In Eisner-nominated Fumi Yoshinaga's alternative history of Edo-era
Japan, the men of Japan are dying out, and the women have taken up the
reigns of power--including the shogun's seat!
In Edo period Japan, a strange new disease called the Redface Pox has
begun to prey on the country's men. Within eighty years of the first
outbreak, the male population has fallen by seventy-five percent. Women
have taken on all the roles traditionally granted to men, even that of
the shogun. The men, precious providers of life, are carefully
protected. And the most beautiful of the men are sent to serve in the
shogun's Inner Chamber...
The new government of Japan is determined to not only end the reign of
the shoguns but erase any mention of the generations of women who once
ruled the country. Try as they might to rewrite history, though, they
cannot erase the memories of those who served in the Ōoku...