Genres

Red Mudan is the story of China’s famous woman empress, 武則天, who I think I remember from when I played CIV 5. This is her tale from poor peasant girl to the empress of China, a real rags to riches story.

However, this is not a feel-good story. This story is DARK. And DEPRESSING and VIOLENT. There is whipping, humiliation, and… lets just say period-accurate portrayals of how women were treated. This is not a fun read. This is not a light read. This manga is essentially the dark, evil, tragic version of 薬屋の独り言.

Ironically, I’ve been binging this show with my wife and loving it, so I was in the mood for Red Mudan. It even takes place in the same woman-only palace at roughly the same time! But damn, the tones could almost not be different!

Me not wanting to go into details is less because of spoilers and more of the fact that its… pretty aggressive, and I don’t exactly want to type out all of the details. Basically, a woman goes to the all-women palace to join the emperor’s harem for her family and courtesan-fighting ensues. Its very fascinating, but it is so much more violent than you would think after watching 薬屋. Sean’s Thoughts/Should You Read This?:

At only 37 chapters at time of writing, it was longer than some of the other manga, but not unmanageable. The real difficulty is the language. OHHHHH BOYYYY I HOPE YOU LIKE KEIGO AND ALSO KNOW JAPANESE WORDS FOR CHINESE THINGS!

This is a rough read, because of the content and the context. The intricacies of the sentences aren’t limiting, you just need a good vocab base and be very comfortable understanding the gist of keigo before getting into this.

But, when it isn’t being horrendously violent, the art is really good! And the mangaka does a solid job of making the girls look different while all still be accurately Chinese (black hair, black eyes for the most part, the picture below shows some of the few exceptions)

Honestly, I’m really into this story, but I was also literally looking for another manga to scratch my 薬屋 itch. I definitely… sort of recommend it? Its a hard sell, but its certainly not bad! It’s actually really really good! I’m definitely going to keep up with it! Its just something I find hard to recommend because in order to enjoy it you have to get over a LOT of roadblocks. I think the first volume might still be free on amazon, so maybe give it a check? No worries if not though! TLDR:

You shouldn’t read this if:

You are not confident in your Japanese. Full stop. Not saying you can’t do it, my Japanese isn’t that good and I can do it, but you will hit a lot of different roadblocks that could be demotivating. Definitely start with 薬屋！
You can’t look at graphic violence As mentioned in the triggers… yeah things aren’t great for women in this time period… and they don’t shy away from EVERY aspect of that.

You should read this if: