Ooku vol. 12

I believe I made my complete and total dislike of this title’s current villain, Harusada Tokugawa, honored mother of the shogun, pretty clear in my review of the previous volume.  Re-reading said review, I regret more the fact that I used the word “power” three times in the space of two sentences than any of the thoughts I expressed regarding her specific character.  Seriously, the level of villainy she was shown to have engaged in over these past few volumes is staggering.  The only way I felt that I could be satisfied with her comeuppance would be for Harusada to recognize that she had made the wrong choices in life before she was put to death.  That doesn’t happen.  All I’ll say is that it’s a credit to mangaka Fumi Yoshinaga’s skill that this doesn’t become fatal to my enjoyment of this title.

For all I’ve talked about Harusada so far, her actions aren’t even the main focus of this volume.  Instead, the quest to find a cure for the redface pox and properly vaccinate all of the men in Japan takes up the most space here.  While this topic has always been an ongoing concern for “Ooku,” it’s prominence was only re-established at the end of the previous volume when the Shogun Ienari Tokugawa made a clandestine visit to former scholar of the Inner Chambers turned country doctor Kuroki Ryojun.  Even if Ienari is Harusada’s son and ultimately subservient to her wishes, he recognizes the seriousness of this disease and wants to see it stamped out.

While I really want to call what follows a feudal-era take on “The Andromeda Strain,” that’s not quite how it all plays out.  The cure for the redface pox has been established, it’s just a matter of obtaining the necessary materials and finding a way to convince the populace about its effectiveness and necessity.  What science is mentioned here is easy to grasp and follow.  The real drama comes from the political and social maneuvering in order to make it happen.  From finding a way to get Kuroki back into the Inner Chambers without Harusada finding out, to utilizing the forbidden Hollander studies of the late physician Aonuma, there’s a lot of tension to be had from seeing how the redface pox is ultimately dealt with.  All the way through Ienari’s death and his surprising decision about how this disease should be dealt with in the history books.

As glad as I am to see this plot thread dealt with, along with the uplift it brings, it’s not what I came into this volume wanting to see.  I cracked open vol. 12 with the hope of seeing the dragon that is Harusada slain in a properly vindictive fashion!  Now, I already mentioned that this doesn’t happen.  So the question becomes what did I get instead?

Yoshinaga shows us that the ruthless schemer has lost her edge between this volume and the last.  With all of her potential rivals dispatched, she now lives out her days in decadence partaking of the finest meals and men the capital has to offer.  I don’t know if this was an intentional move on the mangaka’s part to deflate the threat Harusada poses, but that’s the end result of the setup done here.  It’s alternately disappointing and frightening to realize that she couldn’t be beaten at her best and that her downfall pretty much came down to the woman losing her edge.

When we finally see Harusada’s fall, it winds up being more of a literal one than figurative.  (You’ll understand when you read it, and I take full responsibility for the pun-itive nature of that statement.)  I admit that I can appreciate the planning that went into it, specifically how it came about with two of her rivals actually sitting down to talk things out rather than shout at each other.  While their plan is a solid one, it also strains credibility with the length of time that one of them has to act in a certain way in order to make sure it’s pulled off convincingly.  Noble sacrifice is also involved as well.  I will say that while Harusada does eventually die, the actual death is reported as an afterthought many years after the fact.  I’ll admit that the state she is left in for the years leading up to that point is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  However, Yoshinaga ultimately leaves it to the reader’s imagination to realize how awful her current state is.  That’s something I can get behind.  It’s just that in my case, I keep imagining how much worse her circumstances could have been.  Because she totally deserved worse than what she got here.

At least she’s completely out of the picture now.  Yoshinaga showed that she could create a truly memorable villain, but ultimately wound up building Harusada up so much that her eventual comeuppance didn’t feel equal to her crimes.  Now, I also mentioned in my review of vol. 11 that the story felt like it was heading into endgame territory with this conflict and the cure for the redface pox.  While this would’ve been a decent enough spot for Yoshinaga to call things a day, she ends this volume by pulling out one of those “I should’ve seen this coming!” plot twists given the time the story takes place in.  Not only does it show that the story has plenty of life left in it, but that Yoshinaga can probably take the story all the way to the present day if she chooses.  Maybe I’m wrong and this next arc will be its last.  If it is, then at least I have very high hopes as it prepares to kick off.