Get to know The Apothecary Diaries Series

“The Apothecary Diaries” (Japanese: 薬屋のひとりごと, Hepburn: Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, “Apothecary's Soliloquy”) is a series of Japanese novels written by Natsu Hyūga and illustrated by Touko Shino.

Since 2011, the series has been serialized online on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō. The following year, the series was acquired by Shufunotomo, who initially published it as a one-volume novel in 2012 and then as a light novel series in 2014.

The series' story is set in a fictional country based on Imperial China.

The series was adapted into two manga series in 2017, one published by Square Enix in Monthly Big Gangan, and another published by Shogakukan in Monthly Sunday Gene-X.

The novel is licensed digitally in North America by J-Novel Club and in print by Square Enix. The manga illustrated by Nekokurage is also licensed by Square Enix. An anime television series adaptation was produced by Toho Animation Studio and OLM, and premiered in October 2023.

For those of you who are curious about this series, let's look at the following discussion!

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Get to know The Apothecary Diaries Series

The story is set in a fictional country inspired by the Chinese Empire. The series follows the story of Maomao, a young girl working as a pharmacist in a red light district, who is kidnapped and sold to the Imperial Palace as a maid.

Despite this, he still maintains his curious and eccentric personality and plans to work there until the end of his service, without attracting anyone's attention.

One day, after hearing rumors that the emperor's children were sick, with his ability and talent in medicine, he began to investigate the cause, using his experience as a pharmacist, and managed to solve the mystery of the disease.

Although he intended to remain anonymous, his actions eventually caught the attention of an influential Eunuch, and soon he found himself solving various mysteries for the royal court.

In recognition of her talent, Maomao was promoted to court lady to the emperor's favorite concubine, Gyokuyou. As Maomao continued to cure the various illnesses that plagued the palace, her pharmaceutical skills quickly spread throughout the kingdom.

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Getting to know Maomao's character

Maomao (猫猫マオマオ, Maomao?) is the main protagonist in The Apothecary Diaries series. After being kidnapped and sold, she finds herself working as a palace maid in the Inner Palace of Li.

There, he was able to use his practical senses and keen knowledge of medicinal herbs and diseases to solve mysterious problems within the palace.

Maomao is a petite girl who is thin and short. He has dark green hair and purple eyes, but in the anime, his eyes are blue.

He has bandages covering his left arm to hide the burns and scars he has from experimenting with poisons and drugs.

In the rare cases when she dresses up to beautify herself, her face changes so much that others don't recognize her at first.

She has a mole above her nose, which is later revealed to be artificial with dried clay and reapplied daily by Maomao.

Even though she usually wore an emotionless expression on her face, her face turned red, her eyes glowed, and she started smiling whenever she could taste poison or interact with rare medicines.

Raised by Luomen's leading pharmacist, Maomao was fascinated by poisons and medicinal plants, and had a habit of conducting experiments with them to observe their effects, especially on her own body.

Due to his passionate love of poison and the pleasure he takes in consuming it, he is considered strange, scary, or obsessed by many characters.

This obsession is the main motivation for his actions throughout the series, as Jinshi learns to tempt Maomao into solving palace mysteries with the promise of giving her rare medicines.

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