oku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 6: Volume 6

In Eisner-nominated Fumi Yoshinagas alternative history of Edo-era Japan, the men of Japan are dying out, and the women have taken up the reigns of powerincluding the shoguns 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 aging shogun Tsunayoshi must name an heir, but her senile father is blocking the ascendance of the most likely candidate in favor of a young, untried lord. But politics and the shoguns own unpopularity may soon take the choice out of her hands.