Seriously, how does Yoshinaga Fumi just keep getting better and better? Is she superhuman or something? Must be...
Anyway, I now own the first two volumes of this baby in English, and let me tell you - BEST PURCHASES EVER. I agree with Shoujofan that the archaic English in the VIZ translations seems kind of whacked at first - all the thee-ing and thou-ing and forsooth-ing, eep! - but then you get used to it after a while and it even starts seeming natural. In fact, it becomes part of the "lingo" of that world, part of its natural vernacular, just as the peculiar language of the novel A Clockwork Orange becomes natural to the reader. My hunch (as a non-Japanese speaker) is that in the original version, Yoshinaga must have used extremely archaic/formal Japanese, and the VIZ translators tried to recreate that effect. They kind of faltered with it at the start, but as the reader gets absorbed in reading the manga, I think it works out just fine, and just the way Yoshinaga-sensei would have intended it. The fact that you even stop NOTICING the language after a while is a mark of a master storyteller; you just suspend your disbelief and go along with it. In fact, after I finished reading the two volumes, I almost said, "Thou art most delayed, dear comrade!" to my friend who came late to a meeting. O_O The manga actually infected me, oh my God.
The best part of this manga is the world-building, which is some of the best I've ever seen, EVER, in that it so beautifully and accurately portrays human behavior in a society that is wildly different from our own. Because women now hold most of the perceived social power, society has in many ways "turned on its head," but everyone acts just the way they WOULD in such a situation. Somehow, it doesn't seem fantastical at all... The key to this lies in the fact that the world-building concentrates not on superficial physical things (like architecture or technology), but rather on interpersonal behavior, which is the true barometer of any social system. The nuances of this system are so minutely and exquisitely conveyed by the mangaka that you get completely absorbed in them, and when you stop reading the manga, it's literally like surfacing from another world. This is the kind of manga I like - the kind in which you can go "deep-sea diving".
The wonderful thing about Yoshinaga Fumi - okay, one of the COUNTLESS wonderful things - is that her understanding of human nature only matures with time, and as a result, her portrayal of it in her stories gets deeper and deeper with every manga she produces. This kind of growth in a mangaka is very hard to find, and when you DO find it, it's one of the most mind-bogglingly awesome and rewarding reading experiences ever. The little delicate shifts in her characters' expressions, postures and gestures conveys VOLUMES about their mental states, just as if they were real people; these aren't just static 2D characters with lines to read out from a script, if you catch my meaning. Instead, each one of Yoshinaga's characters is like a bonafide Oscar-winning actor in his/her own right, completely three-dimensional and believable and psychologically life-sized. You don't even think of them as characters anymore. Their pain, their tenderness, their agony, their humor in the blackest of situations and their resilience despite it all - this affecting and utterly moving humanity is conveyed in masterful pen-strokes. Oh, Yoshinaga-sensei...!
Seriously, I mean... My God. Yoshinaga's art was always graceful and subtle, but in Oooku, it has a depth and a wistfulness that somehow surpasses even her previous masterpieces. I was so stunned when I unpacked the first volume from its Amazon pack and started flipping through it, that I actually ended up standing for almost two hours with the book in my hands, right next to the side-table where I'd been unwrapping the parcel, because I couldn't freaking move. The story and the art were both so magnetically powerful that it was as though I'd been sucked into that other world, and I kind of forgot that my body was still standing around in this world, all frozen-like. Heh. I was supposed to be just "flipping through it" but I couldn't even do that; the story forced me to read every single word, to notice every single illustration, every face, every piece of clothing. This stuff is insane. (Insanely good, I mean.)
Yeah. Amazing manga.
Like Naomi said: BUY IT.
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