oku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 9

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... Yoshimune brought many changes to the inner chambers in her time as shogun, and now even after death she brings another: the men of the Inner Chambers must study Western learning and discover a cure for the Redface Pox. For if Japan cant increase the male population, its only a matter of time before a foreign power discovers their secret and invades!