The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

The Apothecary Diaries

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Maomao lived a peaceful life with her apothecary father. Until one day, she's sold as a lowly servant to the emperor's palace. But she wasn't meant for a compliant life among royalty. So when imperial heirs fall ill, she decides to step in and find a cure! This catches the eye of Jinshi, a handsome palace official who promotes her. Now, she's making a name for herself solving medical mysteries!

The Apothecary Diaries is based on a light novel series of the same name by Natsu Hyūga and Touko Shino. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

Based on everything I'd heard about this title, I'd expected the main hook to be Maomao solving medicinal mysteries, like House, but set in the high-stakes court of a fictionalized Chinese kingdom. Yet, while there are certainly mysteries in this triple-length premiere, it's emphatically everything but those mysteries that hooked me.

If this show purports to be a sort of procedural period piece, the central mysteries of these episodes are pretty limp. Sure, it's fine for Maomao to easily diagnose the first one involving a toxic makeup powder since it's a reasonably simple conundrum to introduce the premise and bring our principal cast together. Yet that's arguably the most engaging one because solving it requires some careful subterfuge on Maomao and Jinshi's parts. Episode two's central mystery is practically an afterthought, with Maomao just hypothesizing from miles away and her speculation being taken as fact. The third is even more distant since the entire thing is based on a ruse that Maomao figures out with information we, the audience, are never given. Purely as a pseudo-detective show, these episodes fail pretty hard.

Thankfully, everything other than those plots is exceedingly charming. Maomao herself is a lovable little freak, testing all sorts of poisons and medicines – including snake bites! - on herself for the sake of scientific discovery. She's also refreshingly practical about her frankly bizarre situation, taking everything from kidnapping to her promotion to poison tester in stride and constantly strategizing to keep out of folks' attention. Similarly, her total disinterest in pretty boy Jinshi's calculated flattery is extremely funny, and watching her cringe beneath his bishounen gaze is a laugh riot. The rest of the cast are likable and charming in their own ways, and by far, the most entertaining parts of these episodes are when the cast are bouncing off each other.

A fair bit of thematic potential is also loaded into the whole setup. While the story inherits Maomao's pragmatic view of the Rear Palace and its culture, it's highly aware of the pressure and unpleasantness that comes with an entire city of women who have been deemed royal property. It uses a soft touch when discussing the topic, never turning things into suffering porn. Still, it's sympathetic to the courtesans and their retainers who are forced to navigate this complicated power nexus of currying imperial favor without attracting too much outside attention. While the way it's presented is clunky for the audience, the central mystery of episode three broaches that topic in an interesting manner, and how Maomao goes about "solving" it gives us a good insight into her moral compass outside of self-preservation. All that and the all-around solid production values are enough to make up for its mystery-solving fumbles.

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James Beckett
Rating:

This was a tough one for me to rate. Going into this season, The Apothecary Diaries was one of the shows I was the most excited for, based on the trailer, but while I went in hoping to love the show, I ended up feeling more mixed than anything. I don't know if this is because of the increase in anticipation that came from the extra long wait for the show's premiere or if it is instead a case of me wanting a different story than The Apothecary Diaries turned out to be. While it is undoubtedly a fine series so far, I can't shake the feeling that there's so much more potential that just isn't being tapped yet.

What made it so hard for me to settle on a rating for this one is that there wasn't anything about the show's first few episodes that I truly disliked. There was at least one element that I actively loved, which was Maomao herself. She is an excellent protagonist: Funny, entertaining, likable, and brimming with enough unique personality to make for the perfect perspective character in this world of manners, seduction, and courtly intrigue. Her know-how also makes for some cool stories. The chocolate aphrodisiac plot in Episode 2 was quite amusing, and nobody will be surprised to learn that I very much appreciated including a spooky "ghost" story that felt perfect for the season. The supporting cast is also solid enough; the other concubines of the court provide some fun comic relief to Maomao's more deadpan personality, Maomao's supervisor lady is fun, and Jinshi contributes the spice of his mischievous rakishness to the proceedings that leads to some fun interactions with our heroine, who has no time for his nonsense.

Still, there's just something…lacking in the total package of The Apothecary Diaries that is hard for me to put my finger on. Maybe it is because of the show's overall direction, which is competent but absent in flair. Or maybe it is because of Maomao and Jinshi's dynamic, which can be fun, true, but isn't especially compelling. While I don't think The Apothecary Diaries is even trying to have any romantic angles take away focus from the mystery and intrigue of the episodic stories, there's enough focus on Jinshi's continued attempts to "seduce" Maomao that you'd think there'd be a little more spark between the two.

Or maybe not! It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what the character dynamics or stories of these episodes were missing, which makes me almost feel bad for not rating it higher because it's a good show, and I would like to see more of it! This season is so stuffed with pretty good shows, though, and I was hoping The Apothecary Diaries would be one of the great ones. Who knows? There's still plenty of time left in the season for it to pull out a surprise or two. It may fully win me over, yet.