Before watching the anime The Apothecary Diaries, I had a slightly different expectation. When I read the premise, I thought that the anime would be about a weak and kidnapped girl who falls into a difficult situation and that I would watch her curing the mysterious illnesses of important people with the medicines she prepared. Honestly, this premise alone was enough to get me excited for the anime. But after watching the first 3-4 episodes of the anime, I realized that I was watching something different from my expectations. The main character Maomao is very different from the female characters we are used to. The
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anime starts with her being kidnapped and showing her immediately getting used to the palace life. Since this situation was introduced so suddenly and Maomao calmly accepted this situation, I was a little surprised and felt strange when watching the first episodes. But as the series continued and new events happened, I began to understand Maomao's true personality and the stones fell into place: Maomao became one of my favorite moments in the anime. Strong, cool, rational, intelligent, Maomao is unique and stands out from typical female characters. Although she appears masculine on the outside, Maomao, who actually has a feminine side, is the shining star of the show. It is rare to see such female characters who break stereotypes in most modern anime. Another thing that makes Maomao an interesting character is her eccentric personality. Maomao, who has a special interest in poisons, conducts poison research on herself and develops immunity to poisons in her body by drinking poisonous substances. If we can say so, Maomao is the mad scientist of the palace. Maomao goes crazy when she sees rare medicinal plants and becomes the happiest person in the world when she imagines the experiments she will conduct. She is also able to show her tough and radical side when necessary. It was quite entertaining to watch Maomao try to survive in this world built on social hierarchies through her intelligence. I agree that Maomao can sometimes make feel like an overly perfect character, and this can reduce the believability of the character, but since I love strong female protagonists, this didn't stop me from enjoying her.
The Apothecary Diaries is a mystery anime. The story revolves around Maomao solving various palace mysteries with her intelligence and skills. The anime has a bit of a detective vibe, as Maomao tries to solve the mystery by paying attention to details that most people don’t notice. In fact, most of the mysteries in the anime are episodic in nature and are solved quickly. Some mysteries may seem uninteresting to the viewer because they are simple and predictable, but although many of these simple cases seem unrelated to each other, in fact, as the story progresses, it turns out that there are invisible connections between these events and the story takes us to a larger plan. I really liked this feature of the anime, the story manages to surprise the viewer by connecting such simple mysteries within the framework of logic, but in an unexpected way. These mysteries gives us details about not only palace life, but also Maomao’s life. Although we don't know anything about Maomao at the beginning of the story, as the series progresses, many mysterious and interesting facts about her are revealed, make the viewer to suggest theories about Maomao's family. But Maomao is not the only mysterious character in the anime. Her mentor and romantic interest, Jinshi, is also a very interesting and mysterious character. Although the story introduces him as a eunuch who became a harem lord, after a few episodes you easily understand that Jinshi is actually hiding his true role in palace life and has a higher rank. Although the anime gives small hints about his role, it does not reveal Jinshi's true purpose until the end and saves the details about him for the next season. By the way, the interactions between Jinshi and Maomao were quite fun to watch. Although Maomao addresses Jinshi as "-sama", they have a friendly relationship, not a master-servant relationship. The anime doesn't want to spend too much time on the romantic relationship between these two characters yet, and manages to entertain the viewer by using more humor in the interactions between the characters. One of the things I like about The Apothecary Diaries is that it has an interesting ensemble of supporting characters. I agree that some of the supporting characters feel underdeveloped in the story, but the interactions with Maomao and Jinshi manage to arouse interest in those characters in the viewer. The palace concubines play an important role in the story, and many of the mysteries that the anime tries to solve in the story are related to these concubines. I really liked how the concubines are different from each other in terms of personality and appearance.
I want to talk a little about the anime's magnificent visuals and animation. Their use of vibrant colors perfectly reflects the "colorful" palace life of the concubines. In general, the character designs and background details related to the palace are amazing. Attention to detail creates a fluid and well-groomed environment in the anime, which fits perfectly with the anime's historical setting. In particular, the attention to plant and flower details, and the extensive use of green color perfectly emphasize Maomao's identity as a pharmacist and her interest in medicine. I especially liked the vibrant character designs of the palace concubines and prostitutes. Whether it is the makeup details, clothing and accessory details, they both distinguish the characters from each other and emphasize the work they do. The big-eyed character designs reminded me of the shojo style. A very good job was also done in terms of animation. The Apothecary Diaries is a joint work of two studios (OLM and Toho). Although it's rare for two studios to make an anime, I'm happy with the result. The animation is fluid and kinetic. I really liked the use of chibi designs for the funny scenes.
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