Ooku ~Tanjou~ (大奥 ~誕生~ – Inner Palace ~Birth~) presents an alternative history in which the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu dies, leaving only a daughter as heir. To keep the country from plunging back into the chaos of a generation before, Iemitsu’s death is kept a secret in the hope that his daughter (played by Tabe Mikako) will eventually give birth to a male heir who can take over. The hero of this story – Arikoto (Sakai Masato) – is brought in as a consort for the female Shogun.
In the third episode, Arikoto and the Shogun were getting to know each other. By the end, it’s safe to say that Arikoto managed to become quite close to the Shogun – far closer than any of the other potential consorts.
But I have to admit – this might have happened too quickly. I thought this would be more of a struggle for Arikoto, especially considering the way the Shogun treated him in the first episode (violently). If they’re already close to each other, where’s the conflict in the series?
The episode begins with a bit of archery. Arikoto has been practicing – being in the Ooku for a year with little else to do – and is now quite skilled at it.
He prefers it over swordsmanship, which has become the specialty of his aide, Gyokuei (Tanaka Koki). We learned in the previous episode that Gyokuei is a less than savory character – and certainly no monk – after he set up Shigesato and was delighted when Shigesato was forced to commit suicide.
During the year, Arikoto has also started giving lectures – presumably on the philosophy he had devoted his life to as a monk before all that got taken away from him. The lectures seem quite popular among the denizens of the Ooku.
Meanwhile, the Shogun and her public voice Masakatsu (Hirayama Hiroyuki) discuss foreign affairs. In particular, the famous decision of the Tokugawa shogunate to limit foreign trade to the port of Nagasaki, and then to exclude the Portuguese, thereby benefiting the Dutch. The decision would effectively close Japan to the world for over two hundred years.
Here, the Shogun proposes this pivotal decision in an off-hand, aloof manner with scant justification. That seems to me to be completely inexcusable. It’s almost as if the writers are trivializing what must have been a very serious foreign policy decision made because the country was still very fragile after generations of infighting, and outside influences could potentially take advantage.
The Shogun moves on to ask about the scarlet smallpox that attacks only the young men in the country (including Tokugawa Iemitsu himself). When she hears that the disease persists, her reaction is . . . distasteful. She sees it as an opportunity to keep the other lords down – to take over their holdings with no heir. I’m sure there have been politicians who have taken such delight about the suffering of their own people, but they don’t usually feature as one of the protagonists in a drama. Before the Tokugawa shogunate, rulers like King Henry VIII of England, Louis XIV of France, and Ivan the Terrible Russia took similar advantages to break the nobility and seize lands when no heir was produced. I don’t think any one of them – not even Ivan – did it with quite the contemptuous smile and tone that the Shogun had here.
Well, the Shogun seems ready and eager to make the decisions, anyway. She also acts a bit more grown-up about her discontent in the Ooku.
She’s real eager to see Arikoto when he stops by. Apparently, he’s continued to grow on her.
They talk about the sea. While the Shogun has grown attached in a romantic way to Arikoto, he doesn’t look at her in quite the same way.
In bed (and yes, somehow we’ve already skipped to the part where they’re that close – must have been quite a year), the Shogun mentions that the sorts of things she discusses with Masakatsu would probably shock Arikoto. At least she has that much self-awareness. She’s afraid of being hated by him.
He assures her that he could not hate the Shogun, but he continues to use very formal language towards her.
She continues to be worried about anything that might bring him to dislike her, but he finds a pragmatic way of alleviating her fears.
I’m confused. I can appreciate that she’s a different person with Arikoto than she is with Masakatsu – that’s not too difficult to swallow, even though it’s a bit rough to see her act so meek her while being so ruthless earlier. But Arikoto’s behavior here is unfathomable, bouncing between being distant and being warm. Between doing his duty as consort even though he wants to be a monk and genuinely loving her.
Thankfully, the next scene is with Lady Kasuga (Aso Yumi), who might be the inspiration for the Shogun’s ruthlessness, but at least she’s consistent.
Her one focus has been to ensure the Shogun produces a male heir, and the fact that Arikoto has failed to get the Shogun pregnant after a year is making Lady Kasuga extremely unhappy. She just doesn’t appreciate Arikoto’s smooth, patient approach to life.
Maybe she should attend some of his lectures . . .
. . . on second though, maybe that would be a bad idea. Masakatsu seems to enjoy them, though.
They don’t say much to each other, but Masakatsu does mention that it’s the death anniversary, though he doesn’t say of whom.
Of course, it’s the death anniversary of the Shogun, and therefore of Masakatsu himself as far as his wife and children were concerned. The anniversary of the day he had to start wearing the hood and pretending he was Shogun.
Lady Kasuga, his mother, attends the ceremony for the seventh anniversary of his death and is accosted by his wife. Her kids – Lady Kasuga’s grandchildren – want to see their grandmother.
Lady Kasuga is harsh to Masakatsu’s wife, but her daughter-in-law throws a curveball, asking whether her husband is really dead. Kasuga’s response is to slap her.
On the way back to the Ooku, Lady Kasuga spies a young man.
We don’t know where that goes just yet. There’s a council meeting with Kasuga, Masakatsu, and the others of the inner circle. They are all concerned about the need for an heir.
Kasuga says they don’t have to worry about it, and that she’s already made arrangements. That doesn’t sound very good.
It’s especially bad if it involves this fellow, Sutezo, who looks thoroughly disreputable.
That impression is reinforced when his father chases him down, and there appears to be a flock of women outside Sutezo’s house. I guess he’s sort of the Edo bakufu’s prototype idol – and not a particularly polished one, at that.
So what sort of plot has Kasuga cooked up with Sutezo? Is it meant to get Sutezo with the Shogun, or to push Arikoto and the Shogun into producing the expected heir? Will it work?
Those are good enough questions to give this episode some sense of plot, but we only get introduced to this conflict halfway into this episode, making the pace much slower than the last episode.
The main fault in this episode, though, is with the characters. If you just watch this episode, only one character seems at all likeable – Masakatsu. Arikoto comes off as stiff except the unbelievable moments when he holds and kisses the Shogun. I say unbelievable because we really haven’t seen the transition into this relationship, and the three preceding episodes actually prepared us for more of a struggle between the two of them.
Suddenly, the Shogun’s character is inconsistent, and when she shows some of the fire that made her an interesting character before, it is when she smiles with the suggestion of taking advantage of the plague – not the sort of thing a likeable character would do. Otherwise, she acts insufferably meek – almost annoyingly so.
Lady Kasuga was never going to be a likeable character, but the way she treated Masakatsu’s wife made her seem all the more hideous. Then there’s Sutezo, who is remarkably unpleasant.
Somehow, I’m left with no one to root for in all of this, and with Arikoto and the Shogun apparently in love already, there’s nothing sufficient to replace that conflict with. At the same time, the main characters don’t behave in a way that makes me eager to see their future exploits – they’re a depressing pair.
That could all change in the next episode (after all, the collapse in my estimation of the series occurred entirely in this one). Let’s hope the characters get a renewed sense of purpose and regain some fighting spirit.
J-Everything 