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Fumi Yoshinaga's Ōoku: The Inner Chambers Manga Wins 42nd Nihon SF Taishō Awards' Grand Prize

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ) announced on Saturday that Fumi Yoshinaga's Ōoku: The Inner Chambers manga won the Grand Prize in the 42nd Nihon SF Taishō Awards. The manga was competing against Haneko Takayama's Kurayami ni Lens (Lens in the Darkness) novel, the Godzilla Singular Point television anime, Mikihiko Hisanaga's Shichijūyon-byō no Senritsu to Kodoku (74-Second Melody and Solitude) short story collection, the Post-Corona no SF (Post-COVID-19 Science Fiction) anthology, and Fumio Takano's Mazeru-na Kiken (Compound Danger) short story collection.

Viz Media publishes the manga in English, and it describes the story:

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...

Author Jin Kusakami, author Mari Kotani, manga creator Yumiko Shirai (Tenken, Wombs), novelist Gakuto Mikumo (Asura Cryin', Strike the Blood), and novelist Hiroyuki Morioka (Crest of the Stars) were in this year's nomination committee.

Works released from September 1, 2020 and August 31, 2021 were eligible for this year's award. The SF Carnival at Tokyo's Tsutaya Books Daikanyama will host the awards ceremony on April 16, and SFWJ will stream the ceremony on its YouTube channel.

Yoshinaga launched the manga in Hakusensha's Melody magazine in 2004, and ended it in December 2020. Hakusensha published the manga's 19th and final volume on February 26, 2021, and Viz Media will publish the final volume in English on March 15. The manga won the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009. Its other honors include the 1st anan Manga Prize, the 56th Shogakukan Manga Prize in the shōjo division, and the 5th Sense of Gender Prize's Special Award.

The manga inspired a live-action film adaptation in 2010, a live-action television series titled Ōoku: Arikoto・Iemitsu Hen in October 2012, and a second live-action film titled Ōoku: Eien - Emonnosuke・Tsunayoshi Hen in December of the same year.

Sources: SFWJ website, Comic Natalie