The Apothecary Diaries

Episodes 1-3

Don't you just hate it when your father is right? For Maomao that takes on a more urgent meaning when it turns out that her dad's almost off-hand warning that kidnappings have been on the rise is foreshadowing, and the young apothecary finds herself snatched by human traffickers while she's out picking herbs. The next thing she knows, she's gone from working in the red-light district (as an apothecary, despite the madam of Verdigris House's offers of a different kind of employment) to doing laundry in the Inner Palace, the section of the imperial household reserved for the emperor's ladies. And if Maomao were any saltier about this she'd be the Dead Sea in human form.

Maomao is, hands down one of my favorite light novel heroines. As we can see in these three episodes, she's a combination of prickly and practical, not happy about her situation but still ready to just get through it to come out the other side and go home. Years of working with the courtesans of Verdigris House appear to have taught her that there's safety in anonymity; if you don't stand out, no one will notice you and get in your way, and she's decided to apply that theory here. Sure, some of the women who work in the Rear Palace catch the emperor's notice and move up to be concubines, but that's the opposite of what Maomao wants. Unfortunately for her, she's one of, if not the, only people who have any real medical knowledge, and she can't quite bring herself to keep that to herself. She tries, but she's got a worthy adversary in Jinshi, the eunuch in charge of the Inner Palace, although she probably wouldn't phrase it that way.

If you've ever found yourself recoiling from a man (or anyone) who knows how good-looking he is and uses it to his advantage, Maomao's reaction to Jinshi will be familiar, and it's frankly a lot of fun to see this animated. The animation makes very good use of both the fact that her name means “cat” and the way shivers run up her skin whenever Jinshi tries to turn on the sexy with her. Whether or not he's got all of his masculine equipment isn't even the issue for Maomao; she just finds his suavity and surety incredibly off-putting. And although Jinshi isn't quite sure where he's going wrong with her, her disinterest sparks his fascination. Yes, this is a very tired old romance trope (Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy is a classic example of it in action), but The Apothecary Diaries does it well, while also showing us that Jinshi's more than just a pretty face and making us question just what his role actually is. He seems to have his finger on a lot of pulses in the Inner Palace, far more than you'd expect if he was just there to ensure its smooth running, and Maomao notes that his aide, Gaoshun, seems a little odd too.

Of course, there are a lot of things that are “a little odd.” Each of these three episodes covers a separate incident, which mirrors the way the first couple of novels play out. Eventually, the story begins to coalesce, so we just have to hope that we get enough of an adaptation for that to become evident; for example, the story of Fuyou in episode three has just popped back up in novel nine of the series. That means that you ought to pay attention to everything, even if at this point it feels unrelated to anything else. (The preview for episode four should bear this out.) That's easy to do, though, because each episode's story is interesting in its own way. The opening mystery, about the arsenic-based makeup, is also ripped right from the history of humanity's remarkably bad decisions – arsenic beauty aids were on sale at least as late as 1889, long after people knew it was a poison. If you've got any knowledge of arsenic poisoning (from reading, of course!), the truth of the face powder and the sickened women and dead children is easy to figure out, but even without that, the resolution to the mystery is grounded in reality. The story may take place in a fictional version of China, but its logic is rooted in history, and that makes it more appealing than if Maomao was a Holmes-style “smartest man in the room” detective. This is shown particularly well in episode three when Maomao “solves” the case of a sleep-dancing woman. Everyone else is jumping on the supernatural explanation, but Maomao simply uses what she knows and what she's able to learn to present Gyokuyou with a logical explanation.

We're just getting started with this story, and there's a lot more to learn about the characters that will inform the mysteries Maomao finds herself solving. These episodes have done a good job of seeding hints throughout, and the art is beautiful, even the silliest of chibis. I'm not sure why the opening theme went so hard on the dancing (I mean, apart from the fact that it looks gorgeous), but it's hardly a dealbreaker, and right now this novel-reader is very happy with the adaptation. Stick around, because this should only get better from here.

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The Apothecary Diaries is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.