What a ride it’s been this season, eh? The season finale of The Apothecary Diaries encompassed the rest of chapters 38-40 of the manga, or chapter 20, and the epilogue of the light novel’s second volume. For an episode that had to fit in quite a lot of content, it managed to properly give space to each storyline yet also find room for the next season.
Lakan Chooses Meimei
The animators left out a small detail: Lakan is the source of the blue roses in the palace. He hears about it from Luomen and tests out the process for himself. This doesn’t really change anything about the scene, but I thought it would have been an excellent little addition. I just really like the chibi versions of all the characters, okay?
Even when I first read the series, I had always wondered why Maomao hid her letter in the first place. Why didn’t she have Meimei give Lakan the letter like she did with the tonic? It wasn’t until watching this episode that I realized that the rose was the more important message anyway and the letter was a fallback.
We never actually know whether Lakan finds the letter, and really, it doesn’t matter since he figured it out anyway. Later in the episode, Maomao says that if Lakan hadn’t found what she wrote, Meimei would have ensured he got her message. And he did.
I wish the animators added more of Lakan’s internal dialogue from the source material. He talks about how all of the women look all the same to him and it doesn’t matter who he chooses.
Because even if the courtesan he buys out doesn’t care for him, Lakan says he’ll at least be able to provide a good life for her. To him, there’s no way Lakan will ever feel the same way he did in the past with Fengxian, so he’s resigned himself to simply fulfilling the bet he made with Maomao and buying out a courtesan of his choice.
So, he ultimately chooses Meimei. By buying out her contract and providing her with a good life, he could repay her for all the kindness she’d shown him over the years. After all, no one else would take his company at the Verdigris House. But Meimei had other ideas.
Lakan and Fengxian Reunite:
When Lakan finally finds Fengxian in the annex, she’s playing Go by herself, in a trance-like state. Instead of a couple of pieces, he puts the whole purse of Go stones into Fengxian’s hand, and she stops to look up at him.
The reunion is as beautifully heartbreaking in the anime as in the manga. Lakan sees Fengxian as she was, not as she is, and we don’t know if Fengxian recognizes Lakan or not, but with the slight smile Fengxian gives him, we can all hope she does.
When Meimei breaks down in tears after witnessing the reunion, I’ve always taken her reaction to be one of sadness and relief. It’s a relief that her Big Sister is finally with the man that she wanted to be with, but sadness that they only had such a limited time together, with Fengxian so far gone from the disease.
However, I’ve seen others think Meimei’s reaction was also because of her feelings for Lakan. I never once felt that she might harbor romantic feelings toward the strategist. In fact, if the animators had included more of her dialogue from the source material, more people would agree.
Meimei did get her hopes up, but it was the hope of leaving the courtesan life behind. I certainly think she respects Lakan, and she absolutely loves Maomao, but that’s all. I suppose we can agree to disagree on this point.
The more I think about it, the more upset I get when I think about the Old Madam hiding Fengxian for so long. (Also, I still don’t believe that Fengxian is the Old Madam’s biological daughter. Someone on Reddit has said this multiple times, and through all my repeat reads of the series, I’ve never seen confirmation of this.) I wonder why she held out for so long, and in fact, it looked like she would have kept up the charade even until Fengxian finally succumbed to the disease.
Was the Old Madam so deep into this lie that she couldn’t stop? Lakan is rich, and she would have absolutely received whatever she asked for in payment for Fengxian’s contract. If anything, wasn’t Fengxian costing the Old Madam money to care for her? So why keep them apart?
Basen and Maomao Return
This part was practically cut and pasted from the source material. If I were to point out a difference between the source material and the anime, it would be that the reader doesn’t even get to see Basen and Maomao in a carriage, coming back from the Verdigris House. The manga picks up with them walking, and Basen reacts negatively to seeing Shishou and Loulan talking.
“Not a friend, not an enemy either”
This scene was also cut and pasted from the source material, from Suiren’s fretting to Gaoshun’s fatherly advice. Even Maomao’s comment about being thankful for Lakan landing his “shot” is straight out of the manga. I was curious to see how they would translate that specific line, and it was a decent translation. It’s more fun in the manga, though.
I admit my reactions to him are somewhat prone to excess… but if his aim in the bedchamber wasn’t true, I wouldn’t be here today.
Maomao’s jealousy of Lakan went entirely over my head, and it wasn’t until this episode that I realized she even had this kind of feeling toward her birth father. Lakan is the only one whom she’s ever heard Luomen compliment outright, and with how Maomao holds her adoptive father in high regard, it’s no wonder she feels this way.
Another thing that was a little different from the source material is in the anime, during the earlier scene with Lakan in the Verdigris House, the animators had flashbacks of him seeing a young Maomao and reaching out towards her. In the manga, however, those flashback scenes actually come from Maomao.
She thinks back to how she was essentially scarred by seeing a strange, bleeding man trying to reach out to her after being beaten by the Old Madam. Of course, she would harbor ill feelings towards Lakan if that were part of her core memories of him. Wouldn’t you?
Maomao’s Send-Off
You could tell that the animators put a lot of work into this last scene, and I loved it. If you’ve been around for all of my reactions, you know I haven’t been a fan of any of the extended scenes or montages in the series, but this one gets a pass from me. Honestly, I’m a sucker for stars in the night sky, so if all their montages featured such a beautiful sky, I would have loved them too.
There were a few minor changes in this scene from the source material. For one, Jinshi hasn’t made it on top of the wall yet when Maomao realizes he’s there. He stops just short of the top and continues to watch her dance.
This positioning fits the scene better, in my opinion, because I firmly believe that no matter how distracted Maomao was, she would have noticed Jinshi climbing up. Either that or with how she was twirling about, she would have bumped into him standing there.
However, having Jinshi already standing atop the wall with Maomao puts him in a better position to save her from falling over the edge. He just has to reach out to grab her, instead of scrambling up and then saving her.
Speaking of the save, I wasn’t a massive fan of the change in positioning in this scene. In the anime, Jinshi pulls Maomao “past” him…? And then, once she’s firmly back on her feet, he asks her what she’s doing there. I don’t know a better way to describe it, but in the manga, he pulls her directly to him, confronting Maomao directly, before questioning her.
And I hate to point this out, but of course, I have to because it’s me, but they forgot to animate her leg wound. When Maomao readies herself to stitch her wound, her injured leg looks perfectly fine. Since it’s unbandaged, I can’t even say that it’s just covered by her dress. In the manga, the laceration is clearly still bleeding.
The 2nd Princess Carry
Jinshi jumping off the wall and landing on his own two feet while carrying Maomao like a sack of potatoes was a little… much. It feels amusing to say that since, you know, this is a fictional animated show, so physics doesn’t necessarily apply. At least in the manga, he uses the climbing stones to scale down the wall quickly. That’s a little more believable to me.
The fake-out almost-kiss was definitely played up more in the anime than in the source material. I thought it was pretty funny that all of the YouTube reactors I watched immediately rejected the possibility that Maomao was going to kiss Jinshi. That made me so proud. We all know our girl, and we know her priorities.
Lastly, I mentioned this before, but in the manga, it isn’t until this scene that we see a flashback of Jinshi carrying an injured Maomao after his near-death experience. They didn’t add it this time, but we got that whole extended scene in episode 19, and that was more than enough.
Final Thoughts for the Season
Overall, I loved this season of The Apothecary Diaries. It was a great start to the series, and I’m so excited to see that there’s already a second season in the works. Would I rate this series a 10 out of 10? Honestly? No. As much as I love the series, there were a few times during the season that I was disappointed by directional choices. So, I hesitate to say that it was a perfect adaptation. However, despite my dislikes, I still really enjoyed the show. It’s been fun seeing anime-only fans fall in love with Maomao and Jinshi… and all of the show’s characters.
If the next season follows the same format as this one, it’ll cover volumes three and four of the light novel. It might even surpass where the manga is now! And if people thought this season had its twists and turns, they’re in for quite the ride next season too.
