Ooku: One of the Best Releases of the Year

Ooku is a sort of alternate history fantasy.  I never thought it would be licensed.  I especially never thought it would be licensed by Viz.  Thank you, Viz, for making me happily wrong.

I'm a huge fan of Fumi Yoshinaga.  I admired the construction and execution of Antique Bakery and have enjoyed her other works published (Flower of Life most recently) in the US. I realized why when I visited a traveling exhibit about shojo manga a few years ago. 

Yoshinaga was one of many featured authors, and in an interview printed in the show's catalog, she talked about wanting her manga to show the people who didn't win, the people who tried hard and failed hard.  Spot on, I thought.  That is one of the things I like about her work: a sort of realistic focus on the somewhat meandering way life works, stumbling sometimes, often going unresolved, usually trashing our expectations along the way.  I think her smooth point-of-view switching is what helps accomplish this effect, showing the reader the missed connections, misunderstandings, and muddles we make of our relationships.

Anyway, Ooku!  I'm so excited.  At Anime News Network, Casey Brienza wrote up an interesting review.

"After this well-conceived prologue, the manga shifts towards the shogun's point of view and a more overt high-level politicking. As it turns out, in a mere eighty years or so, it seems that the entire country has forgotten the rationale behind its powerful women. This plot twist definitely strains believability to a near-unacceptable degree . . ."

I'm not so sure I agree with this bit. Right now, 80 years is a single lifetime, but the life expectancy in the time period represented was likely much less.

It's possible that 80 years back then represented six or more generations. How much do we know about our great-great-great-grandparents?  Their way of life?  Now imagine a mostly rural, agricultural society with no mandatory education, and you can see how easy it would be for the past to be lost to the common people, especially in isolationist island Japan (I think the isolation policy was in place; their treatment of the foreigner in this volume seemed to indicate it, but I'm not totally sure).

Add to that the even higher frequency of change of  the Shoguns and the fact that the position was violently fought for among various rival clans, and you could see how even the educated ruling class would not easily be able to keep abreast of historical events; there were more immediate concerns. Add to that the world building groundwork Yoshinaga lays, that previous Shoguns have abused their power and squandered their wealth (most likely not on keeping up to date with ancient history.)

I think altogether, such ignorance of the world and one's own history makes perfect sense in this setting.  Am I just being too forgiving because I'm a fan, or is Yoshinaga really that good?