I went into this episode of The Apothecary Diaries ready to be bored. When I initially read the manga, I remember rushing through these chapters. I just wanted the story to get back to the rear palace; I had no interest in life in the pleasure district. So I was ready to be bored while watching this week’s installment.
I’m quite happy to say that was definitely not the case.
Episode eight covers the rest of chapter 11 through half of chapter 13 for the manga, and in terms of the light novel, it covers chapters 23-24. Also, one of my top five most anticipated scenes of the series is in this episode, and they did the scene justice. It made me so happy.
Let’s start with additions. The major addition in this week’s showing is the bath scene. In the manga, other than a singular panel in the extras of volume two, we never actually get to see Maomao take a bath, and the person joining her then was a random kamuro, not Meimei.
Speaking of Meimei, I’m so happy that we get to see more of her (no pun intended). We had a very brief glimpse of her in episode one, and we’ve also seen her in Maomao’s Verdigris House flashbacks. She’s the courtesan who gives Maomao chocolate for the first time, and she’s also one of the courtesans who teaches Maomao the technique that she later shares with Lihua.
If I had to take a guess, they decided to have Meimei be Maomao’s company in the bath, so they could have her refer to the annex. There have been “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” type of very subtle hints for the purpose and importance of the annex, and it’s only bound to grow from here. It had to be Meimei in this scene; none of the other Princesses would have the same impact.
Another addition I very much appreciated is they managed to add the extra 4-koma strip at the end of manga volume two, when Jinshi is frozen in shock and Maomao is cleaning him up. It’s not an exact one-for-one adaption, but it’s close enough to me. By now, dear reader, you know how much I my love of chibis, so anytime The Apothecary Diaries has chibi Maomao or chibi Jinshi, it’s a win for me.
Seems to me they only adapted one of the two strips, which is slightly disappointing since both of them are hilarious. Now that I think about it, they still could add these scenes to the beginning of next episode. Here’s to hoping that they do!
As far as major disappointments this episode, I’m happy to say I have none. Maybe it’s because they did such a good job with adapting the scene between Maomao and Jinshi that I can’t really find fault with any of the animation decisions this time.
In fact, I’m so far from disappointed that I’m actually impressed. I mean, they even had me legitimately interested in the wheat stalk mystery. The CPR Maomao administered to the merchant’s son was fairly realistic too, especially if you consider the time period this anime is set. And can we please get more of Maomao in a ponytail? She totally rocked that look.
I’m willing to bet good money that they’ll start literally right where they left off this episode in the next, but from there, I’m really curious to see how they handle the next 5-6 chapters from the manga. What’s coming soon is one of the bigger storylines of the series, and there’s no way they’ll fit the entirety of the next arc in two episodes. It wouldn’t do the plot justice. I even think there’ll be a couple of major cliffhanger episode endings. What I do know for sure is this series is only going to continue to get better and better, and I’m glad I’m along for the ride.
