I feel like my blog is becoming an Apothecary Diaries-only blog. I can’t help it! I’ve been desperately wishing for an anime adaptation of this series for years. Now that it’s here, I can’t help but obsess over every single little thing.
This episode ‘The Garden Party’ covers the last half of the second manga volume, chapters 7-8. It stayed true to its source material, not adding any major scenes, but they once again added minor scenes that helped flesh out the story.
The first scene, for example, isn’t in the source material. The audience overhears Lishu’s ladies-in-waiting whispering about how the consort is too picky with her food and should just eat what she’s given. I’m sure that scene was added to foreshadow the later food tasting, but I personally think it was unnecessary.
Another small addition is the scene where Jinshi is walking towards the garden party and complaining about wearing formal clothing. For comparison, in the manga (seen below) Jinshi just suddenly appears peeking from behind the curtain right as the dumbass minister tries the soup for himself.
I know this difference not a huge deal, by any means. But Jinshi’s appearance in the manga is so abrupt that it’s almost jarring. At least in the anime, even though we still have no idea where he was, at least it’s clear he came from somewhere else.
Something that neither source material or anime explain is the new hairpin. We don’t know where that “some place” Jinshi was in between visiting with Gyokuyou and the poison soup reveal is, but he was somewhere that he was able to obtain a new hairpin. Whether it was from his own collection or from someone else remains to be seen. I mention it because the importance of this hairpin is different from the one he gave Maomao… but I won’t go into detail since more information about that hairpin is probably coming next episode.
Even though they explained via Maomao’s internal dialogue why Lishu wearing pink was a big deal, I wish that they kept the explanation from the manga. In the manga, Maomao goes into further detail about how each high-ranking concubine has their own color and emblematic gem.
I figure they probably left this longer explanation out because they already had the thorough explanation of Lishu and Aduo relationship with the previous emperor. Understanding that background is much more important, in my opinion, than the consorts’ colors.
My favorite thing about this episode was just seeing a few of the more comedic panels from the manga be brought to life. Like the scene where both Jinshi and Gaoshun are shocked to find out that Maomao can’t eat soba of all things. I find it super entertaining whenever Gaoshun’s stoicism is affected by something Maomao does or says.
Overall, I do have to admit that this episode cleared up my confusion with the food tasting scene. For some reason (again, it could just be I’m super dense), I didn’t understand what Maomao was trying to say when she was explaining how the inner court must have prepared the food and how Gyokuyou isn’t picky about what she eats.
I finally understand that when she’s given the vinegared dish, which is one of the emperor’s favorites, Maomao mentions that this time it’s been made with different ingredients (jellyfish) than what it normally is (mackerel). Since Gyokuyou isn’t a picky eater, it won’t be a big deal to her if she eats jellyfish instead of mackerel, so Maomao doesn’t think much else about it. Then that’s when she notices Lishu eating the dish, but hers does have mackerel in it. It basically confirms that Gyokuyou’s dish was mixed up.
But the thing that I still don’t understand is that someone switched multiple dishes meant for Lishu with Gyokuyou. Because if Lishu’s food taster is the one who switched the vinegared fish, then why did she also switch the soup? By all appearances, the soups were exactly the same.
Lishu’s food taster only wanted to bully her mistress. The lady-in-waiting wasn’t aware that it was more than a dislike of fish, it was a food allergy. I don’t think she would have had the reaction she did when Maomao mentions Lishu eating mackerel is equivalent to being poisoned if she already knew about the food allergy. Maybe all the dishes for one consort is put onto one tray and so in an attempt to mess with her mistress, Lishu’s food taster just switched the trays? So someone else is still responsible for the actual poisoning of the soup. The only thing Lishu’s lady-in-waiting is responsible for is being a total ass.
Anyway, I’m just getting into the weeds at this point, so I’ll stop here. I leave you with another manga panel that I loved seeing brought to life in the anime. Maomao and her love of poisons is just too funny.
