During the Edo period in Japan (1603 to 1868), a peculiar new illness known as the Redface Pox started to afflict the nation's men. Within eighty years of the initial outbreak, the male population had dwindled to just a quarter of the total female population. Women assumed all roles traditionally held by men, including that of the Shogun. Men, valued as essential providers of life, were carefully safeguarded, and the most handsome among them were dispatched to serve in the Shogun's Inner Chambers.