Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
boochirp
This had the potential to be a 10/10 anime. The premise was interesting, the characters felt real, the plot was entertaining, and it's a character-driven story. My only issue is that the first episode belongs in season 2, but I don't believe there will be a season 2, which is unfortunate for such a good story like this. I think the adaptation would've flown much nicer if the first half of ep 1 was cut out or if ep 1 was shortened because imo there has to be a shorter way to introduce the chronicles without an hour-long episode that we never get back to again. It's disappointing that season 2 most likely won't be produced, and we will never get back to the present again. This would've been much better had it only shown the past recorded in the chronicles. One thing I will do, though, is put…
Read at the sourceMaki1234
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers is a dark, heavy anime filled with tragedy, brutal choices, and painfully realistic human moments. This is not a light watch. It’s clearly aimed at viewers who enjoy serious, tragic storytelling with a historical (alternative history) and dramatic focus.
The series explores power, gender, sacrifice, and survival in a harsh feudal setting, where circumstances often force characters into cruel and irreversible decisions. Many of the most impactful moments come not from action, but from quiet suffering, emotional loss, and the consequences of authority. Because of this, the story can feel uncomfortable at times, but intentionally so.
The animation isn’t outstanding or flashy, but it does its job well enough to support the atmosphere and emotional weight of the story…
Read at the sourcePlozinho
Translated with Google Translate: Portuguese
We often see romance anime that are extremely poor when it comes to the story, or the characters are completely poorly written or simply have the personality of a 5 year old.
In oooku we are blessed with a good script and what appears to be a very extensive universe creation.
The art often leaves something to be desired, but compared to the offensiveness of anime today... it's not that bothersome.
If the only romance-related thing you want to see is a cute little girl getting shy every time she sees her senpai, find a girlfriend.
Read at the sourceviickyACG
I've never written a review before, mainly because I thought it wasn't necessary. But with this anime, it's different—I feel it's extremely underrated considering the story it delivers.
Ooku is a historical anime set in the Edo period of Japan. It presents a "what if" scenario where the country has so few men that women take over the reins of society. This isn't a story about female empowerment or an attempt to portray a world with reversed gender roles. Instead, it's a completely unique narrative about how Japan, specifically, might function in such a setting. It’s a cruel story—society suffers under these new rules and demands. The government undergoes a painful transition to make things work, and it all feels deeply unfair to everyone involved, especially those who, in the future, are…
Read at the sourceTruck-kunArrives
No spoilers review-
If you’re looking for something even remotely cute, heartwarming, or happy romance, this is not for you. This is a fair warning as to what kind of story it is so you don’t have different expectations going in. It’s definitely not wholesome or uplifting. This is on the morose and depressing side. Personally, I wouldn’t even categorize it as a romance even though it technically is. I wouldn’t say it’s a court drama about consorts either (examples of what it is not like in terms of court drama: Apothecary Diaries, No Doubt in Us, Psychic Princess).
It has several dark themes. Content warnings for sexual violence (throughout the show), violence (many overt murders), and suicide. Sexual violence is done by both genders and often in same gender situations.
It left me feel…
Read at the sourceSprynthl
As a story, this has a fascinating concept. It was impressive how the most common omitted subjects/themes discussed in historical anime are daringly used in the series. And, it is quite dark and political. Those who are interested enough to watch this should tread carefully.
It's an alternate history of Japan which instead of leading a patriarchal society becomes quite matriarchal, reversing circumstances from what happened. For the pandemic, it should be logical to have doctors, researchers, and medical personnel working on it to prevent more infections and isolate the infected. They should at least have an idea of how such a disease spread so fast and wide over 80 years, yet we don't even see a doctor or an apothecary to help care for the sick in the castle. How are samurai to know how…
Read at the sourceLuxuriousHeart
This actually could’ve been a masterpiece, if only the manga were fully adapted. The concept itself is very intriguing. The concept is a period drama where a plague takes out most of the men in Japan, so the gender roles are flipped. Women start to work the fields, take positions in government, and do the traditional jobs for men. Because people didn’t want the plague to wipe the men out, they started keeping the men indoors and only used them to have children, which was a sexist role reserved for women back in the day.
This anime starts off good. We see the ramifications of that through women working the fields, men being prostitutes at the red light district, and a female shogun. After we meet the new Shogun and some events happen, she wants to study the history of how they got there.…
Read at the sourcejijimusai
If you're into alternative history dramas, this is a great one. It intersperses little pieces of historical context for the era, but diverges from history in an interesting way. If you're interested in gender studies, then give it a watch, because it's realistic in its depiction of gender disparities, for both men and women.
The pace is fairly good, and it holds interest. There's a diverse cast of characters with a web of drama between them, in different geographical locations. The way it weaves a present and past story, slowly revealing the mystery of how culture ended up in the present tent by depicting the past tense. It's narratively sound.
Read at the sourcei-like-this
The Japanese YMCA.
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers is a fascinatingly dark alternative look at an Edo-era Japan where a disease called the Redface Pox has ravished the country, decimating the male population to around a fifth and leaving the women to pick up the pieces by working the male roles such as farming, smithing, running the family business and even taking charge as the Shogun.
The narrative revolves around the inner chambers of the Ōoku, where eight hundred of Japan's most beautiful men are sealed off from the outside world and the Redface Pox only to be seen and used by the Shogun as concubines. Whilst the first episode is a mighty 75 minutes, it sets the stage and atmosphere of the palace's inner walls and what life has become after years of disastrous events. Episode two then swings…
Read at the sourceRi-chan
The fatal flaw of this anime is that it adheres too closely to the manga. The high rating this show receives is due to the high quality of the source material: Ooku is one of the better manga of the 21st century, a unique and fascinating bit of historical fiction.
The anime works very hard to honor the excellence of the manga by not deviating from it, but the limitations of anime as a medium make it come short. Aside from color, very little is added by bringing this manga to the screen in this manner. By copying frame-by-frame, scene-by-scene, the anime loses the power to explore movement and pacing choices. The slower pacing of a manga makes sense for a monthly serialization over two decades. For a 10 episode series, more can be summed up in those frequent VOs to allow for other parts o…
Read at the sourceEnjyu
Recommended for viewers in need of a fresh story, lacking in tropes and recycled content. (Don't be put off by the "josei" tag", I nearly missed it because of that)
The last 15 or so years of the anime industry have been very heavy and insistant on the same story, art and characters, the same technique has been so overused that the line between so many series becomes blurred in the eyes of a viewer that has grown up with the classics, is certainly grown tired of the same droppings, different season, and has a solid base for comparison. The factors for that are many, but a major one to mention is the very basic consupmtion = demand = production correlation, so naturaly at some point quantity inevitably overwhelms quality, as in many other products on the market. It's like authors and produ…
Read at the sourceKoiwaihomare
Feels like something that would be much more enjoyable if you are familiar with the source material. Watched this because someone online said Miyano’s acting was really good in it. And it was.
The acting is great. The animation is good. Only a few scenes had that obvious CGI that takes you out of it. Very much a Josei. That’s the audience it’s made for. Not probably going to like it if you really don’t jive with Josei.
It falls into that common alternate history trope where the characters are written more like historical figures than like fictional characters. They grow and change but not in a way that’s really in service of a character arc. Things just happen to them and they have to respond. The world isn’t shaped to facilitate rewarding payoffs and character moments. And the narrativ…
Read at the sourceBelsel
This anime has surprised me and I liked it a lot, but it has left a bittersweet taste in me because halfway through the series I thought it might deserve a 10, but it is deflating and the last chapter is very rushed, so I had to give it a thumbs up. 8. If anyone is interested, I am a man.
What is most surprising at first is the exchange of roles (although the series itself reveals that there has not been a reversal of roles; and it is true, since basically the women deal with what they already dealt with, in addition to working and Men only dedicate themselves to procreate and are in great demand for it). The first chapter lasts almost 1h and 20 minutes and is truly captivating, where a story is presented. But in the following 9 standard-length episodes, they present another related but d…
Read at the sourceCo_Chibi
Honestly enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. I'm not usually one for period dramas but this kept my attention. And with the subject matter sounding very sexual the whole show doesn't feel sexual, which was very nice. Almost all sexual scenes are fade to black sort of scenes, the only ones that are actually depicted are only very briefly shown and don't feel graphic at all, which I appreciate a lot. Very comfortably watched this in my mother's living room haha.
The opening episode is very long but is meant to be years after the rest of the series, I appreciated the setup as it explains why things are the way they are as the episodes go on. Some things are more far-fetched than I would like, but considering the point of it all is a role reversal where now women run the country I…
Read at the sourceCaptainKenshiro
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 comic…
Read at the sourced_t_a0811
READING TIME: ~2 minutes
INTRODUCTION
Ooku is a moving period piece on an alternate-history Edo era Japan. It promises nuanced character relationships, compelling themes, and consistent tone and exceeded my expectations in all these categories. Despite a somewhat awkward transition from its first episode to the remainder of the story and some disturbing scenes of sexual violence, this show is certainly worth your time to watch.
NOTE ON THE FIRST EPISODE
First, anyone’s experience with the show will be better if they understand that the first episode is 1) over an hour long and 2) is mostly an unrelated framing story to introduce episodes 2 – 10. The remainder of the show does tie to one major plot point of the first episode, but the transition from episode 1 to 2 may ultimately feel disj…
Read at the sourcewhiteflame55
This isn't a series I was expecting to pick up this season. It popped up on my Netflix and, while it looked like a decent historical drama, it flew under my radar until I heard about it in a couple of reviews. The premise of the show is a bit of alternate history where most of the men in Edo era Japan are wiped out by a strange disease called Redface Pox that only affects them leaving women untouched. This results in a big shift in the dynamics of sex in Japan at this time, making women the dominant sex in society for quite a while. The series starts out with a triple length episode covering events that happened many years after the pox took its toll, and then spends the rest of its run examining the transition period as the pox was ravaging society, emphasizing events taking place in the…
Read at the sourcegingerholic
Having watched the live-action Japanese drama and movie starring Sakai Masato over a decade ago, I was shocked to see that Ōoku wasn't animated until recently (the manga itself began in 2004 and ended in 2020).
Set in the Edo period governed by the Tokugawa shogunate, this anime portrays an alternate universe where a traditional patriarchy becomes dominated by women due to a red-face smallpox pandemic that wipes out 75-80% of young men. Women are rainmakers while men are preciously preserved behind closed doors serving as fertility storks or left to thrive in the Yoshiwara red-light district as male courtesans. I was constantly reminded while watching this anime that the live-action drama/movie from over a decade ago is deeply ingrained in my mind as I still vividly recall the plot surrou…
Read at the sourcekchakrak
Period drama anime Game of Thrones. If you like show where there is nothing but sadness and depression, along with a boatload of slightly dull political intrigue this is for you. It doesn't have quite the amount of violence and rape as GoT, but it's not far off.
My biggest problems were it's failure to have a fixed central narrative, in particular it's insistence on being weirdly historically accurate in this alternate-history story. I'm still clueless as to what the premise has to do with any of the story. For the majority of the story the patriarchy is in full control and it doesn't play with the gender roles at all. Sure, you could argue it's realistic but I still don't see what the premise is adding, at least without it the show would be a slightly dark political drama as opposed to a…
Read at the sourceBYZANTIUMN
Fans of Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju will get a taste of something they may enjoy again, but may be left wanting for more.
Many of the best of Deen's longtime VA talent join together and give perhaps their most emotional and heartfelt performances in a decade.
But the story almost seems hostile to the viewer in that it wants you to get invested over and over again only to never give any payoff, aside from a few moments.
That describes much of every episode, but also the series at large.
I wanted to LOVE it, but I come away just liking it. Not bad, not amazing.
The voice acting is what makes this worth watching at all to be frank.
While the direction was overall phenomenal, the sound design aside from the spoken words was extremely lacking, and the story was just plain awful.
So m…
Read at the source
