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Not a fan of Yoshinaga Fumi, I admit. Picked up volume 1 of Ou-oku last fall to see what the fuss was about. Engaging enough, and not following defaults, and her otoko-rashii hero was sensibly otoko-rashii, which is a nice not to say unprecedented change; but OMG the period vocabulary and OMG my fuzzy eyes, this is more work than I'm prepared for in the absence of bright bright light and reading glasses. (Yes, I can take my lenses out and read manga just fine-- if it's Sugiura Shiho or Kawasou Masumi or even Mushishi. If I'm looking up kanji and/or vocabulary in the wordtank every two minutes, not so much, cause for that I need glasses.)

So yeah, slog slog on waiting for the great romantic moment between brash young wossname and his gentle reasonable senpai that's so clearly coming. But what comes instead is... a female Yoshimune.

.....

You do not know how much I've wanted to read a female Yoshimune. *I* did not know how much I wanted to read a female Yoshimune. If there's more of her in the series I may have to order the rest of the thing. Or... enh, this never ends well, but maybe buy it in translation? (I lie. It ends well for FMA and Death Note. But Ou-oku is not shounen.)

And may I hope for a female Oo-oka Echizen?

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Yeah, checking out the other volumes online sounded like Back we go to the source of the changes, which is not what I'm about. I'm quite happy post-Changes, with competent likeable Yoshimune and hopefully her competent South City Magistrate Oo-oka, and no desire to see what a female Iemitsu looks like. at all

Yoshinaga's talking heads need to be talking about something fascinating to retain my interest, and mostly to my tastes they're not. Bounced off both Gerard/ Jacques and Antique Bakery. But AU Yoshimunes with their ninja o-niwa-ban in the ceilings is *just* like the jidai-geki, she says happily.

But in Antique Bakery they're talking about delicious desserts! And sex. And dessert!

Yes, precisely. All those French words mangled by katakana.

I found it a fascinating read as well. I recommend avoiding the Viz translation if possible, as they chose to translate the period formality into something out of a bad day at Ye Olde Renn Faire. Not sure what else they could have done to impart the correct feel of period and formality, but I found it very jarring.

Oh well, so much for the translations then. (The way to do it is to translate into *real* 17th century diction, but that requires having read enough Puritan and Restoration literature to sound reasonable.)

Oh God the English translation is the worst one in basically ever. There is no grammar. It is so bad that it is physically painful. I am not a specialist in the period and I could write a better one, though mine would not be good.

Must see if I can tachi-yomu it somewhere, then. 'No grammar' sounds like quite a feat, actually.

I can mail you the first couple volumes in Americanese.

Tempted, but let me see how painful they are first. No point wasting good postage on something I simply can't read. In any case I'll be in NY some time in March, I hope, and it might be easier to mail them to M's there than up here, if I decide I want the English.

Oh, I guess I'm going to go look up this series. How many volumes so far?

Six in Japan, forget how many in English.