Ooku: The Inner Chambers

If you’re like me, a book called Ōoku: The Inner Chambers might make you think that perhaps an Ōoku is some huge slavering monster that lives in the depths of a cave. And like me, you would be utterly wrong. In Japan’s Edo Castle, the Ōoku was where the women who were attached to the current Shogun lived; aside from the Shogun, no other man would enter those chambers. Once I realized my error, though, I found myself drawn into Ōoku almost instantly with its alternate history concept that resulted in most of Japan’s men dying of a plague. For there, it seems, the Ōoku is something entirely different.