Ooku: the Inner Chambers Receives Anime Adaptation From Netflix

At its AnimeJapan 2023 event, Netflix announced that Fumi Yoshinaga’s historical manga series Ooku: The Inner Chambers will be adapted into an anime. The original net animation will premiere in Japan sometime in Summer 2023 and debut worldwide later in the year. 

Netflix also shared eight new stills from the anime adaptation on its Netflix Anime Twitter account. 

Noriyuki Abe (The Seven Deadly Sins: Grudge of Edinburgh chief director) is directing the anime, with Rika Takasugi as screenwriter, Youko Satou (Love of Kill) as character designer, and Kenji Kawai (The Fire Hunter) as music composer. Studio Deen is in charge of the animation production. 

Meanwhile, the voice cast features Mamoru Miyano as Madenokouji Arikoto, Eriko Matsui as Tokugawa Iemitsu, Yuuki Kaji as Gyokuei, Kikuko Inoue as Kasuga no Tsubone, Jun Fukuyama as Sutezou, Tomokazu Seki as Mizuno Yuunoshin, Miyuki Satou as Onobu, and Sanae Kobayashi as Tokugawa Yoshimune. Hitoshi Kubota is serving as the main narrator for the series. 

Yoshinaga’s manga ran in Hakusensha’s Melody magazine from June 28, 2004 to December 28, 2020. Nineteen tankoubon volumes have been released as of February 26, 2021. The manga also inspired a live-action film adaptation in 2010, a live-action television drama series in October 2012, and a second live-action film in December of the same year.

A new live-action television drama premiered on NHK on January 10, 2023 and will return with a second season this coming fall.

Viz Media releases the manga in English and describes the synopsis:

In Edo period Japan, a strange new disease called the Red 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…

Source: Netflix Anime, Anime News Network