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...
Curious about why female lords must take on male names, the shogun
Yoshimune seeks out the ancient scribe Murase and his archives of the
last eighty years of the Inner Chambers--called the Chronicle of the
Dying Day. In its pages Yoshimune discovers the coming of the Redface
Pox, the death of the last male shogun, and the birth of the new
Japan...