Anime: Oooku

Hello, here´s an incel misogynistic cisgender male pig reviewing the feminist anime Oooku, a Netflix property based on a rather famous, acclaimed and highly rewarded manga, in turn inspired by many other series and movies which uses the same setting of a real place in life and history of Japan.

The premise this time around has to do with an everlasting pandemic around the Edo era that only affects men for some reason, leading to a matriarchy government and way of how society functions in Japan. So, basically is the kind of stuff that makes you instantly think it’s woke garbage. Not only that, but the first episode, which is 80 minutes long for some reason, is half exposition to explain how things are inside the chambers the series is named after and takes place in, and half of it is comically swapping gender roles. Men go through so many situations women are historically thought to go through, and if I bothered to watch that world famous and successful movie made by a company who historically sent the opposite messages that it wanted to convey with said film, I’d probably compare it to that.

But I didn’t watch it and I don’t intend to do it in my life. From the promotional material I saw, it seemed that said movie hammers you in the head with its message, while at the very least Oooku puts men in situations that used to happen to women, and it doesn’t just say it out loud, it lets you figure it out by yourself. The problem is that, because of the light tone, it doesn’t feel like a serious exploration of what it’s trying to convey and say. The rest of it has a female Shogun somehow changing decades old rules and customs with extreme ease and practically no opposition. It makes for a proactive character with strong presence and attitude, but without a very solid nor believable script because of how well and smoothly such big changes are allowed to happen.

The animation was done by Studio Deen, and it was what you can expect from them when making a serious drama such as this one. The character designs are quite realistic, which is a plus for the time period where the series takes place in, and the show manages to balance the pretty looking characters, recognized as such in-series, with the average looking ones. The overall artwork is not very good, especially with long shots, and the character figures would deform at times, particularly the faces. Giving the type of series, this anime is full of moments where everyone remains still, and even during those where there are movements, the motions themselves are quite stiff as well. With that said, the backgrounds are quite well done, initially only the chambers are shown, but later on cities and fields are present in the anime to break the visual monotony. Finally, the special effects are good for this series, and there are some pretty good directing moments here and there. Overall, the visual department is good enough, as you can expect from these people.

As for the sound, the sound effects are mediocre, sometimes good, sometimes completely absent. The music is good and fitting, there’s no opening but a very good ending which even fits the type of show for once in the historical genre, and the voice acting is serious, mature, a bit atypical, and every voice fits its character well and is well performed. Another good enough department.

If you ask yourself why did I move to talk about other aspects when I only covered the first episode of the show when talking about the script, it’s because so does the series itself. The first thing that needs to be clarified about Oooku is that what you see on the first episode is not where its focus is going to be, as the other nine are a flashback that shows the origin of how things lead to the starting point of the anime. Quite a rare and risky narrative choice, as it leaves it with very little plot progression from where it begins and without an actual ending, it also doesn’t give an answer about what it’s done with the pandemic or why and how it only affects men. There is some kind of explanation about this point, given at the very beginning, but it feels vague, superstitious and not enough.

With everything I said so far you would think that I consider Oooku to be a show that’s not worth watching, and you would be wrong. It is certainly flawed, but I found it to be a pleasant surprise and the biggest one from this year as of yet.

The second thing that needs to be clarified about it is that it is for a bit of an acquired taste and not the type of series you casually sit to watch to have a good time. If you want some happy little escapism that leaves you with a good feeling at the end, this is not your show, it’s pretty dark and it doesn’t shy away from covering some quite messed up stuff, even taking or ruining the lives of many characters.

Once the prologue is over, the rest of the series is dedicated to explore its setting in a way that feels like it doesn’t leaves anything hanging or unexplained, and practically everything not only makes sense, it also feels respectful and accurate to actual Japanese history, besides the pandemic and the change of genders. With that said, it probably wouldn’t have lost much if the genders were swapped, but it is still a well-made alternative history type of show. The exposition is still not the best, as many characters would begin to talk about their lives in quite awkward moments and ways.

Besides a good world building, Oooku also deals with many themes you could expect from it, from the role of samurais, their code of honor, with the passing of time and change of eras and what needs to be done with and because of them, political relationships with other countries, what and how a ruler should be, financial management, unrequited loves, the extends one can go to for the sake of their country, and of course the pandemic itself and how men and women roles are changed because of it, with obviously the themes of oppression that can be expected from the premise, handled through the plot and not with preachy monologues. At the beginning only the chambers are shown but as the series goes on it also bothers to show how the commoners are doing, which helps in establishing the setting as displayed on the first episode, as well as covering other layers of the conflict. If the anime only showed the palace, it would feel a bit incomplete.

The series is also not afraid of showing dark topics such as rapes, systematized netorare for the sake of producing an heir (yes), and it forces characters into positions and lives they don’t want to convey how that might have actually happened to real people, and more specifically, women. The presentation is done tactfully and rather tastefully, as it shows enough for the scenes to be understood, yet not much to come off as edgy, exploitive and sensational, leaving the worst things implied. Also, no character acts like a straight up psycho.

Despite that, it’s not like the series is misery porn either, as it shows the characters’ backdrops to explain their mentality and where they come from, it has them being tainted by the corrupted setting and doing some immoral shit themselves, yet also confronting others and themselves, forming strong dynamics with others, and making it through the horrible things that happen to them to find some light at the end of the tunnel for them, as well as some kind of middle ground and point of respect and understanding with even their biggest enemies. No main character from episode 2 and onwards is left unexplored, undeveloped and without some type of catharsis, even when their endings are bittersweet. It’s still hard to consider the cast as amazing regardless, as there are a lot of them for the short amount of episodes, with even more than one name, which combined with their simple looks and clothes makes them hard to become memorable, and some minor ones are just irremediable assholes for the sake of showing the dark setting. Out of the main ones from the first episode, one of them feels like his role was over by the end of it, and the other was left to be shown again by the end of the work as a whole, I’d guess.

The finale of the series feels like a mixed bag, it ends in a good note for what happens throughout the whole of it, but since it only explains the beginning point of the first episode, the story is still far from over, and more arcs and generations of Shogun are seemingly left to be covered.

In the end, I didn’t exactly enjoy the series, but I appreciate the care it put into explaining its setting, making it feel coherent, and exploring its characters, and also how well it handled and presented all of its dark topics, leaving me now with something else to look forward to or another manga to read, as long as me and my country don’t perish before, of course. The premise and first episode made me expect something really stupid and what the show ended up delivering was something closer to the Korean show Kingdom, minus all the action and fun. Despite its noticeable flaws, I found it to be a quite good dark horse type of anime, and the biggest and most pleasant surprise of the year so far. On the bad side, Studio Deen only makes one or two good anime per decade as far as I’m concerned, so this means that they already filled at least half of their quota for the 2020s, but oh well, at least it happened this early.