later believes this to be the cause of Tsunayoshi's infertility; the gods punishing the sins of the father through his daughter. This leads to the Edicts on Compassion for Living Things.]]
* AChildShallLeadThem:
** [[spoiler: Ietsuna became shogun at age ten, although she did not reign in her own name until she was twenty-two]].
** [[spoiler: Yoshimune herself, after the deaths of her mother and two sisters, found herself in charge of Kii province at the age of twelve.]]
** Ietsugu, the seventh Shogun, died at seven, after a reign of three years.
** [[spoiler: While it's not directly mentioned (likely due to the last minute reveal), Ienari was thirteen when he became shogun.]]
* CluelessChickMagnet: Poor, poor Arikoto. Women of all stations making calf-eyes at him when he was a monk was one thing, [[spoiler: but the teenaged girl he pledged his late beloved he would raise as a daughter making an AnguishedDeclarationOfLove? ''Awk''ward.]]
* CommonalityConnection: Iemochi and Komei bond, both acknowledging that to the rival factions they're little more than figureheads for their positions.
* CostumePorn: Lampshaded a bit in the story itself, as the idleness of the Ooku makes this one of the few amusements available to its residents...but Mizuno attracts Yoshimune's attention by going with something more subtle.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Let us say that when we first meet Shogun Iemitsu the Younger there is a reason she comes off as a budding [[TheCaligula Caligula]].
* DecadentCourt: There is a lot of jockeying for power and backstabbing throughout the series, but four eras stand out from the rest.
** In the second half of Tsunayoshi's rule, her court's luxurious excess is becoming a drag on the economy and the shogun is no longer really in control of her councillors' actions. Emmonosuke's rivalry with Keisho-in to find a concubine to conceive another heir is getting out of hand. Tsunayoshi's delay in naming an heir also leads to several successful and attempted assassinations, as Tsunatoyo's retainers come into conflict with the other candidates from the cadet Kii branch.
** Once Ienobu's succession is secure, things calm down as she's still of childbearing age and soon produces an heir. However, Ienobu's untimely death and the obvious frailty of the child shogun Ietsugu led to a breakdown of discipline in the Inner Chambers and a resurgence in assassinations as Yoshimune moves to ensure that the other cadet branches will not impede her succession.
** Ienari's shogunate, being ruled by Harusada, quickly gets a lot of problems in between Ienari's inability to stand up to Harusada and Harusada herself being an altogether less than pleasant person. To make a bad situation worse, [[spoiler:Harusada's frequent use of poison inspires many of the Ooku's concubines to use poison against their rivals and their rivals' children to advance their own children begotten by Ienari. Less than half of his children survive to adult age because of this.]]
** The ''Bakumatsu'' period [[ForegoneConclusion that lead to the Boshin War and the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate]]. Beginning with Tokugawa Iesada, the forcible opening of Japan strips the Shogunate of legitimacy while the imperial court at Kyoto becomes resurgent, backed by nationalist elements and the Chōshū and Satsuma domains who have become too independent and too powerful to rein in. Open assassination by pro-imperial factions soon begin to rock the court.
* DeathbedConfession: Hisamichi confesses to Yoshimune in their last conversation together (not technically her deathbed since she survives a month more but she already knows she is dying) that [[spoiler:she poisoned Yoshimune's sisters and the closest rival to the throne to ensure Yoshimune became shogun.]] It's not entirely clear how Yoshimune took the news, but their parting certainly seemed amicable enough.
** Inverted by Harusada, who 'confesses' to Munetada [[spoiler:[[JustBetweenYouAndMe that she tried to smear her own sister, and when that failed killed her by throwing her down a well, and has also poisoned Munetada's tea]]. Munetada dies momentarily afterwards.]]
** Ienari admits on his deathbed that [[spoiler: ''he'' was the one behind the rumor that he was a spendthrift degenerate, to hide any knowledge of the Redface Pox from outsiders.]]
* DeathByChildbirth: Not explicitly stated, but [[spoiler: it is strongly implied that the numerous miscarriages Iemitsu suffered in her efforts to [[HeirClubForMen bear a male heir]] were a major contributor to her early death. Her granddaughter Ienobu also suffers multiple difficult pregnancies that eventually shatter her already fragile health.]]
* DeathByFallingOver: [[spoiler:Sutezo]] fell off the raised floors of the Edo palace while jumping around with joy over the birth of his daughter and broke his neck. [[spoiler:Subverted in that he survived the fall, and died some time later from the Redface Pox]].
* DeathBySex:
** It is a rule dating from the time of Iemitsu for the first courtier of the Inner Chambers to lie with an unmarried Shogun to be discreetly executed for causing injury to her person [[spoiler: (Iemitsu the Younger had [[RapeAsBackstory a truly horrific First Time]] and could not understand that it isn't always like that)]]. Too bad nobody told [[UnwittingPawn Mizuno]] or Yoshimune ahead of time.
** In a roundabout way, [[spoiler: Emonnosuke]] qualifies because while he's had sex before, [[spoiler:his night with Tsunayoshi]] was the first time he did so for love and pleasure rather than to conceive a child. [[spoiler:He dies the next day from what is implied to be an aneurysm.]]
* DeathFakedForYou: [[spoiler: Mizuno Yunoshin]], in order to get around the Secret Swain law.
* DeathOfAChild: You better believe it. The Redface Pox kills off thousands of young men and boys in the first chapter. Girls may be at somewhat less risk, but this is still an era with very high child mortality. Ienobu's efforts to produce an heir are especially notable, as all three children by her official consort die shortly after birth. Ietsugu, her heir by her young concubine Sakyo, is the longest-lived but still survives only to the tender age of 7.
* DecemberDecemberRomance: [[spoiler:Emmonosuke and Tsunayoshi]] are only able to admit their love for each other once they're both well in their fifties and past the point where they can have children or score any sort of advantage by marrying. [[spoiler:Emmonosuke also dies the next morning.]]
* DecompositeCharacter: [[spoiler: Kazu and Chikako. Kazu is the part of the real life Princess Kazu that was a member of the imperial family and who joined a monastery, which Chikako is the part of Princess Kazu that was female, in love with Arisugawa, and married Iemochi (and also the one missing a hand, which it's been theorized the real Kazunomiya did).]]
* DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler:Mizuno]] is around for the first arc and that's it.
* DeusAngstMachina: Arikoto comes to terms with being forced to abandon his religious vocation and become [[AMatchMadeInStockholm the bedtoy of the Shogun]] only discover that he is [[spoiler:infertile... and Iemitsu is not.]]
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation:
** While Wiki/ThatOtherWiki does not list the cause of death for the real life Iemitsu, by default Ooku!Iemitsu's death is this as it's implied her health was weakened by constant childbirthing attempts. By that token, Ienobu's death also counts.
** Iesada in real life likely died of cholera, but in this adaptation she died of [[spoiler:jaundice aggravated by her pregnancy.]]
** While it was speculated that Emperor Komei died of an assassination attempt in contemporary times, there's no proof of this and it's generally agreed he was the victim of smallpox. In ''Ooku'' it's made explicitly clear he had been poisoned by anti-shogunate forces.
** The real life Hiraga Gennai died in prison of tetanus after allegedly killing two carpenters. ''Ooku'''s Hiraga Gennai died of syphilis contracted after she had been raped.
* DirtyOldWoman: Tsunayoshi is seen as this by the populace in her later years, as she maintains a large and active harem long after menopause precludes the political justification for it.
* DisposableSexWorker: The ladies Kasuga hires for the monks are murdered, even after Aritoko breaks his vows. It's implied Kasuga was going to have them killed no matter what, in order to prevent them from ever speaking of what was going on in Edo Castle.
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale:
** For Yoshimune, [[Film/HistoryOfTheWorldPartI it's good to be the Shogun.]] Within the Ooku, she's known for just grabbing a guy out of the blue for a quickie in the bushes or a supply closet. She does apologize and withdraw when Sugishita reacts with terror, but she didn't feel the need to check with him before pouncing.
** Tsunayoshi pretty much destroyed the family of her privy councillor Narisada (a woman she ''claimed to be very fond of'') this way. She had had an affair with Narisada's husband before becoming shogun, and after her ascension made him her unofficial concubine since she found the men of the Ooku boring. Then, when his health started to decline, she forced his (nearly identical) son into the Ooku to serve as her SexSlave, despite the fact that HE was also already happily married.
* DragonInChief: Yoshinobu is Iemochi's heir apparent but gains the title of shogun's guardian (regent) due to the insistence of the emperor's court, essentially making Yoshinobu official head of the government despite not being Shogun.
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: The whole business with [[spoiler:the executing the first courtier to sleep with an unmarried shogun was supposedly to avenge the pain inflicted during her loss of virginity. While Lord Yoshimune of Kii declined to claim any man for her exclusive use (them being so thin on the ground and all), it was common knowledge that [[GoodBadGirl she cut quite a swath through the menfolk of her district]].]]
* DressesTheSame: The Imperial courtiers plans on mocking Iemochi for whatever her choice of outfit, to show their disdain for the shogunate. (If Iemochi dresses in Edo-style clothing, they'll mock her for being provincial, if she dresses in the Heian-style clothing of the Imperial ladies, well, she's just imitating them.) Iemochi forestalls them by dressing up exactly like the courtiers, stating that she could not lead the emperor's army or protect him in women's garb. This ends up impresssing Komei, if nothing else.
* DrinkingContest: Sakyo is first seen winning money in one. It seems he regularly drinks women under the table on a bet. Even though he's well known as a scam artist by now, women keep taking the bet because he's absolutely gorgeous and the prize is a night with him.
* ElCidPloy: The original plan was to [[spoiler: conceal the death of Shogun Iemitsu until someone could sire a male heir on his bastard daughter and continue the Tokugawa line. Kasuga's son was the body-double at the fealty ceremony, while Chie was dressed as a boy to pass for Iemitsu's catamite, so she could enter and leave the shogun's chambers without arousing suspicion]].
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Den'emon, Iemetsu's stone-cold bodyguard/hitman/cleaner, lost two sons to the plague and so volunteers to help watch over the courtiers who've caught it.
* EvilChancellor: Emonnosuke, despite the overt ManipulativeBastard streak, ultimately averts this trope. His clever management is the only check on the vast expense of maintaining the Inner Chambers during Tsunayoshi's rule and his loyalty is squarely with the shogun [[spoiler:as is his love]].
* EvilMatriarch: Kasuga, despite being 'only' Iemitsu's wet nurse. She smothered Iemitsu the Elder to the point of being his power behind the throne, and after he died murdered the mother of his illegitimate daughter Chie so she could force the girl to bear a male heir. She also forced Abbot Arikoto to abandon his religious vows in order to father a child on Chie, killed one of his disciples when he refused, and then murdered all witnesses to his kidnapping.
** After basically serial dog-kicking her way into power, Harusada makes Ienari shogun-in-name only so she won't have to bother with trying to have more children while remaining in power. She drives the government into debt with her excesses, [[spoiler:kills her loyal retainer (who was also Ienari's wet nurse) with poison, and indiscriminately kills her own grandchildren, for no other reason than she wants to. Ironically, poison was also what ends up killing her.]]
* FalseFlagOperation: To get revenge on the samurai who raped him and belittles Arikoto, Gyokei murders Arikoto's cat (gifted to him by the shogun) with the samurai's sword and leaves the corpse near his chambers. The samurai is forced to commit suicide.
* FatalFlaw:
** Pride, for Yoshimune. While her judgement was, in most respects, compassionate and very practical, she could not get around her traditional samurai class-bias against merchants and the developing cash economy. It never occurred to her that cash taxes on merchants could replace the rice stipend system that was placing ever-harsher burdens on farmers.
** Pride is also Yoshinobu's fatal flaw, and unlike Yoshimune (under whom the Shogunate's strength peaked) Yoshinobu's position is sufficiently tenous that it proves actually fatal. Extremely arrogant and constantly underestimating the Shogunate's enemies, Yoshinobu makes already bad situations worse. [[spoiler:If not for Kazu's intervention, he would have been forced into suicide by the victorious pro-imperial faction.]]
* ForegoneConclusion: The second story arc. From Yoshimune and Yunoshin's story, we know that Kasuga's and Iemitsu's attempts to restore male-line succession are doomed to failure, since the shoguns will still be female four generations later.
** Reading articles on the shoguns on Wiki/TheOtherWiki can give away some plot developments, such as that Tsunayoshi will fail to conceive another child, or that [[spoiler:Yoshimune will choose Ieshige as her successor]], although it can't answer the most important question of all: when and how will the Redface Pox be eliminated?
** Given that other countries seem to be unaffected by the Pox, the eventual arrival of trade-proposals like those sent by the Dutch and others (the US was the first to threaten reprisals if refused) in the 19th Century would all but guarantee the re-opening of Japan (not that Japan was particularly closed, as recent studies of the volume of semi-legal and illegal trade via Tsushima and Korea would suggest). [[OhCrap And possibly the Redface Pox going global.]]
** The [[spoiler:actual elimination of the Redface Pox by Ienari's vaccine programme appears to have put history back onto its 'historical' trajectory, barring that Japan is considerably more gender-equal than in RealLife.]] Thus, the Boshin War and the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate appears to be all but inevitable at this point.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Emmonosuke's headaches, which he believes are due to the stresses of age and his position. [[spoiler:More likely they're caused by blood clotting in his brain, foreshadowing his death from what was probably a stroke.]]
* UsefulNotes/The47Ronin: As part of the InSpiteOfANail, this incident still occurs, but in this context, it is instead mourned primarily as a waste of good men. [[spoiler:In an interesting twist, the Ooku!verse Kira is female, but Ooku!Asano is from one of the very last families to have held on to male succession, hence the unusual concentration of men among his retainers. By this time, Tsunayoshi is elderly and her old-fashioned shock at WouldHitAGirl leads to a wildly unpopular decision not to punish Kira.]]
* GenerationalSaga: Starting with the third Tokugawa Shogun and ends four years into the Meiji era.
* {{Gendercide}}: Comparatively mild with the gender ratio stabilizing at 1:4, but it still has dramatic ramifications.
* GenderRarityValue: The men are Type 2. There are so few healthy, fertile men (as even some who survive the Red-Faced Pox are permanently disabled by it) that they are banned from any kind of risky or stressful activity--and that includes governing. A surviving son is seen as a valuable source of income, either from stud fees paid by peasant women or a dowry from a woman rich enough to buy a husband all to herself, but will likely never engage in any other productive activity. We see a peasant woman abandoning her elderly father on a mountainside, because he has outlived his only purpose.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Tsunayoshi borders on this. While she certainly meant well at times, the unpopular Edicts, her decision on the 47 Ronin, ineffective councillors who isolate her from actual governance, a tanking of the economy, and finally her sheer longevity and delay in naming her heir ultimately push her into this trope, at least in the eyes of the populace. And the truly tragic thing is she's aware of this, and would welcome a kingslayer to end her life. [[spoiler: It's not entirely clear if Yoshiyasu murdering her was a MercyKill or a WomanScorned.]]
** Harusada, despite scorning the actual title of Shogun, is this behind the scenes. Not only does she ruin all of Okitsugu's works in order to get into power, once there she has no interest in actually ruling. Unlike Tsunayoshi who is a tragic figure, Harusada is more or less purely evil.
* GlorifiedSpermDonor: Yoshimune views the members of the Ooku as this, with a rotation schedule for her visits to her multiple regular partners and frequent quickies with servants. Yoshimune's deliberate lack of favoritism prevents harem power grabs, since none of her concubines have special access to her to use as leverage. When she finds herself pregnant, it also means that [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe none of them can gainsay her]] when she names a weak and malleable one-night-stand as the father.
* {{Gonk}}: Ejima is exceptionally hairy and coarse-featured by any standard, and, when presented to sheltered aristocratic girls more familiar with {{Bifauxnen}} stage actors than actual men, tended to elicit horrified reactions.
* GuyOnGuyIsHot: A rare example of this being played in-canon for drama, and very definitely not approved of - see RapeByProxy below for the details.
* HappilyMarried: Several of the shoguns actually get on very well with their official consorts. Inevitably it all goes to heck -- see StarCrossedLovers for more details.
* HeirClubForMen: Kasuga is a die-hard proponent of the Club because of her devotion to Iemitsu the Elder, but most of Japan has already given up on male-line succession by the time Iemitsu the Younger reveals herself. By the fourth post-Pox generation, almost no one even realizes that things were ever different, and the idea of male heirs to noble houses is scandalous. As Yoshimune notes, matrilineal descent is far easier to track, even with more traditional gender roles.
** Interestingly, after two male shoguns in a row, many of the councilors would prefer to keep it a club for women, solely for the fact that women can't have too many children, while men can have dozens that drain the coffers and cause succession crises.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** [[spoiler: When Gosaku realizes that he will likely be executed for teaching Hollander medicine and the (completely accidental) death of Sadanobu's nephew, he only pleads that his students be spared, ensuring that the inoculation procedure doesn't die out.]]
** O-Shiga voluntarily [[spoiler:poisoned herself slowly to ensure that Harusada would eat the poisoned food meant to kill her. She dies a few minutes after the poison finally affects Harusada.]]
* HeroWithBadPublicity:
** Shogun Ienari [[spoiler:deliberately asked the scribes to describe him in historical records as a 'mad, profligate spendthrift' and specifically omit any mention of the Redface Pox or his role in promoting a vaccine for it, for fear that foreign powers would find out about the low male population and take advantage of it.]]
** Shogun Iesada is troubled by constant vicious rumours about her mental state, health and especially her appearance, [[spoiler:all set in motion by her father to ensure no-one would ever marry her.]]
* HiddenBackupPrince: Chie/Iemitsu ends up serving this purpose. As an illegitimate daughter by a commoner, only Kasuga even knew she existed until the Red-Face Pox killed all male claimants to the shogunate...at which point she was forcibly taken from her mother to serve as the progenitor of a new line of shoguns. Despite originally being a pawn in succession politics, Iemitsu ends up ruling in her own name as a grown woman.
* HiddenDepths: This trope is basically why Yoshimune continued to promote Ieshige's claim to the throne: she believed despite her physical disabilities she was of sound mind to rule. [[spoiler: One scene hints that she may have had a point: it's Ieshige that points out that there can never be a completely happy Japanese population, for to benefit one class would disenfranchise another.]] Unfortunately, her insecurities and the councilors' ableism ensured that Ieshige never got a chance to prove it.
* HiddenElfVillage:
** The closing of Japan has a rather different rationale in the Ooku-verse, as there is great (and well-justified) fear that others will take advantage of Japan's Gendercide to conquer her[[note]] The contemporary Empire of the Qing was renowned for its aggressive expansion into central Asia (modern-day Mongolia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Tibet) and subjugation of the Korean and Vietnamese Kingdoms. With more than thrice Japan's tax-revenue (smaller states are a bit more efficient at this kind of thing) and more than thirty times Japan's manpower thanks to the plague, Tokugawa Japan would be no match for the Empire. Even the Korean Kingdom, with half Japan's population and wealth, still poses a threat because of her manpower-advantage [[/note]]. Granted, the Plague could also count in Japan's favour should she actually be invaded, but they can't be sure of that. While the Dutch factory at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deshima Deshima]] remains open, the entire city of Nagasaki is involved in an elaborate masquerade to conceal the altered gender balance of the surrounding population. Every time the ''Kapitan'' pays homage to the shogun he is received in the Ooku and the shogun appears only behind a screen to create the illusion of an all-male court. What measures have been taken on the isles of Tsushima to ensure that the Koreans don't find out are not stated.
** Edo Castle served as a miniature version for several years after the death of Shogun Iemitsu the Elder.
* HistoricalGenderFlip: Almost all the {{Historical Domain Character}}s are genderflipped, except for those involved in the 47Ronin incident, [[spoiler: Shogun Ienari, Ieyoshi, the future shogun Yoshinobu, and, ironically enough, Kazu]].
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: While by no means a saint, Ienari of ''Ooku'' is a far cry from the real life Ienari: while the real Ienari was a degenerate who cared more about his harem than government, Ooku!Ienari is well-meaning but used as a puppet ruler by Harusada. Ienari is also instrumental in developing and helping to spread the new Redface Pox vaccine. [[spoiler: It's revealed at his deathbed that he deliberately asked the scribes to present him in historical records as the real life version was, and to omit any mention of the Redface Pox, for fear that foreign powers would find out about the low male population and take advantage of it.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Yoshinobu relinquished the shogunate's right to rule back to the emperor, with the expectation that, since the new emperor ([[UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration whom is known as history as Meiji]]) was a mere teenager, Yoshinobu would be asked to take power back anyway. Unfortunately the anti-shogunate faction got to Meiji first and convinced him to abolish the shogunate entirely.
* HonestAdvisor: Baron Hisamichi, who will rebuke the shogun for rudeness and tell privy councillors exactly where they can shove it. To their faces. [[BewareTheNiceOnes With a gentle smile.]]
* HopeSpot:
** Ieharu's court begins active research into the Redface Pox, and thanks to the hard work of Gennai, Gosaku and imported Dutch knowledge, [[spoiler:as well as an epidemic of a ''weakened'' Pox that doesn't kill]] , real progress starts being made on trying to cure the disease. [[spoiler:Then Ieharu dies, and Harusawa takes over. She promptly orders the research shut down and all the researchers executed on spurious grounds.]]
** In volume 12, After some false starts due to the machinations of the shogunate, [[spoiler:the vaccine program kicks off and the male population begins to increase... And then Volume 12 ends with Commodore Perry's ships sailing in.]]
* IAmNotPretty: Averted and defied by Yoshimune: she knows she's rather plain looking, but she isn't bothered by it because, as she herself prefers plainer men, she figures there will be a man interested in her plainer looks anyway.
* IdenticalGranddaughter: Sadanobu looks an awful lot like her grandmother Yoshimune and is probably aware of it, given how she tries her best to emulate her.
* IllGirl: Ietsugu unfortunately inherited her mother Ienobu's weak constitution, making her reign brief and unstable.
** Gender flipped with Ieharu's husband, Isonomiya, who develops a tumor in his midriff. [[spoiler: He refuses to let Gosaku treat him, in fear that Gosaku and his Western medicine will be blamed when Isonomiya inevitably dies.]]
** Iemochi is afflicted by beriberi [[spoiler:and the combination of that and the stress of trying to quell an anti-shogunate rebellion ends up killing her at age 20. Her dying words included laments that she wasn't ready to die and she had so much left to do.]]
* ImplausibleHairColor: [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in Gosaku's case. He's the blond son of a Dutch trader and a Dejima prostitute, and so favors his father in appearance that Gennai mistook him for a full-blooded Hollander.
* ImpoverishedPatrician: Yunoshin and Sugishita in the first arc, various aristocrats from Kyoto later on, including Arikoto and Emonnosuke. TruthInTelevision as the Imperial court was much poorer than the shogunate at this point in time and the wealth of the samurai class declined sharply during the Edo period.
* InSpiteOfANail: Despite being the opposite sex, the Shoguns of this timeline share the same names and reign dates as, and have very similar personalities to, their historical counterparts. Due to the closing of Japan to foreigners, its relationships with the outside world (as well as the outside world's history) remain much the same as well.
* InternalRetcon:
** [[spoiler:After successfully developing a vaccine against the Redface Pox]], Ienari has all knowledge and history of it destroyed to prevent foreigners from learning how badly it effected Japan, and has the extensive cost and time spent written off as Ienari being a spendthrift and a degenerate.
** In the final volume, [[spoiler:Saigo Takamori reveals he and the anti-shogunate forces have decided to blame Japan's isolation and its resulting backwardness on the Tokugawa being women, and intend to exterminate the entire Clan in order to wash away the 'dishonour' of women ruling. When put in a bind by Kazu's blackmail material, he instead decides that Kazu (being Iemochi's royal consort) being a woman obviously means Iemochi ''was'' a man, and so was the entire Tokugawa shogunate, meaning the Clan will not need to be exterminated after all since the Tokugawa being all men means there's no dishonour to their policies any more. The anti-shogunate forces then get to work destroying all evidence to the contrary, to the point that just four years later the Shogunate having all been men is now common knowledge.]]
* JidaiGeki: The majority of the series takes place during the Edo period, starting with the reign of Iemitsu the Younger (around 1630). The last volume takes place in the early Meiji era (1868), [[spoiler:ending with the historical fall of the Shogunate and the AlternateHistory proposed by the story being supressed by the UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration]].
* KingIncognito: While the fiction of male rule is still in place, Iemitsu occasionally goes out to observe daily life in Edo in female dress. While she's clearly of noble birth no one thinks to connect her with the shogun.
* KneelBeforeFrodo: [[spoiler: Ienari humbles himself before Kuroki and bows to him, begging him to restart his research on the Redface Pox.]]
* KnightTemplar: The Reverend Kasuga. She murders and kidnaps without batting an eye, and will use the only person she is halfway fond of as a brood mare. Her motivation?
--> "A country at peace. Without war."
** There's some genuine feeling involved in her quest for peace at all costs: her birth clan and marriage were utterly destroyed in the civil war over the shogunate.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm:
** Iemochi eventually comes to the realisation [[spoiler:that the Shogunate as an institution cannot survive the pro-imperial faction, and makes preparations to transition the Tokugawa into one of several ruling clans under the figurehead emperor]]. Unfortunately, the plan runs into Yoshinobu.
** Above anything, Yoshinobu's main goal is self preservation and his image, [[spoiler:so when he's arrested by the Meiji government]], he accepts it rather than be seen openly as a traitor.
* LadyLand: Not only have women supplanted men in all remotely dangerous or strenuous occupations, but by the time of Yoshimune they have also almost entirely sidelined men in rulership and administrative positions. Deconstructed, however, in that men have nothing to do but sire children but ''still'' get preferential treatment over women. [[spoiler:Following the Redface Pox vaccine, this trope is slowly killed off, as Japan is opened up by male-dominated western powers and the male-dominated samurai caste reasserts itself. Eventually, the anti-Shogunate faction supresses all knowledge of this trope ever having happened in the first place.]]
* LadyLooksLikeADude:
** Hiraga Gennai is a masculine-looking woman in this timeline, and fools just about everybody she meets into thinking she's a man.
** [[spoiler:Kazu successfully fools everyone into thinking she's a male until she undresses for her bath-''after'' her marriage to Iemochi becomes official.]]
* LanguageEqualsThought: DiscussedTrope. Taneatsu's first encounter with English and its simplicity (compared to Danish and Japanese) leaves him wondering if it's the language which shaped the people or vice versa.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Sugishita is one of the first men of the Ooku to show Yunoshin genuine kindness and shows him the ropes. As a result, Yunoshin brings him with him as an attendant when he's made a concubine of shogun Yoshimune. As a result, he ends up catching Yoshimune's eye (in a non-romantic sense) and is promoted to her personal attendant and later senior chamberlain after Yunoshin's 'death', going from one of the lowest-ranked members of the Ooku to the highest one.
** Harusada, who [[spoiler:poisoned and killed people for her own amusement, ends up dying from being poisoned.]]
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: O-Ume, a six year old girl traveling to America to learn English. Tensho-in ends the series [[spoiler:by beginning to tell her about when Japan was ruled by women.]]
* LetThemDieHappy: [[spoiler: On Kuroki's last visit to Gennai, he lets her believe that Aonuma was still alive and spreading the inoculation procedure, rather than executed and stricken from the records.]]
* MadeOfIron: Ejima endures unbelievable amounts of punishment, including floggings and getting bamboo shoots shoved under his fingernails, but still refuses to confess.
* MarriedToTheJob: Yoshimune certainly enjoys sex frequently and vigorously but she's far too preoccupied with governance to develop strong attachments to her partners or her councillors (except for Hisamichi, who she became friends with before her unexpected succession to lordship). Even when taking a relaxing bath, hunting in the royal park, or ''in the middle of delivering her first child'', Yoshimune's also thinking about affairs of state. Her relative lack of social graces does not much help. In volume 8, it becomes obvious that this has caused issues in her relationships with her daughters.
* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Subverted when Arikoto learns that the Shogun in whose name who he was effectively kidnapped and forced to abandon his vocation is as much a prisoner as he is. And possibly even more of a victim. The affection that develops between them is more solidarity in shared misfortune than a captive falling for his captor.
* {{Matriarchy}}: Of the Patriarchy Flip variety. There was a moment relatively early in the Red Face Pox era when ''massive'' polygyny could have been adopted as an alternate solution to the gender imbalance but the importance of family identity in Japanese culture and the shogunate's fear of consolidation of noble houses led to female-line inheritance instead. Within four generations, it's considered a bit scandalous to suggest that men should EVER be allowed to inherit. When Shogun Yoshimune is throwing out pretty much everything she was brought up to believe about gender roles, she still points out that matrilineal descent has the practical advantage of [[MamasBabyPapasMaybe being much, MUCH easier to prove]].
* MeaningfulRename: Women are given masculine regnal names when they take positions of authority. Such names may reference their relationships with ancestors or feudal lords, with the shogun's household taking names with the characters "Ie", "Tsuna", or "Yoshi". Likewise, men are given feminine 'married names' in official records. This started as Iemitsu insulting her concubines but soon became binding tradition. Particularly significant examples:
** The child Nobu is given the regnal name Yoshimune when Tsunayoshi grants her a fief out of sympathy for her plight as a third daughter.
** Tsunatoyo is renamed Ienobu, in the pattern usually reserved for the acknowledged heir, when Tsunayoshi ends the SuccessionCrisis by adopting her.
** Stripped of her childhood name (Chie), the first female shogun is technically nameless and addressed only as "Our Lord" until she declares herself as Iemitsu the Younger.
** Gosuke's Ooku name is Aonuma, a reference to his European blue eyes.
** After Harusada inoculates her son Takechiyo with a mild strain of the Redface Pox, she renames him Toyochiyo, saying that a new lease on life deserves a new name. [[spoiler:He later takes the name Ienari when he becomes shogun.]]
* MissConception: As an unfortunate consequence of growing up in a Buddhist monastery and then being cooped up in the Ooku as an adult, Keishoin has no idea how pregnancy works and hence keeps pressuring Tsunayoshi into promiscuity in hopes she will conceive a child...even when she's years past menopause. It also leads to the Edicts on Compassion for Living Things, which are meant to lift her "curse" of infertility.
* ModestRoyalty: Shogun Yoshimune. When one uses the gift of ornate robes as an excuse to dismiss a privy councillor, is known to meet with high officials in what amounts to her pyjamas, and ''continues to issue edicts while in labor'' it is hard to describe a ruler as anything else.
* TheMole: ''Tons'' of them. Many of the advisors, chamberlains, concubines and even consorts in the Shogun's court are secretly working for one or several political factions trying to influence or reduce the Shogun's power, or put their own favoured candidate on the thronw, but how effectively all the other moles working towards different ends (or the occasional HonestAdvisor) are able to restrain them will differ from generation to generation.
* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Kasuga subscribes to the theory that the grave is the most secure place to keep secrets. This includes the prostitutes used to tempt Arikoto[[note]]this is after cutting down his companion Myokei to force his hand and then a woman who won't stop screaming[[/note]], [[spoiler: the mother of Chie (AKA, the female Iemitsu)]], and the doctor who witnessed the death of the original Iemitsu from the redface pox.
** Deconstructed with Harusada. While she's fond of poisoning people, it's less 'best solution' and more 'least boring solution'. Reconstructed, though, [[spoiler: with the other concubines, who see poisoning as a quick way to get rid of rivals.]]
* MutuallyUnequalRelationship: Arikoto believes the shogun Ietsuna sees him as an doddering old fart, painfully oblivious to the fact that she loves him romantically. Absolutely everyone else can see it and repeatedly inform him of this (the fact that he was her father figure for most of her life doesn't help).
* MyBelovedSmother: Kasuga [[spoiler: to Iemitsu the Elder. Despite only being his wet nurse, she's far closer to him than his biological mother. Iemitsu complains about Kasuga constantly nagging him to stop sleeping with boys and produce an heir.]]
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted four times so far:
** Terutsuna, a woman who had been raised as a man, jokes that the only time she remembers she's a woman is when she gets her period.
** A tearful Tsunayoshi confesses to Yoshiyasu that she entered menopause long ago and cannot conceive another heir.
** Yoshimune started to figure out she was pregnant when she realized she hadn't had her period that month.
** Iemochi reveals to Kazu that she hasn't had a period for well over a year, meaning she is probably barren.
* NothingIsTheSameAnymore:
** Tokugawa Ienari [[spoiler:is the first ''male'' Shogun in generations. And while he doesn't really want to undo the established status quo altogether, his mere ''presence'' alone -- plus appointing his son as his heir -- puts said status quo in doubt amongst the female-dominant court.]]
** Much like in RealLife, [[spoiler:Matthew Perry and the Black Ships more or less obliterate Japan's status quo by opening it to outside influences and trade, meaning the Shogunate no longer has the monopoly on outside information and technology they enjoyed with the Dutch.]]
* ObfuscatingInsanity: [[spoiler:Shige, as part of her and Sadanobu's plot against Harusada.]]
* ObliviousToLove: Arikoto had no idea the shogun he's accompanied since birth had feelings for him, despite every other advisor telling him so (he thinks she views him as an old fart).
* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler:Harusada kills her own grandchildren. She also fully intended to kill Ienari when Shige and O-Shiga intervene.]]
* OhCrap: When Shogun Yoshimune informs her childhood friend and longtime retainer Hisamichi of her intent to replace all the privy councillors with a single intermediary to serve as a go-between between her and both the councillors and "that troublesome lot in the Inner Chambers," the latter could only giggle at first.
--> '''Hisamichi''': "Dear me! That sounds like a most difficult post indeed!"
--> '''Yoshimune''': "If so, then thou hast little reason to laugh, Hisamichi. 'Tis thou who shall fill the post."
* OldManMarryingAChild: Genderflipped with Iesada and her second husband. To be fair, Iesada didn't know until they met the day of the wedding that he was a child, and she's horrified. [[spoiler: And she knows her father did that on purpose to ensure no one else got to take [[ParentalIncest what he regarded as his.]]]]
* OneHeadTaller: Aonuma is half-Dutch, so naturally much taller than the other Japanese men around him.
* OnlySixFaces: Genderflipped from the usual pattern, as this is most noticeable with young male characters. It's actually thematically appropriate since the inhabitants of the Ooku are regarded as pretty much disposable and interchangeable.
* TheOphelia: Shige, after her son was poisoned. [[spoiler: It was an act to lure Harusada into a false sense of security so she and O-Shiga could take their revenge on her for poisoning their children.]]
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: The death of Tsunayoshi's only daughter, Matsu, is the catalyst for the chaos of Tsunayoshi's later reign. Likewise, Ietsugu inherited her mother's sickly constitution, meaning Sakyo outlived his daughter and it's stated that the son he had with his mother died of the Redface Pox. [[spoiler: Ieharu outlives her own daughter, Iemoto, (and already outlived two sons). Tanuma Okitomo, Tanuma Okitsugu's daughter, was assassinated in front of her as revenge for the series of natural disasters that were blamed on Okitsugu. And probably the most horrifying example, Harusada poisoned her own grandchildren, and it's implied she did so because she was ''bored''.]]
* ParentalIncest: [[spoiler: What happened between Sakyo and his mother, a ''priest''. She started raping him when he was ''14'' and continued doing so long enough to have two children by him. Little wonder he was willing to work at Ienobu's household with no pay if it meant getting away from her.]]
** [[spoiler: Ieyoshi molests his own daughter Iesada, to the point of being a {{Yandere}} toward her.]]
* PersecutionFlip: Inversion of traditional gender roles is a major part of the premise, after all.
** The most interesting flip is in attitudes towards strength and endurance: while men are still acknowledged to be capable of greater brute strength than women, they are perceived as too fragile and lacking in endurance to be useful for heavy physical labor.
** This actually intensifies another aspect of the persecution flip: because men are seen as so fragile, they usually don't take over traditional female tasks like cooking, textile work, and childrearing--women just do ''everything'' except provide sperm. That means a man whose fertility is compromised by illness or age is treated as even more expendable than an infertile woman in the same historical period, who might still be seen as useful around the house.
** Ejima develops a major complex about his hirsutism and extremely burly body, because standards of attractiveness have shifted so far towards the feminine, especially in the upper classes.
** All Zenjiro wants out of life is to be able to work as a chef, but high cuisine is seen as so wholly a female preserve that he has to enter the Inner Chambers to rise above the level of sous-chef, despite his obvious skill.
* PitySex: Yunoshin has a reputation for a variant of this. While he is hopelessly in love with O-nobu and would sooner clean sewers than ''sell'' his services (despite being healthy, good looking, and possessed of [[ImpoverishedPatrician noble enough bloodlines]] to command a decent 'stud fee'), he often tries to get unattractive, dirt poor women with child just for the asking. By making sex a favor instead of a business transaction, Yunoshin is able to name his terms, and avoids the kind of partner abuse Sugishita suffered.
* ThePlague: The Redface Pox, which takes a horrific toll on the male population. It carries far greater dread than even smallpox and yet almost nothing is known of how it works until Lady Tanuma tasks Gennai with a thorough investigation.
* PlatonicLifePartners: Yoshimune and Sugishita. Yoshimune even acknowledged on Sugishita's deathbed that though they were never intimate, he was the closest thing she had to a husband (and it didn't hurt that her daughters regarded him as their father). When he passed away she had him interred as one of her concubines rather than as a mere chamberlain.
* PlatonicProstitution
** When Kasuga presents several prostitutes to Arikoto and his travelling companions and tells them to "enjoy the company" of them at a guest house, the lot of them proceed to have a night of dancing and silly party games instead of sex. Then Kasuga and her goons step out from concealment to [[ScarpiaUltimatum spell things out]].
** In a very real sense, many of those who sell themselves into the Ooku are shooting for this. A life among the ranks of those 'Unworthy Of Our Liege's Sight' means that one will ''never'' even be asked to have sex with a woman again (at least until Yoshimune shows up).
** Abe often visited Taniyama just to talk and discuss policy back when he was a kagema. He's stunned when she doesn't sleep with him, but soon accepts it. [[spoiler: This leads to Abe paying off his debt to hire him as Iesada's bodyguard.]]
* PoisonousFriend: [[spoiler: Baron Hisamichi not only had the top rival from another Tokugawa cadet house poisoned, but personally murdered ''both'' of Yoshimune's sisters to smooth the way to her best friend's eventual succession to the Shogunate. She was around ''[[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior twelve]]'' when Yoshimune became Lord of Kii.]]
* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler: Blessed Kasuga was not going to let Abbot Arikoto leave Edo alive ''anyway'', so why not level with him about needing his services as a stud and appeal to his patriotism and[=/=]or love of peace instead of starting off with the dark hints and murders? She may have wanted him to fear her from the beginning but it was still a crappy strategy given that she could start cutting bits of his friends at any time.]]
* PraetorianGuard: A secondary purpose for gathering so many male samurai in one place, especially early in the Ooku's history, when the rule of law was not yet well-established. Even in the series' present day, the men of the harem are required to train in martial arts and to patrol the castle.
** Moreso for Iesada's Ooku. While on the face it's to provide concubines for her, the true purpose is to protect her from [[spoiler:her incestuous father Ieyoshi.]]
* PrimalScene: Tsunayoshi catches [[spoiler: Yoshiyasu and Keishou-in, her best friend and her father]] in the act and has a breakdown.
* PrisonRape: The Inner Chambers can be compared to a prison, and rape[=/=]AttemptedRape frequently occurs among the members.
* PsychoLesbian / WomanScorned:
** [[spoiler:Yoshiyasu]] turns out to be one, successfully pulling off an IfICantHaveYou after a lifetime of attempting to isolate [[spoiler:Tsunayoshi]] from other suitors.
** Famous kabuki actress Kikunojo II is obsessed with [[spoiler:Hiraga Gennai]] to the point of stalking her.
* PuppetKing: Ienari. [[spoiler:Eventually his mother's cruelties causes him to rebel.]]
* ThePurge:
** The very first thing the traditionalist faction does [[spoiler: once Ieharu dies]] is get rid of anyone with ties to Tanuma Okitsugu: she's forced into retirement, [[spoiler: Gosaku is executed]], and Western medicine is banned.
** More generally, a new shogun usually discharged her predecessor's senior retainers en masse. Yoshimune only avoided doing this because she didn't want to pay out severance packages and recruiting fees to bring in new blood.
* PutOnABus: Only natural this happens, given this story takes place over many decades...
** TheBusCameBack: ...but on occasion, this happens too.
*** Gyokuei spent an entire arc away, only to return as the father of the next shogun.
*** Arikoto reappears twice in his old age, once to visit Gyokuei one last time, then later to pay his respects to the now deceased Gyokuei.
*** [[spoiler:Yunoshin has a cameo where he expresses his desire to join the local all-male fire brigade.]]
*** Zenjiro has a cameo during the Ooku Redface Pox outbreak of Ieharu's reign, when he introduces himself as the oldest member of the kitchen staff.
*** Sadanobu shows up for a brief appearance back at her fief, [[spoiler:encouraging the use of the new pox vaccine in her domain.]]
** Probably the saddest example of this is Sir Nobuhira, Tsunayoshi's husband, who unwittingly engineered his own bus ride when he invited Emonnosuke to enter the Ooku. As Emonnosuke rose and solidified his power Nobuhira got shuffled off to one side, then completely forgotten when he contracted gout and was unable to attend the general audience. [[spoiler: The last time he's seen, at Tsunayoshi's deathbed, even Tsunayoshi fails to recognize him and he tries to strangle her in response.]]
* RagsToRoyalty: The (reported) fathers of the Shogun's children rank only slightly below her official consort (usually a Kyoto courtier), while the father of the reigning Shogun ranks at least as high as the latter. This means that men who started life as common laborers, gigolos, scam artists, and beggars have found themselves the peers of Imperial princes.
** Then there's Iemitsu the Younger, who started out in life as the illegitimate daughter of Iemitsu the elder, and died shogun in her own right.
* RapeAsBackstory: [[spoiler: Iemitsu (Chie)]], [[ChildByRape twice over]].
* RapeAsDrama: In one of the few things made up completely rather than taken from history, [[spoiler: Hiraga Gennai is raped by men, one whom infects her with syphilis. She dies a few years later from it.[[note]]The real life Hiraga Gennai died in prison, sent there for murder.[[/note]]]]
** [[spoiler:Iesada is regularly molested by her father Ieyoshi. When she and her followers take steps to prevent it, Ieyoshi counters by sabotaging her marriages so no one else can have her. This has also left her so fearful of sex she's unable to go through with sleeping with anyone.]]
* RapeByProxy: Tsunayoshi ordered the two men she had just bedded to copulate before her [[spoiler:during her period of depraved promiscuity after Matsu's death]]. As they were lovers, both adamantly refused, one even attempting to commit seppuku on the spot. Emmonosuke intervened before things got any worse, and when he reproached Tsunayoshi for her cruelty she pointed out that the shogun was also expected to have frequent sex under constant surveillance.
* ReallyGetsAround: [[spoiler:Ienari is the first male shogun and has an all-female Inner Chamber. He fathers a large number of children as a result (55 in total), although by his own admission he's the happiest when he's allowed to spend evenings on his own reading or talking with his retainers or wife.]]
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure:
** Shogun Yoshimune. While Yoshimune can be severe when she feels the greater good requires it, she also tries to get rid of ''pointlessly'' harsh laws that have remained on the books for decades just because of the weight of tradition. She's probably as strong a ruler as Iemitsu but without the ruthless streak: both drastically reduce the population of the Inner Chambers in order to save money and stop hoarding eligible young men...but while Iemitsu has the men she dismisses imprisoned in Yoshiwara to serve as prostitutes, Yoshimune sends them back to their families to seek honorable marriages.
** Shogun Ienobu appeared to be this as well, starting or planning many of the reforms that Yoshimune was able to institute, but her frail constitution killed her before she was able to go through with them. [[spoiler:It is eventually revealed that Ienobu's widower ensured Yoshimune's succession in return for Yoshimune's support to his late wife's planned reforms.]]
** Shogun Ieharu and her senior councillor, who are the first to identify just how badly the Redface Pox is hurting Japan and begin funding active research into it, including the nature and source of the Pox and bringing knowledge of Western medicine and vaccinations into Japan. [[spoiler:Sadly, she dies at the worst possible time and the ensuing SuccessionCrisis and reactionary backlash destroys almost all of her hard work, but just about enough survives for Ienari to eventually pick up the slack]].
** After a slow start under Harusawa's shadow, Shogun Ienari [[spoiler:eventually ends up being the one who kills of the Redface Pox with a national vaccination programme, though he almost bankrupted the realm and had to commit some seriously questionable decisions (including making a national census and forcibly separating children from unwilling parents) to get it done.]]
** Shogun Iemochi becomes Shogun at a young age and with an extremely badly dealt hand, during the historical ''bakumatsu'' started under her predecessor Iesada, and quickly sets to work normalising the shogunate's position with the imperial court while dealing with increasingly pushy foreign powers who she can only deal with second-hand through male intermediaries. [[spoiler:When it becomes clear the Tokugawa Shogunate is dying, she resolves to ensure the Clan will survive the transition into a new era under imperial authority... And then she dies of illness and overwork far too young, and the Tokugawa-sympathetic emperor she cultivated good relations with is poisoned by the anti-shogunate hardliners. Things rapidly take a turn for the worse.]]
* RedLightDistrict:
** In Edo, Yoshiwara's female brothels switched to male prostitution as demand inverted, but were largely unprofitable until the district was revived by Iemitsu to provide the women of the city a chance at motherhood.
** The red light district in Dejima is the last in Japan to employ a substantial number of female prostitutes, to cater to the Dutch sailors. It's noted that on the Christian Sabbath all the male prostitutes have the day off and roam the streets along with the foreigners to conceal the unequal gender ratio.
** By Volume 13, [[spoiler:as the male-female ratio goes back to normal, more and more women are going back to Yoshiwara to work as courtesans. Still, there is at least one house for male prostitutes, as that's where Taniyama was working.]]
* RousingSpeech: Taniyama gives one at the end of Volume 13 to Iesada's Ooku, revealing his past [[spoiler:as a prostitute]] and encouraging the men not to be ashamed of serving a female lord. This, coupled with the fact that he was wearing a replica of a kimono made famous by O-man (Arikoto), had some of the men suggesting he was the second coming of O-man.
* RoyalHarem: The main setting of the story. The Ooku is gender-flipped from the classic male ruler/female concubines pattern but otherwise has all the typical features: strictly segregated from the outside world, full of scandalous sexual behavior and luxurious excess, and constantly involved in political machinations. The different ways in which men end up in the Ooku are explored several times: some are coerced like Arikoto and Sadayasu and become {{Sex Slave}}s; some like Sutezo choose to enter the harem simply because it's a drastic increase in their standard of living; others like Emmonosuke and Kashiwagi are ambitious and want to gain access to the shogun; some are escaping much more brutal forms of prostitution like Sugishita; Akimoto and Yunoshin both entered after falling in love and then finding the prospect of an arranged marriage unendurable.
** By the time [[spoiler:Shogun Ienari]] come of age, the inner chambers for the first time in generations becomes a domain of ''women'', something that the female-dominated court views as scandalous.
* RussianRoulette: Harusada regularly invites her male harem to a banquet in which one dish is poisoned and forces them to eat their way through it for her entertainment.
* ScarpiaUltimatum: Blessed Kasuga chooses an indirect method. Rather than threaten Arikoto directly she [[spoiler: has one of her men start killing his companions and the courtesans she sent in to tempt him into violating his priestly vows right before his eyes]].
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Averted. [[spoiler: As horrified as she was by the whole "Secret Swain" bit, and despite her intent to rescind the edict once she found out about it, Yoshimune had to let the execution of Mizuno go through... [[FakingTheDead one way or the other]]]].
* SeenItAll: After a huge fire ravages Edo (including part of the castle), it's noted that the senior officials' jaded reactions are due to having experienced very tumultuous times.
* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler:Harusada poisoned her mother Munetada, after having thrown her older sister down a well.]]
* SelfPoisoningGambit: [[spoiler:O-Shiga shares poisoned food with Harusada in an attempt to kill her.]]
* SheIsTheKing: Women with leadership or administrative roles, as well heads of noble or samurai households, do not just take on what used to be exclusively male titles: they also use alternate masculine names for records and official functions. When men are mentioned in records or official functions (generally only as "spouse of" or "concubine of" an important woman), they use alternate feminine names. By the time of Shogun Yoshimune few even think twice as to why. Ironically, the original reason for giving female leaders male-sounding names (begun with female heirs impersonating their dead brothers, and made official with Iemitsu the Younger choosing to retain her father's name) was so that the era of female rule could be concealed and forgotten once the gender ratios went back to normal, since there would be an unbroken continuity of male names in the historical records. (The practice of giving men female-sounding "married names" began with Iemitsu the Younger mockingly re-naming her male concubines as if they were women.) Instead, that continuity leads to later generations of female leaders forgetting that men were ever the dominant gender.
** It's noted in Volume 13 that the line of emperors also included women during the height of the Redface Pox, however, Emperor Komei is a man.
* ShroudedInMyth:
** By the time Yoshimune becomes shogun, only the very, very oldest inhabitants of Japan can remember a time before female rulers, and 50/50 gender ratios are beyond living memory. An educated few are aware that the current situation has only existed for four generations and that the rest of the world is unaffected. For most, the time since the change has grown in the retelling from "a few hundred years" to "a thousand years" to "in the time of the gods".
** By the time Iemochi becomes shogun, [[spoiler:the eradication of the Redface Pox by Ienari has restored the 50/50 gender ratio and exposure to the male-dominated outside world has made male rulers the norm once again. While again an educated few know the current situation is only two generations old at most, for most the Redface Pox is little more than an old folktale and the Meiji Restoration successfully retcons history to remove all traces of female rule from Japan's history.]]
* SituationalSexuality:
** Male homosexuality is considered quite normal in the Ooku, much to the shock of newcomers such as Yunoshin. Many men in the Ooku will spend few or no nights with the shogun but never see any women besides her, so the other occupants are their only available sexual partners.
** Outside the Ooku, many merchant- and peasant-class women lust after male-impersonator kabuki actors, since sex with men is a luxury often too expensive to indulge in except to produce a child. It would be shocking in this context for men to sleep with each other, since it wastes sperm that's worth its weight in gold.
** Noblewomen are implied to have romantic and sexual relationships with one another, since their consorts are chosen for family connections and fertility, not for companionship. [[spoiler:Yoshiyasu clearly desired to have this kind of relationship with Tsunayoshi, and Manabe and Ienobu may or may not have been in a sexual relationship.]]
** By Ieharu's reign, lesbian relationships are widespread enough that there are terms for "top" and "bottom" sexual roles ("toichi" and "haichi", respectively).
* SketchySuccessor:
** Shogun Yoshimune would have been a tough act for anyone to follow, and her daughter Ieshige's insecurities (far moreso than any physical disabilities) render her almost wholly ineffective.
** Yoshinobu was this to Iemochi, and would have been to Ieharu if Iemochi hadn't won the SuccessionCrisis. As is, Iemochi bought the Shogunate some time by keeping Yoshinobu out of power, [[spoiler:and even then it wasn't nearly enough.]]
* SliceOfLife: There are numerous interludes in the various flashback arcs showing how common farmers and townspeople are adjusting to the loss of their menfolk.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Lady Matsu only briefly appeared in the manga, but her death shaped the entirety of the latter part of Tsunayoshi's reign.
* SmugSnake: Tokugawa Yoshinobu is extremely smug, classist and arrogant, rude to both personal attendants and the Shogunate's agents, and has an extremely bad eye for talent. Yoshinobu denigrates, dismisses or demotes practically all allies and competent people who could help the Tokugawa against Satsuma and Chosu, and and alienates almost everyone else Iemochi owed the Shogunate's stability to. While a somewhat decent political operator Yoshinobu overestimates the hand of the Shogunate and underestimates everyone else's, and is therefore repeatedly OutGambitted [[spoiler:to the Shogunate's permanent end. Only Kazu's blackmail saves Yoshinobu [[{{Seppuku}} from having to kill himself]] after the Boshin War.]]
* TheSociopath: Harusada is implied to be this. Flashbacks of her childhood shows she regularly lies to everyone for no other reason than amusement, she views her own child as nothing more than a political tool and has no emotional connection to anyone, she discredits her predecessor and assassinates her way to power, (literally) poisons her own supporters, [[spoiler:her grandson, and her own mother, and as her mother lies dying she claims she does it all because it entertains her.]]
* StarCrossedLovers: Repeatedly, as personal relationships are forced to give way to politics.
** ''Nothing'' seems to go right for Arikoto and Iemitsu. They love each other, but Arikoto is discovered to be infertile, and Iemitsu is forced to sleep with other men to produce an heir. Then she dies at only 27.
** [[spoiler:Tsunayoshi and Emmonosuke]] were infatuated with each other for many years, then spent a single night together before [[spoiler:Emmonosuke's]] untimely death.
** Ienobu had what could have been a happy marriage to her official consort... And yet she was forced to set him aside and take healthier concubines in order to produce an heir.
** Ieshige and her official consort, Prince Naminomiya, were also very fond of each other, bonding over being considered physically unattractive. Unfortunately, Naminomiya died shortly after Ieshige miscarried their first child, and she was unable to believe any other man could truly love her.
** Ieharu's official consort Ionomiya is absolutely devoted to her. He is devastated when she begins to take concubines (as all their children together have been male and she needs an heir). For her part, Ieharu seems to sincerely cherish him but not with the exclusivity he craves.
** After the hell of her first two marriages, Iesada comes to genuinely love her consort Taneatsu despite them being a political marriage. Taneatsu turns out to have been intended as TheMole by his father, but chooses to back Iesada instead and helps stabilize Iesada's shogunate and the line of succession... [[spoiler:And then Iesada dies of liver disease while pregnant with their child.]]
** Though their marriage starts out somewhat rocky [[spoiler:since Kazu is a woman]], Iemochi and Kazu eventually grow extremely close to each other and become each others' closest confidante and emotional support. Even Iemochi turning out to be barren doesn't affect them much [[spoiler:as Kazu couldn't get her pregnant anyway]], and they happily adopt a child together as their successor. [[spoiler:Then Iemochi dies at 20 from a combination of beriberi and chronic overwork, crying out for Kazu as she dies.]]
* SuccessionCrisis: This is a series about harem politics, so it's rare that there ISN'T some sort of infighting going on about succession to the shogunate.
** The whole [[ElCidPloy shell game]] with the two Iemitsus was to avoid [[HeirClubForMen a complete lack of male Tokugawas]] immediately returning the country to civil war.
** The death of Shogun Tsunayoshi's child and the politics surrounding who to name as her heir add to the (considerable) troubles of the latter half of her reign.
** The story kicks off with one, because of the death of the child shogun Ietsugu. Her regents have recently been brought down by a scandal so not only is there not an heir apparent there is no named successor, either. That means the heads of all three cadet branches of the Tokugawa have a shot at the shogunate. Yoshimune of Kii wins because she has been quietly preparing for this day for years [[spoiler:and Hisamichi has been preparing for even longer]] and is ready to move immediately.
** Yoshimune gives birth to 3 surviving daughters but still can't avoid a succession crisis, as the oldest, Ieshige, has significant physical and emotional disabilities. Her councillors push for naming the second daughter, Munetake, as heir despite the Tokugawa policy of strict primogeniture. [[spoiler:Yoshimune decides that Ieshige is still actually of sound enough mind to take the throne and refuses to remove her from the succession.]]
** Ieharu's only daughter is sickly, and Yoshimune's other grandchildren are already trying to position themselves for the next succession. [[spoiler: Harusada passes on the position in favor of her ''son'', making him the first male shogun in generations.]]
** The reverse situation is already being set up by volume 11: [[spoiler: Ienari has so many children that one of these inevitably happens. Harusada poisoned the grandchildren she didn't like, which gave the other concubines the idea to poison ''their'' rivals. As a result, only about half of Ienari's children made it to adulthood. Ienari nips the crisis in the bud by abdicating in favor of his son Ieyoshi, and then prevents another from even starting by declaring Iesada Ieyoshi's heir.]]
** However, Iesada getting poisoned twice has led her to be barren, causing another to start: the options are Lady Tomiko, Iesada's cousin and closest blood heir, but too young and female for some lords, and Yoshinobu, whom many consider more suitable an heir due to age and connections, but Iesada personally detests because she views him as heartless, and would cause the ruin of the shogunate. [[spoiler:Complicating things further is Iesada isn't as barren as she thought, and conceives a child with her husband. However, she dies mid-pregnancy, and Tomiko assumes the shogunate as Iemochi.]]
** Iemochi was initially content to have Yoshinobu as her heir, knowing most would have preferred him as shogun anyway, but after he alienates everyone with his arrogance, she begins to seek out a new heir, eventually adopting from one of the branch families since she's barren. [[spoiler:When she dies of beriberi-induced heart failure, the nobles pass over her designated heir because he's a child and name Yoshinobu shogun... Only for him to cause the abolishment of the Tokugawa shogunate entirely due to his arrogance and being OutGambitted.]]
* SweetPollyOliver: Zig-zagged.
** In the first years after the coming of the Redface Pox, several noble houses discreetly concealed the loss of an heir by substituting a daughter in drag. [[spoiler:Iemitsu stopped that practice cold just by showing up, although those taking 'masculine' positions still take male names]].
** [[spoiler:The writer/artist/inventor Hiraga Gennai is frequently mistaken as male because of her masculine dress, and rarely cares to correct the misconception.]]
** Women who go bear hunting adopt masculine names and dress out of respect for the spirit of the mountain.
* SwornInByOath: Men who join the Inner Chambers swear the ooku code of secrecy to never speak of anything happening inside its walls while outside them, even if they leave the Inner Chambers for good. This mostly works to the benefit of the Tokugawa Shogunate by covering up a large amount of court scandals, [[spoiler:though in the end it also means that few of the men serving in the Inner Chambers gainsay the Meiji government when they claim the Shoguns were all male and the Inner Chambers were actually a female harem all along.]]
* TakeAThirdOption: Hotta was stuck between two unhappy decisions: either sign a treaty with the Americans and be openly despised and censured by the 'Barbarians Out' faction that want nothing to do with foreigners, or refuse to sign and open Japan up to the possibility of a full blown attack from the Americans. [[spoiler:He chooses to stall by saying he needed permission from the Emperor first. Unfortunately, this was the absolute ''worst'' decision he could have made, as this severely weakened the shogun's power and opened up the possibility of the Emperor becoming more than a mere figurehead. And to make matters worse, the Emperor refused to authorize permission to sign the treaty.]]
* TeaserOnlyCharacter: The entire plot opens with a little boy wandering in the forest and getting mauled by a bear. Then his family was infected by the Red Pox disease, the aftermath of which resulted in the storyline's setting.
* TimeSkip: Several in Volume 4. After Arikoto becomes Senior Chamberlain, the story skips to Iemitsu's death, then skims over most of Ietsuna's childhood, then goes from Arikoto resigning as Senior Chamberlain straight to Tsunayoshi's succession.
** Afterwards, the series regularly skips years or decades between chapters.
* TimeyWimeyBall: Subverted. [[spoiler:As while Shogun Ienari's rule is shown to be shaking the established status quo, it still remains unlikely that the changes brought upon Japan can really be undone.]]
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: The two Shoguns Tsunayoshi and Yoshimune. Taught since childhood that she should strive to be attractive to handsome men, Tsunayoshi was shocked at Yoshimune's alternative view that since she has no interest in bishonen, it stands to reason that there would be men interested in plainer girls like her.
* TraumaticHaircut: Iemitsu vents anger at her imprisonment by having Den'emon go out into the city and slice off young womens' hair, likely inspired by her ''own'' post-kidnapping traumatic haircut when she was forced into male guise.
* UnexpectedSuccessor:
** Yoshimune. Not only was she from a minor branch of the Tokugawa family, she was the third daughter of it, so it was unlikely that she'd even become head of her own family, much less Shogun. [[spoiler: A combination of the deaths of her older sisters and the sickly nature of the branch that Ienobu came from saw her take the shogunate.]]
** In the only meeting they had together, Tsunayoshi notes to Yoshimune that she herself was an Unexpected Successor, being the third daughter of Iemitsu, and having inherited the throne when her oldest half-sister Ietsuna died without issue. The historical Tsunayoshi was likewise favored over second son Tsunashige, Ienobu's father. In the Ooku-verse, this departure from strict primogeniture is not explained, but may have been influenced by Iemitsu's relationships with her concubines (as she much preferred Gyokuei to Sakyo) or by Tsunashige having been in public disgrace for conceiving Ienobu with a lowly odd-jobber and then disowning her.
** [[spoiler: The ultimate example: Harusada abdicates her claim to the shogunate...in favor of her ''son'' Toyochiyo, making Shogun Ienari the first male shogun in generations.]]
** Iesada becomes one, as by this point [[spoiler:the male-female ratio is nearly back to normal, and men are resuming positions of power, but Ienari refused to consider anyone else to succeed Ieyoshi because she was the only capable child of his.]] By that token, her senior councilor, Abe Masahiro, [[spoiler: as she's also female, but her brother insisted that she become head of the family, and then Abe proved herself capable of high office.]]
* TheUnfavorite: [[spoiler:Poor Chikako. Even when she flat out states Kangyo-in loves Kazu more than her, Kangyo-in didn't deny it.]]
* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: O-nobu, the daughter of a wealthy merchant house and longtime neighbor of Yunoshin. [[spoiler: The guy she marries shortly after he was reported to have died within the Ooku from a sudden illness? Well, maybe they do look a bit similar....]]
* UnproblematicProstitution: Oh so very averted.
** On the Spear side: While a few men like Sutezo do revel in the money available by selling themselves and enjoy having their pick of women to sleep with, many more are hired out or married off against their will and the living and working conditions for prostitutes can be horrifying. Sugishita worked as a prostitute for years and was abused by many of his customers, then after marrying he was beaten and starved by his inlaws for infertility. He was so terrified of having to return to that life that he chose to enter the Ooku instead. Yunoshin mentions that he worked any menial job he could find, up to and including cleaning sewers, to avoid having to trade sex for money. Even Emmonosuke, a noted scholar with an impeccable aristocratic lineage, was little more than a very classy rent boy until he entered the Ooku.
** On the Distaff side: There are far fewer female characters involved in actual prostitution (because demand has largely collapsed) but they also avert UnproblematicProstitution. The sex workers Kasuga hires to tempt Arikoto include a woman sold into sexual slavery by her lout of a husband, Ikushima Shingoro finds most of her clients tedious at best and nauseating at worst, and the women who service foreign sailors in Dejima are ostracized along with their half-European children. Taking "prostitution" in a broader sense, Iemitsu and Tsunayoshi both profess to feeling like whores when affairs of state force them into bedding men they barely know in hopes of producing an heir.
* VorpalPillow: [[spoiler:Yoshiyasu]] kills [[spoiler:Tsunayoshi]] by putting a wet cloth over her mouth and nose.
* WalkingSpoiler:
** It's hard to talk about Ienari's reign without revealing he's the first male shogun in decades.
** Likewise, it's hard to discuss the later volumes or Iemochi's marriage to Kazu without the spoiler [[spoiler: that 'Kazu' is actually his sister Chikako.]]
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Ienari as Shogun [[spoiler:uses some extremely heavy-handed measures to ensure the Redface Pox is finally exterminated, forcibly vaccinating every male child in Japan and taking children from their families if they refuse, and demolishing homes to build enclosures for bears with the weakened Redface Pox strain. He also drives the Shogunate nearly into bankruptcy by bankrolling the entire operation himself.]] Given that Japan has almost completely recovered a generation later, Ienari's methods becomes a case of TheExtremistWasRight.
* WhamShot: [[spoiler:Taniyama runs into Kazu's bath to see Kazu's very naked-and very ''female''-body.]]
* WifeHusbandry: Nearly occurs [[CluelessChickMagnet totally by accident]], but to his credit [[spoiler: Arikoto]] gave as emphatic a rejection as one ''could'' give [[spoiler: a reigning Shogun]].
* WorthIt: Kuramoshi, Ietsuna's "secret swain", volunteered despite knowing he was going to his death, as Arikoto promised his family would receive a pension as compensation.
* TheWrongfulHeirToTheThrone: By the end of her reign Tsunayoshi believes herself to be this, and appoints her half-sister Tsunashige's daughter as her heir.
* {{Yandere}}: Sakyo's mother, who threatens to put a curse on him if he leaves her.
** [[spoiler: Ieyoshi, toward his ''own daughter'' Iesada. He poisoned her first husband, tried to prevent her getting a harem, sabotaged her second marriage by having her marry a literal child, then poisoned him ''and'' Iesada, all because if ''he'' [[IfICantHaveYou can't have Iesada]], ''no one'' can.]]
* YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe: The translator made an honest effort at representing the archaic speech of the original Japanese which:
** Completely erases two regional accents (Mizuno's brassy Kanto-ben, and Arikoto's elegant allusive Kyoto-ben) which are specifically mentioned and relevant to characterization.
** Leaves out the honorifics both in the original and those which ''are present in that form of English to start with''.
** ... limps.
** While using thous and thees in the early volumes (set in the 1600s) is appropriate to the English spoken at the time in Jacobine England, doing it in more recent volumes (set in the 1800s and reaching the Victorian era) is somewhat less so.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Aonuma is only in his 20s, but people constantly mistake him for a 30-year-old.
* YouCannotKillAnIdea: Implied with the ending. [[spoiler:As much as the Imperial government erases any proof Japan had been ruled by women and as much as the official line is that the Tokugawa shoguns were men, as long as there are still people alive that remembered the Tokugawa matriarchy they can pass that knowledge down through the generations, as Tensho-in did with O-Ume.]] Which, in hindsight, makes it a nice parallel to how they got to the point where they could try killing the idea in the first place: After the men studying Western medicine got kicked out of the Ooku, they secretly kept researching to find a way to stop the Redface Pox anyway.
----

* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: [[spoiler:Tokugawa Ienari is the first ''male'' Shogun in generations. And while he doesn't really want to undo the established status quo altogether, his mere ''presence'' alone has put said status quo in doubt amongst the female-dominant court.]]

** Ienari later does the same in favor of [[spoiler: his son]] Ieyoshi, for much the same reason as Harusada: to wield more power without the need to create heirs.

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:The ''Chronicle of a Dying Day'', a record of the shogunate started during Iemitsu the Younger's reign and continued all the way up until the day the Tokugawa regime fell, is burned up to hide the fact that women used to rule Japan to the world.]]

** After basically serial dog-kicking her way into power, Harusada makes Ienari shogun-in-name only so she won't have to bother with trying to have more children while remaining in power. She drives the government into debt with her excesses, [[spoiler:kills her loyal retainer (who was also his son's wet nurse) with poison, and indiscriminately kills her own grandchildren, for no other reason than she wants to. Ironically, poison was also what ends up killing her.]]

** Reading articles on the shoguns on Wiki/TheOtherWiki can give away some plot developments, such as that Tsunayoshi will fail to conceive another child, or that [[spoiler: Yoshimune will choose Ieshige as her successor]], although it can't answer the most important question of all: when and how will the Redface Pox be eliminated?

* FatalFlaw: Pride, for Yoshimune. While her judgement was, in most respects, compassionate and very practical, she could not get around her traditional samurai class-bias against merchants and the developing cash economy. It never occurred to her that cash taxes on merchants could replace the rice stipend system that was placing ever-harsher burdens on farmers.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Yoshinobu relinquished the shogunate's right to rule back to the emperor, with the expectation that, since the new emperor ([[UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration whom is known as history as Meiji]]) was a mere teenager, Yoshinobu would be asked to take power back anyway. Unfortunately for him, the anti-shogunate faction got to Meiji first and convinced him to abolish the shogunate entirely.

* HopeSpot: Nagasaki braces itself for another round of Redface Pox...[[spoiler:but all those who have fallen ill recover. Later, this weaker strain of the Pox virus is the best hope for a vaccine program.]]
** After some false starts due to the machinations of the shogunate, the vaccine program kicks off and the male population begins to increase...[[spoiler: and then Volume 12 ends with Commodore Perry's ships sailing in.]]

** Iemochi is afflicted by beriberi and the combination of that and the stress of trying to quell an anti-shogunate rebellion ends up killing her at age 20. Her dying words included laments that she wasn't ready to die and she had so much left to do.

** Ie
** Above anything, Yoshinobu's main goal is self preservation and his image, so when he's arrested by the Meiji government, he accepts his fate rather than be seen openly as a traitor.

** After Harusada inoculates her son Takechiyo with a mild strain of the Redface Pox, she renames him Toyochiyo, saying that a new lease on life deserves a new name. [[spoiler: He later takes the name Ienari when he becomes shogun.]]

** After a slow start under Harusawa's shadown, Shogun Ienari [[spoiler:eventually ends up being the one who kills of the Redface Pox with a national vaccination programme, though he almost bankrupted the realm and had to commit some seriously questionable decisions (including making a national census and forcibly separating children from unwilling parents) to get it done.]]

** Yoshinobu was this to Iemochi, and would have been to Ieharu if Ienobu hadn't won the SuccessionCrisis. As is, Ienobu bought the Shogunate some time by keeping Yoshinobu out of power, [[spoiler:and even then it wasn't nearly enough.]]

* SmugSnake: Tokugawa Yoshinobu is extremely smug, classist and arrogant, rude to both personal attendants and the Shogunate's agents, and has an extremely bad eye for talent. Yoshinobu denigrates, dismisses or demotes practically all allies and competent people who could help the Tokugawa against Satsuma and Chosu, and and alienates almost everyone else Iemochi owed the Shogunate's stability to. While a somewhat decent political operator Yoshinobu greatly overestimates their own abilities, and is therefore repeatedly OutGambited [[spoiler:to the Shogunate's permanent end. Only Kazu's blackmail saves Yoshinobu [[{{Seppuku}} from having to kill himself]] after the Boshin War.]]

** Ienobu had what could have been a happy marriage to her official consort...and yet she was forced to set him aside and take healthier concubines in order to produce an heir.

** However, Iesada getting poisoned twice has led her to be barren, causing another to start: the options are Lady Tomiko, Iesada's cousin and closest blood heir, but too young and female for some lords, and Yoshinobu, whom many consider more suitable an heir because he's older, male, and quite intelligent, but Iesada personally detests because she views him as heartless, and would cause the ruin of the shogunate. [[spoiler:Complicating things further is Iesada isn't as barren as she thought, and conceives a child with her husband. However, she dies mid-pregnancy, and Tomiko assumes the shogunate as Iemochi.]]

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted three times so far:

* BearsAreBadNews: The manga starts with a little boy being mauled by a bear, and then his brother becomes the first victim of the Redface Pox. [[spoiler:In volume 9, Hiraga Gennai discovers that bears are carriers of the Red-Face Pox. A 'bear flu', if you will. The mountain villagers who hunt the bears have lived with the disease the longest and have developed traditions to protect themselves from it.]]

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Above anything, Yoshinobu's main goal is self preservation and his image, so when he's arrested by the Meiji government, he accepts his fate rather than be seen openly as a traitor.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Shogun Yoshimune. While Yoshimune can be severe when she feels the greater good requires it, she also tries to get rid of ''pointlessly'' harsh laws that have remained on the books for decades just because of the weight of tradition. She's probably as strong a ruler as Iemitsu but without the ruthless streak: both drastically reduce the population of the Inner Chambers in order to save money and stop hoarding eligible young men...but while Iemitsu has the men she dismisses imprisoned in Yoshiwara to serve as prostitutes, Yoshimune sends them back to their families to seek honorable marriages.

** [[spoiler:Shogun Ienari is shown shaping up. Given how he's not only seeking to escape the shadow of his powerful mother and striving to take his responsibilities seriously, but he's also seeking to restart research into curing the Redface Pox once and for all.]]

* ShroudedInMyth: By the time Yoshimune becomes shogun, only the very, very oldest inhabitants of Japan can remember a time before female rulers, and 50/50 gender ratios are beyond living memory. An educated few are aware that the current situation has only existed for four generations and that the rest of the world is unaffected. For most, the time since the change has grown in the retelling from "a few hundred years" to "a thousand years" to "in the time of the gods".

** Yoshinobu was this to Ienobu, and would have been to Ieharu if Ienobu hadn't won the SuccessionCrisis. As is, Ienobu bought the Shogunate some time by keeping Yoshinobu out of power, [[spoiler:and even then it wasn't nearly enough.]]

* SketchySuccessor: Shogun Yoshimune would have been a tough act for anyone to follow, and her daughter Ieshige's insecurities (far moreso than any physical disabilities) render her almost wholly ineffective.

** After the hell of her first two marriages, Iesada comes to genuinely love her consort Taneatsu despite them being a political marriage. Taneatsu turns out to have been intended as TheMole by his father, but chooses to back Iesada instead and helps stabilize Iesada's shogunate and the line of succession... [[spoiler:And then Iesada dies of 'liver disease' while pregnant with their child.]]

** Iemochi was initially content to have Yoshinobu as her heir, knowing most would have preferred him as shogun anyway, but after he alienates everyone with his arrogance, she begins to seek out a new heir, eventually adopting from one of the branch families since she's barren. [[spoiler:When she dies of beriberi-induced heart failure, the nobles pass over her designated heir because he's a child and name Yoshinobu shogun...only for him to cause the abolishment of the Tokugawa shogunate entirely due to his arrogance and being OutGambitted.]]

* BookEnds: The first volume of the series, after we've learned how the Redface Pox is inflicting a {{Gendercide}} on Japan, ends with Shogun Yoshimune visiting the ancient scribe of the Inner Chambers, who shows her his ''Chronicle of a Dying Day'' and reveals that, many years ago, Japan was ruled by men. The final volume of the series, [[spoiler:after Saigo Takamori destroys the Inner Chambers and suppresses all knowledge of the Tokugawa Shogunate being women, ends with Tensho-in revealing to a young girl that, many years ago, Japan was ruled by women.]]

* JidaiGeki: The Reverend Kasuga lived through the tail of the Sengoku period and the main body of the series is set in the early Edo period. The swordfights this genre is particularly known for are absent, as most of the action takes place in Edo Castle where it is illegal to unsheathe a weapon, and outside the court the ronin population is greatly decreased.

* LadyLand: Not only have women supplanted men in all remotely dangerous or strenuous occupations, but by the time of Yoshimune they have also almost entirely sidelined men in rulership and administrative positions. Deconstructed, however, in that men have nothing to do but sire children but ''still'' get preferential treatment over women.

* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: O-Ume, a six year old girl traveling to America to learn English. Tensho-in ends the series by beginning to tell her about when Japan was ruled by women.

* OrwellianRetcon: In the final volume, [[spoiler:Saigo Takamori reveals he and the anti-shogunate forces have decided to blame Japan's isolation and its resulting backwardness on the Tokugawa being women, and intend to exterminate the entire house over this fact. When put in a bind by Chisato's blackmail material, he instead decides that Chisato (being Ienobu's royal consort) being a woman means Ienobu ''was'' a man, and so was the entire Tokugawa shogunate. The anti-shogunate forces then get to work destroying all evidence to the contrary, to the point that just four years later the Shogunate having all been men is now common knowledge.]]

* BookEnds: The whole succession mess started when Iemitsu the elder died, leaving the only person with Tokugawa blood a female. [[spoiler: Many years later, Harusada gives up her claim to the shogunate, leaving the only person able to inherit the shogunate a man.]]

* {{Retcon}}: Employed on various levels, obviously, to hide the fact that Japan was ruled by women during most of the Tokugawa shogunate, but most obviously employed during the final volume, in which Saigo Takimori-an agent of the Meiji government, and therefore had every reason to discredit the Tokugawa shogunate-agreed that the shoguns were all men.