Buy This Comic: Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1

Buy This Comic is an ongoing feature in which I recommend one comic book -- and one book only -- arriving on shelves that Wednesday.

This week's pick is:


Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1, by Fumi Yoshinaga, Viz, 216 pages, $12.99

Here is Viz's description of the book:

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...

Sounds pretty cool to me. Alternate history political intrigue? Sign me up.

Plus, the series won the 2009 Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize. Author Fumi Yoshinaga was nominated for the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist for Flower of Life and The Moon and Sandals, and she also wrote and drew Antique Bakery.

The book will be on shelves this Wednesday, August 19, 2009. You can also buy it here: Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 1

Volume 2 comes out in December.