Kusuriya no Hitorigoto – Thorough Watch

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episodes 35-36 (Season 2 Episodes 11-12) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on April 14, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

The episode led with Jinshi asking whether Gaoshun had made the necessary preparations and then saying that all that’s left is that girl since he has never once addressed Maomao by her name up until this point. Gaoshun doubts he’ll be able to hide it from her on this expedition, and Jinshi says that he intends to reveal his true status to Maomao.

Then Maomao is summoned to Lady Gyokuyou’s quarters where Jinshi and Gaoshun are, and Gyokuyou has a wonderful teasing exchange with Jinshi wherein Jinshi wants Maomao returned to her while Gyokuyou says he wants to borrow her Maomao and deliberately points out indirectly that Jinshi has never referred to Maomao by her actual name, which doesn’t actually bother Maomao, as for her it probably helps her subconscious not allow her to realize the truth about Jinshi’s identity. The reason Jinshi wants Maomao with him is ’cause he’s been invited to participate in a hunt by Shishou, Loulan’s father, who was a favourite of the previous Empress Dowager, the powerful mother of the previous emperor.

Then on their way to Shishou’s domain, Basen explains to Maomao that the character representing the name of their nation, Li, which was first mentioned in Episode 31, also depicts the founding of Li. Three swords under grass. “Grass” is for “flower”, representing the Mother Royal, ancestor of the Emperor, and the three “swords” under it represent the three warriors who helped her, which again shows how the people from the west infiltrated the land and took control entirely, naming the nation after their own personal story. One of the three swords, the one larger sword, represents the Shihoku-shu, the northern lands. That entire area grows sorghum and wheat and is controlled by Shishou’s clan. Basen then gets upset that Maomao was falling asleep and wonders why his father, Gaoshun, cares so much about her. Gaoshun was invited on this trip as a guest in his own right with Basen serving as Jinshi’s aid instead.

When they arrive, Maomao thinks to herself that Shihoku-shu was the late emperor’s favourite summer resort, and he visited yearly. Members of the imperial family haven’t visited during the current Emperor’s reign, but Shishou continues to manage the area, showing he is quite an important individual, whatever his official title is. When Maomao and Basen have arrived where Jinshi is, she’s perplexed by how unrestrained he is with the manner by which he’s relaxing with his legs fully stretched out, acting like he owns the place to some degree. She thinks he may be more tired than usual, but there must be some limits, showing that she can’t even begin to think of Jinshi as having that high of a status, possibly as a subconscious defense mechanism so that she doesn’t realize just what it would mean for their relationship if the truth were to get out to her about him. After being prompted by Basen, Jinshi tells him to call him “Kousen” whenever they’re outside. Maomao, not understanding the implication of this, asks if there’s some special rule, which the people around are hesitant to talk about. When Maomao gets it confirmed that Gaoshun was invited as a guest, she thinks to herself why Gaoshun was in the same room as Jinshi considering there is a large difference in rank between them, leading to Basen showing he isn’t by dumb by sniffing out what she thinking, saying that they, the Ma clan, have served Master Kousen’s family for many generations, so of course they’d be placed in the same building, which led to her thinking Jinshi comes from a good family after all. Gaoshun then pulls Basen aside after he started whispering to him to tell him that Maomao doesn’t know about Jinshi’s true status, and he hit Basen on the head when he questioned not having told her something that important. Maomao apparently didn’t think about that interaction on why Gaoshun and Basen moved to a corner to discuss when it was clearly regarding her question and just reminds herself to be mindful of her work lest she gets in Suiren’s bad graces.

When it’s dinner time, Maomao wonders why they’re all staying inside and suggests opening some windows, leading to Jinshi telling her to taste the food, and she’ll know why they’re doing that after she has done that. Maomao notes that all of the food is invigorating, leading to Jinshi saying, “Now you see, right?” When Basen brings Jinshi some preserved food, Maomao still doesn’t get the picture and asks if she can eat the food prepared for him instead since it’d be suspicious if it went untouched. When Jinshi watches her eat the food while clearly being very satisfied, he asks her if it’s good with her confirming that’s the case and asking him if he’s sure he doesn’t want any, leading to him asking her if she’s sure he can eat, absolutely sure, and Gaoshun just puts his hand on Jinshi’s shoulder and shakes his head to get out the message that Maomao just doesn’t understand why he asked her to taste the food. Jinshi then orders Basen to eat the food, and he gets a nosebleed, probably due to getting an ejaculation, with him remarking why she isn’t affected, and Maomao just responds that she’s built different lol. Basen then limps his way away from the table and passes out entirely. Clearly, Maomao does not see that Shishou intends to reveal that Jinshi is not a eunuch. Then there are cloaked figures out in a forest with guns saying that this is where they die.

The next day, Jinshi has donned a face mask and is never seen outside without it. Maomao thinks the point of the hunt is to cook the game caught by the nobles on the spot, and it seems she didn’t think at all about why Jinshi’s food was spike with what it was. Given what Shishou has been doing, the hunt could actually be part of a plot to execute Jinshi. As they set up camp, Maomao thinks there’s nothing for her to do, so she takes a walk and enters the forest where she learns of a waterfall being nearby, and during that walk she encounters Lihaku, who was surprised to see her there, and when she revealed she was asked to join, he revealed that he was asked to join the guards but that the other guards forced him to look after the dog. Maomao notes that he appears to have been climbing the ranks lately, but that tends to be met with resistance, which might be why he’s stuck watching the dog. When she remarks that he’s bad at whistling, he takes out the actual whistle and says that the dog can be summoned from miles away after doing a demonstration.

At the party, Maomao finally observes that Jinshi is the most important person in the room based on where he was seated, but she didn’t think more of it. When Jinshi shows discomfort while speaking to Shishou, and she picks up that it’s due to the heat in conjunction with the face mask, Gaoshun gestures to her to not do anything about it. Basen himself seemed quite concerned himself. When Jinshi gets up and tries to leave, Gaoshun calls her, and she gets some water for him. Jinshi had wandered into the forest, and after Maomao successfully finds him, he still won’t take off his face mask off in case somebody comes by, leading to her suggesting they head somewhere where nobody else is, which is the waterfall she observed earlier. When they’re there, Maomao wipes Jinshi’s face and moves to give him the water he needed, he says that there’s something he needs to tell her, but they are interrupted by two gunshots, one of which would have killed Jinshi had he not reacted quickly to the first shot. Jinshi thinks the shots came from a feifa, which mean illegal in Mandarin, and he jumps off into a waterfall, startling Maomao heavily in the process.

Although CPR shouldn’t have been invented yet in a world based on Imperial China, Jinshi uses it to resuscitate Maomao, and he says that this waterfall basin is very deep, so if you jump correctly, you won’t die unless you drown. Maomao then took off everything aside from her undergarments since she didn’t watch to catch a cold. Maomao offers to wring out Jinshi’s clothes too, but he replies that he’s stronger so he’ll do it for both of them. Maomao then offers him butterbur, which was part of what they had for breakfast. She brought it as a snack, but she noted how important it was for him to get some salt at that very moment since he was dehydrated. She had brought some water with soy paste and sugar in it when she was chasing him, but that was lost when they were shot at. She then reached to to touch his face and saw that his fever had come down but recommended he eat the butterbur as he needs some salt. Then her belly growled, and he offered some butterbur back to her, and very much like a territorial cat, she accepted it in a somewhat standoffish fashion.

When Maomao asked just what they were attacked by, Jinshi said that it was a feifa, a weapon of war that uses gunpowder and requires preparation after every shot, but since two shots were fired in succession, it meant there were multiple assailants. Maomao then asked if Jinshi knew a way out aside from swimming, and he replied that there’s a hole deep inside the basin and that Basen knows where it is. At the hole, Maomao wonders whether others would be able to hear them if they kept shouting, which Jinshi doubted unless someone was nearby, and then she did a whistle with the dog Lihaku was looking after on her mind. Jinshi suggests that if one of them stands on top of the other that one of them should be able to get out. Maomao shudders at the thought of standing on Jinshi as Suiren would be give her trouble for that, leading to Jinshi saying outright that if he stood on her that she’d be crushed, and that settled the matter. Maomao almost got out until a frog jumped on her head, distracting her, leading to the pair falling over, and Maomao on top of Jinshi in a position that will make it hard for her to ignore the truth, that Jinshi isn’t a eunuch.

In the next episode, Basen notes that several high-ranking officials immediately realized what was going on and started a search, and a couple of officials laughed about Jinshi/Kousen potentially having a lover’s tryst with the servant girl. Basen dismisses that as being impossible given what he knows of Jinshi, but he still has a mental note that Jinshi has been gone for two hours. He himself also sent out people to do a search but has gotten no updates, and he can’t ask his dad for help since he’s Jinshi’s aid at this event. He noted that Gaoshun had issued an order to Maomao but not him, so he’s sick of roles that are pure formalities. He thinks if only the organizer of the party could at least wrap it up, but Shishou might intend for Jinshi to die, which could be exactly why he isn’t wrapping things up. Basen believes Shishou wouldn’t want trouble at his own party, thinking he might not have anything to do with this, but I wonder about that.

Then back to Jinshi and Maomao, Maomao starts feeling up Jinshi’s penis, leading to Jinshi saying that that saves him from needing to explain more with Maomao thinking that there were a lot of hints about him not being an eunuch but that she rejected them subconsciously. When Jinshi motions to reveal his true status to her, she decides to try to pretend that what she touched was not his penis but actually the frog that landed on her she might’ve crushed, which led to a funny scene that ended up pretty serious with Jinshi on top of her and about to kiss her/sexually assault her until the dog Lihaku had been looking after landed on top of him. Lihaku then gets them both out of the hole. Jinshi indicates that he didn’t see the face of his shooters and thinks of searching all of the guests’ luggage, but Maomao says that since they’re all high-ranking officials invited by Shishou that wouldn’t hold on to weapons. She then asks whether the dog knows any other tricks aside from following a whistle, and Lihaku says that he can sniff out a rabbit’s burrow. Maomao, realizing that Jinshi is mad at her for interrupting him when he planned to reveal something to her and how she taunted him on how his penis is only somewhat large, then quickly lets them know that she knows a way to find out who the shooters are, probably by using the dog’s sense of smell.

At this point, simply recapping everything would be really tedious, so I’ll summarize it with how they had Lihaku and the dog join the search party, resulting in them finding one of the shooters, and they framed a guy to expand the search area from just the river to the forest as well, leading to that shooter going back into the forest to search for his feifa, only to be caught red-handed, clearly outmaneuvered since Jinshi, Lihaku, and Maomao had already found all the feifas, with there being three total that Jinshi noted are foreign-made and most likely the latest model from the west. Jinshi then fires a gunshot, confirming that it was the same weapon that was fired at them earlier, and Basen comes running, telling Jinshi that they’ve got eyes on the associates of the shooter they caught after Jinshi asks for a status update.

At night, Gaoshun notes that the disappearance during the day was written off as being the masked lord’s whimsy. It became public knowledge that during the party, a certain official and his entire party accompanying him disappeared, and that they’d never be seen in public again. He doesn’t know the specifics of everything that happened to Jinshi, but Jinshi seems tired. But since he, Gaoshun, is here as Jinshi’s surrogate, he’s not in a position to hear about that since Jinshi is going by Kousen here. Gaoshun thinks to himself that Basen still has a ways to go since he’s still upset with how things played out. A drunk then comes to Gaoshun and remarks that it’s a shame that Gaoshun became a eunuch ’cause he angered the empress although we know that isn’t true since he’s a taking a hormone-suppressing medication just like Jinshi is. It’s just his cover story for why he’s a eunuch. The drunkard would’ve preferred to see the beautiful eunuch rather than be graced by the presence of the masked lord, who he hears has a horrible scar his face, saying that it must be horrible for “that” to be the crown prince, showing that Jinshi’s true status is that of a prince and that this man has no respect for Jinshi, who is the actual crown province, with the scar being a cover story since Jinshi has to both play the role as the crown prince and also as the handsome eunuch. The drunkard then whispers to Gaoshun whether he has heard any news about any of the concubines being pregnant after the tragedy, and Gaoshun takes his leave since he doesn’t want to answer the question. Outside, Gaoshun remarks that everyone is trying to determine whether the Emperor’s younger brother, who I believe is actually his firstborn son, is fit to be the future ruler of the country. He wonders whether Jinshi was able to tell Maomao the truth since she needs to know it in order to deal with problems in the near future, noting that she really is that useful. He says this may sound cold, but they need all the useful pawns they can get.

Back in her room, Maomao thinks back to how things took a turn for the worse again and how the west was involved. She says the story about the twins tricking the guards was probably about the special envoys and wonders what had actually happened when they snuck out. Jinshi then asks at her door whether she has a moment. Sensing Maomao’s apprehension, he says that she doesn’t need to open the door since he must’ve startled her so much earlier. Maomao says that she’s probably the one who should have apologized, thinking to herself apologizing for calling his penis somewhat large. She wonders what he’s thinking at this moment since she’s always been slow to understand human feelings since the big sisters who raised her were hard-working courtesans and couldn’t tend to her whenever she cried, leading to her quickly learning not to cry. That’s why she’s slow to notice how others feel about her, whether that be good or bad. She says that she won’t breathe a word of it regarding his secret and that to her, he’ll always be Master Jinshi, which gets him in a good mood. He then passes off to her the ox bezoar she wanted, and she has such a look of elation on her face that made him flustered to the point he didn’t react in time before she closed the door and said good night ’cause the ox bezoar had taken up all of her attention, and she wouldn’t let anything come between them. Jinshi is banging on her door to no avail, and then the narrator says that there are only two people with “Ka” for “flower” in their names, the Emperor and Jinshi, the Moon Prince, whose real name is Zuigetsu. Gaoshun notes that Jinshi cannot stay in his temporary position forever due to his relation to the Emperor. This is almost certainly what Jinshi had intended to share with Maomao only for him to denied the opportunity.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 34 (Season 2 Episode 10) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on March 21, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

This episode seems very different from that of what came before given Maomao indicated some things are simply beyond her understanding.

The episode opens with Lady Hongniang introducing Maomao to the three new ladies-in-waiting, Haku-u, Koku-u, and Seki-u, who are all from the same hometown as Lady Gyokuyou, which is the safest way to ensure only those who have earned Gyokuyou’s trust can be her ladies-in-waiting. After Maomao is unable to differentiate between them, Haku-u says that the three of them will wear hairbands that match the colours in their names. After Yinghua and Maomao caused a scene in the presence of the new ladies-in-waiting, Hongniang drags them back to Lady Gyokuyou where it’s made clear that the shed is now Maomao’s main quarters but that she must sleep in her original room, probably to maintain an air of normalcy to the new arrivals to the Jade Pavilion.

Maomao then thinks as they’re all working that with the new ladies-in-waiting that the work per person has reduced dramatically, but Gyokuyou’s pregnancy isn’t the only reason they needed more ladies-in-waiting since they had to balance out to an extent the astronomically high number of ladies-in-waiting from Concubine Loulan’s Garnet Pavilion. When Maomao finishes her work, she heads back to the shed, leading to Koku-u (black hairband) and Seki-u (red hairband) asking Yinghua whether Maomao really lives in a shed considering she’s Gyokuyou’s lady-in-waiting, and Yinghua is at a loss for words while Haku-u (white hairband), who is the same age as Lady Gyokuyou and could be a personal best friend of hers, is calm, possibly to show that she trusts Gyokuyou.

Maomao, in thought, shows that she understands that the reason Yinghua tried to get her out of the shed was so she could get comfortable with the new ladies-in-waiting faster, which shows how considerate she is. She then apologizes to Yinghua for being so selfish all the time, and Yinghua guilt trips her into accompanying her somewhere later in the night. They venture out to a building on the north side of the palace and meet a woman, who Maomao thinks to herself is pretty but quite old for a court lady. The lady reveals that this place was used during the era of the late emperor and that compared to back then the number of court ladies has gone down considerably but that this place is still useful on occasions like this.

Once Maomao has taken a seat in a room with the others, she thinks up an incomplete thought with 12 people total in such a hot room on closed-off room like this with it being interrupted by the organizer asking if everyone was prepared with their stories, saying that tonight they’ll enjoy thirteen spine-chilling tales. Maomao reacted to there being thirteen stories, but Yinghua being a scaredy-cat got her distracted. After the first story is told, Maomao clearly sees that Yinghua is easily scared by the ghosr stories but thoroughly enjoys them. Maomao thinks to herself that the stories are more like rumours heard in the rear palace, saying they’re not particularly spine-chilling, reasoning that there not being much entertainment in the rear palace being why they’re allowed to gather like this.

For one prominent story, there was a forest near a village that villagers were told to never enter. It was said that if you went in, you’d be cursed and demons would eat your soul. One day, a child broke the rule and returned with a lot of food since crop yields had been low that year. When the other villagers found out, the boy and his mother were ostracized, not even getting food any longer, resulting in them getting very weak with not a single person reaching out to help them. One night, another villager saw what appeared to be a light floating into the family’s house. The next day the village heard the news and went to visit them only to find the son already dead and the mother near death. Her last words to him were “let me tell you a good secret” before she died with no one the wiser about what had happened to them and the locals all regarding the forest as the forbidden forest. The story spread that anyone who entered would be attacked by a demon and have their souls devoured. Maomao is not all that interested and having pieced out what had actually happened, tells Shisui she’ll tell her the truth behind the story after this is all over, and she thinks to herself that she’s awfully tired for some reason.

Shisui then told a story from a distant land far to the east, and it’s like she became an entirely different person once she starts telling the story with her tone of voice. Apparently, a monk from a foreign nation finished performing funeral rights in a distant land. On his way home he realized the sun had set at some point, and given he could hear wild dogs nearby, he was eager to get out of danger, and suddenly an old house appeared in front of him. There was a couple inside, and the wife gave the monk food and bedding. The monk was grateful but had nothing to offer her in return so he thought the least he could do was to chant a sutra for her. As he chants it, he hears the couple arguing, and he gets the feeling he shouldn’t intervene and should keep chanting the sutra. The wife talks about using the monk as a replacement, and when she walks into the room she had offered the monk, she has the body of a monster and is unable to discern the monk’s location, probably due to the sutra. She then goes and eats the husband instead since she couldn’t find the monk, and the monk continued chanting until the chewing sounds stopped. He didn’t see the couple outside and only the wings of insects, and that convinced him to continue chanting the sutra until dawn. Maomao notes that it’s as if Shisui had become an entirely different person and that she’s a good storyteller. She also notes that Shisui’s face at the angle she’s looking at seems familiar, so maybe Shisui is Loulan in disguise as I had previously speculated.

Then it was Maomao’s turn to tell a story in which rumours were flying around that floating spirits had been seen in a graveyard. Suspicious of that, a group of young men went to investigate only to find it was another man from the same town walking with a torch. The man was a graverobber and grew an unhealthy interest in a strange curse, going around digging up graves to cut up corpses and harvest human livers he believed were cures for the curse with Yinghua interrupting her before Maomao finished her thought. Yinghua was up next and turned out to be a terrible storyteller.

The organizer then mentioned it was her turn to share, and Maomao thought back to her saying there’d be thirteen stories even though only twelve of them were there. During the late emperor’s reign, the rear palace was always growing, constantly adding new sections. The Great Empress Dowager, also known as the Empress, wielded immense power at the time. She was constantly trying to find girls who would fit the late emperor’s tastes. He’d choose the youngest girls again and again with those that he chose spending their time in the rear palace, barred from ever leaving. One of those girls eventually became pregnant, and she petitioned the late emperor, but she was never allowed to leave either, which seems eerily similar to what happened to what was implied in the previous episode with those having relations with the late emperor not being allowed to leave. The storyteller then said that right before the woman who got pregant died, she said that it’s his turn next very loudly, which jolted Maomao awake and made her realize why she was getting dizzy. She then rushed to the window and opened it, ordering Shisui and Yinghua to move the unconscious ladies to the window, saying that the smoldering fire was trapping a lot of bad air in the room. The organizer said that she was so close too, and then Maomao when turned around, she was gone without a trace.

On their way back, Maomao explains to Shisui that the story was probably a superstition with how some things have a reason for becoming forbidden as forest are full of food but also inedible things. If someone got sick from eating something from the forest, word would get out to not do so, and over many years, what was once just a recommendation to not do something could morph into being a forbidden endeavor. After the famine ended, no one could distinguish between what could be eaten and what couldn’t. Maomao surmised the mother and son from the story must’ve entered the forest while it was dark since they were breaking the rules. She indicated there’s a type of mushroom called the moonlight mushroom that resemble oyster mushrooms and looks delicious but are actually poisonous and glow in the dark with a villager seeing someone carrying them from a distance in the dark possibly mistaking them for floating spirits. It’s not a potent poison, but if eaten by a starving, weakened person, it’d kill them. Maomao reasoned that the mother was perhaps trying to say there are delicious mushrooms in the forest as a way to get back at the villagers who abandoned her and her son. Satisfied with the answer, Shisui parted ways with Maomao and Shisui. Yinghua said all of those stories must have background stories like that, and Maomao replied with “Well… who knows?” showing that she has doubts whether what happened back at their gathering could be explained by a natural cause.

When they returned, Hongniang indicated that they came back earlier than they expected with Yinghua saying that there was a bit of commotion, which Hongniang had figured would happen since the organizer of the event this year was new with the previous organizer, a helpful court lady who never got to leave the rear palace after having relations with the late emperor, having passed away last year. Maomao realized that that was the organizer’s own personal story, thinking that the world is full of things she can’t truly understand and that she’s glad they didn’t become the thirteenth ghost story. Yinghua then forced Maomao to sleep with her tonight due to her being spooked.

This was a very interesting episode as I never expected Maomao, a creature of logic, to acknowledge the supernatural like she did, and it seemed that the new organizer was the ghost of one of the girls the late emperor had preyed upon who had malicious intentions.

Kusuriya No Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 33 (Season 2 Episode 9) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on March 14, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

Continuing from the previous episode, Maomao sees the urgency in the situation since the building the late Emperor stayed in was going to be demolished, which would mean the only way to find out more about him would be through his grave, and that would reduce the likelihood of Lady Anshi ever feeling better, so her request is to visit the room that was out of bounds for visiting. She believes the Emperor would probably grant permission for that if Anshi put in a good word for them.

Maomao stays the night at Suiren’s place, much to her relief since she didn’t want to get an earful from Lady Hongniang considering how lenient she’s been all this time, but it must be difficult for Hongniang as a head lady-in-waiting to have a worker who doesn’t belong to any specific pavilion and visits other pavilions regularly since her job is to have the people most loyal to Lady Gyokuyou working for her, ending with Maomao saying she herself doesn’t know what position she has at times.

Suiren likes reading romance novels targeted to young women, and when Maomao looks towards the backroom to see what might interest her, she reaches for a box, which we find out from Suiren is full of Jinshi’s favourite toys from childhood. Suiren then asks what Maomao thought of Jinshi, and Maomao responds she thinks he’s a good boss with the caveat as long as he kept bringing her rare medicines, that part being something she kept to herself although her beaming with enthusiasm led to Suiren wondering whether there was something more to it than that. Suiren reveals often took away toys Jinshi took too much of an interest in when he was growing up since his mom wanted for him to step up and be an adult since if one focuses too much on one thing it could result in one losing sight of other things that are important, which is something someone born into Jinshi’s position can’t afford to do. Maomao then thought that she has heard that when one is raised in a repressed environment it can effect that person’s mind. She reasons that the childish tendencies Jinshi’s starting to show around her are probably a part of his true personality rather than his role everyone sees as the elegant eunuch. Maomao’s defense mechanism protecting her from realizing the truth still seems so powerful given Suiren indicated Jinshi has a position that is very important, and all she got from that is that Jinshi’s repressing his true self.

Maomao then reached for a piece of parchment that ended up being revealed later in the episode to be a picture of Lady Anshi drawn by the late Emperor. She then noticed something odd, which she asked for permission to touch, and it was the shiny gold object Jinshi touched in his dream from childhood. She reveals that it is orpiment later on in the episode, which is extremely toxic, and she thought back to when she saw the paintbrush in the late Emperor’s room, asking Suiren if Jinshi ever visited the inner court when he was young, and when Suiren confirmed that he did sometimes, Maomao reveals that she can resolve the matter of the curse Anshi talked about tomorrow and ask for her to wait regarding why she asked the question.

The next day, they arrive at the late emperor’s room, and Maomao wishes that Jinshi didn’t also have to be there as she didn’t want to make a big deal about it. When she asks whether the late emperor painted only in this room, the others have no idea, so they have Anshi’s lady-in-waiting find that one servant that attended to him after he started locking himself in this room. Maomao touches the brush and smelled it, probably noting that it smelled of orpiment, and then she noted the translucent shards (of orpiment?) and the markings on the ground as if someone furiously tried to clean something, highlighting that the number of marks increase as they get closer to the wall. After that one servant arrived, it was revealed that he is mute, which Maomao thought wasn’t a surprise since it’s common for someone who couldn’t speak to attend to the noblest person so that the mute person couldn’t protest against that high-ranking person, and he is uncooperative towards Maomao, so Maomao took the liberty of approaching the wall and requesting to tear down the wallpaper.

After tearing it down, a painting with a woman in yellow being the primary fixture of the painting was on the wall. Maomao indicated that she didn’t care about the late emperor’s personality but that he passed away without being able to let his true talents shine since he ended up as the leader of the nation given how impactful the painting was to her on first glance. She noted that the paint used to create the colour of the garment worn by the woman in yellow was made by crushing a mineral known as orpiment, which is as toxic as arsenide and can also make things less likely to decompose. At first she had thought that the wallpaper was made of orpiment, but after seeing the shape of the brush the late emperor used, she thought that he was using a pigment made from orpiment, which is why they tip of the brush was cut off so that it could crush orpiment. In doing so, he gradually absorbed orpiment into his body, making her confident that it spread throughout his body by the time he died. Maomao reasoned to herself that the people around the late emperor would find it unacceptable for him to be painting pictures all the time, so that’s why he never revealed it even when he was referred to as the idiot emperor and had a mute slave manage the room. Maomao notes that the wallpaper is still soft, meaning there must be many layers of paintings, and she figures that the late emperor’s mother, the acting empress, must have been the one who acquired all the tools for him to paint so extensively. Maomao believes she knew her child was not fit to be the emperor, so she consolidated power around herself to protect him even if it resulted in others calling her empress although I wonder how true this considering how little Maomao actually knew about her. After Maomao gave her orpiment explanation, Anshi indicated she was satisfied with that and moved towards the picture, and Maomao got all emotional thinking Anshi was communing with someone in the skies, although I don’t know why she’d get that idea if she believed Anshi had been the late Emperor’s prey.

Anshi was actually infuriated ’cause she perceives the person in yellow to actually be the late Emperor’s mother and wondered whether she herself is even in the picture with her ruling that out since she believes she was a passing thought to him. She angrily thinks that the scar on her body is the only thing allowing her to be treated as the mother of this nation. Some people would say she was a young girl who accidentally fell victim to the late emperor and became pregnant, but Anshi knew of the late emperor’s tastes and her father’s plan to have her give birth to the late emperor’s child, so she willingly seduced the late emperor after he rejected her sister, who had no idea that their father arranged for a visit from the late emperor for Anshi to make her move. The late emperor wouldn’t even let her older sister touch him and was crying just from her getting close to him, so Anshi used the opportunity to console the late emperor. After that, her life was put in danger countless times due to her carrying the emperor’s child. She was relieved that the child was a boy, and the empress officially acknowledged him as her grandson.

Anshi also recalls there was once a woman who gave birth to a daughter, and when claimed that the girl was the late emperor’s daughter, he denied it saying her knew nothing of it, and a random doctor was declared the father and exiled with the baby, which shows how fortunate Anshi was in this patriarchal society. Back then, doctors were the only ones allowed in the rear palace without castration, and after that exile, even doctors had to be castrated as well. She felt pity for the one in charge of her C-section, and the girl who gave birth to a daughter was left in the rear palace with her probably never being allowed to leave.

She then recalls that the late emperor stopped visiting after she no longer looked like a child. Her lady-in-waiting at the time, who was most likely Suiren, indicated that the rear palace was expanding again with many young girls arriving, tasked with the same mission as she was, bedding the late emperor. She was so furious that a man who was a puppet of the empress and who could only talk to young girls forgot about her. This led to her raping him after tormenting him about all he had done. In the end, she figures he spent all the time is his room thinking about his mother and the young girls with no ambition with her being the only one he had forgotten. She mentioned that the late emperor painted her just once, and she treasured the painting, but she told Suiren to discard it as she has no need for it much like the late emperor had no need for her. Jinshi, as if reading Anshi’s mind, brought up that the late emperor visited them once, and that’s when he picked up the orpiment Suiren confiscated from him. He also saw the picture of Anshi dressed in yellow at the time, which she wore often at the time, leading him to ask her if the mother really was the person he had drawn in the painting on the wall, musing about what the late emperor had been trying to tell them with the visit. Anshi then cited that she didn’t know and thought to herself that she chose not to know.

Anshi then notes aloud that Jinshi seems partial to quite an interesting girl, which took him aback, and he merely replied after a pause that she’s quite useful with her knowing that there’s more to it than that since she has watched over him for many years. She said that you should hide your favourites, or someone else may hide them from you, which is what she had Suiren do when he was a child, and it’s also a good point given she herself became a target for assassination when she became pregnant, so who knows what someone else might do to Maomao given how he blatantly favours her.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 32 (Season 2 Episode 8) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on March 7, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

The episode leads with Maomao being assigned to the storage shed as punishment for scaring Yinghua with the salamander tail she caught. It flashes back to a hilarious sequence of Yinghua, after regaining consciousness, saying that one day Lady Hongniang will force Maomao to move into a storage shed if she keeps misbehaving. Of course, Maomao absolutely loves the idea since the storage shed is bigger than her room and allows for her to make noise at night since she’ll be far away from everyone else’s rooms, and she decides that they must hurry back. It then flashes forward to later in the evening when she has redecorated the entire shed, and when we’re back to the present, Maomao wholeheartedly thanks Hongniang, and it was really amusing seeing Maomao’s enthusiasm for her new lodgings.

Later when all the Jade Pavilion ladies-in-waiting aside from Hongniang are together, the others think Yinghua told on Maomao, but Yinghua reveals it was Maomao who approached Hongniang to her transfer to the shed approved. Yinghua then tells Maomao to stop collecting insects, and Maomao swears she’s not doing that with her thinking to herself that it must be Shisui since she’s the only who would collect insects while laughing with glee. Maomao decides it’s a serious issue if she’s being confused for someone else, so she sets out to ask Xiaolan where Shisui is with her replying she can be a bit of a phantom. Xiaolan then approaches some other laundry workers in the area, and they’re hesitant to give out info, especially after seeing Maomao, with Maomao rationalizing that they’re wary of her for serving directly under a concubine, and so she dangles the handkerchief Jinshi gave her in Episode 30 as a gift for reliable information since most of the girls are obsessed with Jinshi, learning that Shisui is usually out in the thicket on the north side, which is where she ran into her last time as well.

Out in the thicket, Maomao thinks she should have brought mosquito repellant since she’s getting bitten, and then she sees some white blossoms. When she was little, she used to collect their seeds with the courtesans to make an abortion drug, and that’s how Maomao came to know what she did in Episode 30. She thought that it wouldn’t be out of place for Shin to avoid perfume since it can cause miscarriages, but she wore it anywhere to hide the fact that she was making an abortion drug, which led to Maomao correctly reasoning that Concubine Lihua is also pregnant. The abortion drug the courtesans she went out with made with in the past also included ingredients such as lantern plant, peony, balsam, and mercury, all of which, aside from mercury, could be found in the rear palace, which demonstrated that Shin had no knowledge of medicine, and that’s why she bought the items from the caravan, showing that someone specifically taught her how to make that particular poison, and Maomao concludes that that person is probably still here in the rear palace, which I reckon is a good conclusion to come towards.

Shisui then makes an appearance as she appeared to be scrambling all around to collect a species of a small black insect, which made Maomao insulted that she got confused with her, and then Shisui sees that same insect on the top of Maomao’s head, attempting to catch it but instead getting insect guts on Maomao’s head, which needed them to head back to civilization to wash out Maomao’s hair. Maomao asked them if that was the type of insect she was hunting today, and Shisui started spazzing out about that species, leading to Maomao wishing she hadn’t asked that. They then get a glimpse of the current Empress Dowager, and Shisui wonders if she’s headed towards the clinic that was a focus of the Episodes 29 and 30. Shisui shared that the Empress Dowager was the one who founded that clinic back when the previous Empress was around, so that’s why it wasn’t made the official medical office. Shisui also shared that the Empress Dowager was the reason they eventually banned slaves and the surgery for making eunuchs. Maomao believes that banning slaves was a good idea from a humanitarian perspective, and draw parallel between slaves and courtesans, who sell their bodies to make money although it’s legal and considered employment. She thought although slavery is officially banned, it still exists under a different name. Maomao then wonders whether the Empress Dowager is visiting due to what happened at the Crystal Pavilion the other day and reasons if she’s on the case that there might be a big reform in the medical system coming to the rear palace, and if that’s the case, Maomao indicates she’d love to listen in, but the thought of the other ladies-in-waiting’s angry faces led to her deciding to head back to the Jade Pavilion after Shisui asked if she wanted to check in on what’s happening. If the Empress Dowager has a big influence on the current Emperor and Jinshi, that was probably the reason Jinshi started a school for servant girls since they’re working towards making that clinic the official medical office with some reforms.

Back at the Jade Pavilion, Lady Hongniang is making the others work really hard, leading to Maomao wonder if someone is coming to visit. With all of them present, Lady Gyokuyou tjan greets the Empress Dowager, Lady Anshi, and Maomao notes that Anshi knows that Gyokuyou is pregant, so she must be trustworthy. Maomao notes that the dynamic between Anshi and Gyokuyou is more akin to two friends a few years apart rather than that of a wife and a mother-in-law. Anshi addresses Maomao directly and indicates she knows of Maomao ’cause Suiren, Jinshi’s lady-in-waiting, had said a girl worth training had gone back to the rear palace and that Suiren herself used to be her lady-in-waiting. Anshi then gives Gyokuyou a look, and the latter immediately got the hint to remove herself from Anshi’s presence so that Anshi could speak with Maomao in private. Anshi says she hears Maomao goes around solving problems with Maomao replying that she solves them using the limited pool of knowledge she has since what she knows is far less than that of Luomen ’cause she’s the type to manage the expectations on her. Anshi is fine with that answer and says she wants Maomao to do her best to look into something for her with her uttering whether she might’ve cursed the previous Emperor, and that explains why the first shot of the episode had Anshi looking intently at a room as it’s obvious she wants something to be done and over with.

Later, Maomao remarks that she’s only heard people speak poorly of the previous emperor, such as through the terms, “foolish Emperor”, “idiot ruler”, and “puppet of the empress” with the most notorious one in the rear palace being “pedophile”. The previous Emperor specifically chose the youngest girls available, so that’s why the current Empress Dowager has a scar on her stomach as she wasn’t mature yet, meaning they had to perform a C-section on her. The eunuch who helped with that surgery was Luomen, Maomao’s adopted father, so it’s a small world out there. Thanks to those sacrifices, the current Emperor grew up strong and healthy, and the Empress Dowager allegedly gave birth to a brother who is supposedly one year older than Maomao is when she was 30 years old, meaning she was no longer very young, which didn’t suit the pedophile emperor’s tastes at all, making Maomao question whether the imperial brother really is the Emperor’s brother, a callback to Maomao’s previous theory about there being a baby swap. Maomao then immediately squashed that line of thinking with the thought that if she were to say that out loud she’d be beheaded. I can’t fault Maomao’s reasoning there given the previous emperor’s penchant for young girls that it doesn’t make sense for her to bear him another son at the age of 30 for no reason.

Anshi then invited the four high-ranking concubines to a tea party. Maomao said that Lady Gyokuyou was getting sleepy often, which is a sign of pregnancy. Yinghua questions why they’re meeting in the inner court since they usually stick to the rear palace, especially since Lady Anshi knows that Gyokuyou is pregnant. They have no idea what the other concubines will think. Maomao thinks Gyokukou’s pregnancy is an open secret, but there could be a more direct probe about it during a face-to-face tea party. She reasons that Lihua wouldn’t be the one to do such a thing since she is pregnant herself and a proud woman who wouldn’t do that to others. Lishu might speak up if some of her ladies-in-waiting urged her to, but her head lady-in-waiting, the former taster, likely won’t step out of line due to what happened in the past and since she’s more professional than the others. And that leaves Concubine Loulan as the one to stir up trouble with Maomao remarking Loulan is strangely free of rumours aside from the one about her flashy fashion, which I believe is a ruse that allows Loulan to live a double life that Maomao hasn’t caught onto yet.

Hongniang then requests to speak with Maomao alone, sharing that she, not Maomao, will be the taster, which Maomao reasons is to show their trust in Anshi by not using a separate taster. Hongniang then says the Empress Dowager would like Maomao’s help with something, which Anshi did bring up initially earlier in the episode, and we find out now that she wants to speak with Maomao elsewhere, so this tea party is a pretext to meet with Maomao regarding the request she made of her. Hongniang then scares the bejeebers out of Maomao with a wall slam, warning her not to betray Lady Gyokuyou ’cause she wants to maintain a good relationship with Maomao, most likely ’cause she’s starting to become famous for her deductive reasoning skills. Hongniang is the head lady-in-waiting for Gyokuyou for good reason given her incredibly loyalty to her.

Maomao then rushes over outside to a lady-in-waiting of Anshi’s, who notes that this place currently served the function of the rear palace before it was built, and Maomao noted that the cleaning of the place was impeccable. The lady-in-waiting stops them at a room where nobody, not even the cleaners, are allowed to enter. It was during the time of the current Emperor’s grandfather that a court lady who became a low-ranking concubine lived here, and she was the empress at the time. The late emperor was also raised here, and it was where he passed away. After moving to a different room, it was then revealed to Maomao that during the final years of the late emperor and his mother, the acting empress, spent a ton of time in that room, as if clinging to their memories together. The late Emperor, perhaps due to his weakened spirit, drew his last breath in that room shortly after the empress died as if he was chasing after her. After a bit of prodding from Maomao, the lady-in-waiting revealed that the late Emperor was old enough to be described as dying a natural death, and she revealed that she tried to talk down the talk about a curse, but Anshi insisted she was the cause of his death due to how she wished for his death nearly every night. The true reason Anshi can’t shake the belief that she was the reason the late emperor died was that after his body was placed in a mausoleum for a year, which is the custom, his body was in nearly identical condition without significant decay in contrast to the empress, whose body was in a horrible state. Maomao noted in her mind that it is indeed unusual since every corpse should rot, death being the equalizer for all people, no matter one’s status. The lady-in-waiting then tells Maomao that the mausoleum will be torn down soon, so Anshi wants her to investigate it before that happens, and the episode ends with Maomao having one request to make before she starts her investigation, and knowing Maomao it’s likely that the request is something that will aid in her investigation.

I’m curious about what the exact nature of the request is, but that should be revealed soon. I know Maomao obviously doesn’t believe in curses, and her knowledge of medicine and biology should be useful in getting down to the bottom of this, so it’ll be interesting to see just how entertaining the next episode will be.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 31 (Season 2 Episode 7) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 28, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

While this episode was less eventful than the previous ones, there are a number of interesting things introduced in it, and it retained the very high quality of this season’s episodes.

The episode starts off with Jinshi dreaming of a memory from his youth when he is playing with a ball, and an old man who approached him appeared to want to bump fists with him, only for his mother to stop him. An old woman who everyone deferred to appeared and told the old man to go back to his room with Jinshi’s mother having the look of someone who wanted to murder someone in cruel fashion. Jinshi wondered why she had that look on her face, and while that man was being dragged back to his room, he dropped a piece of jewelry that Jinshi reached for, and then he abruptly woke up, calling it an awful dream, which I surmise is ’cause he got punished for picking it up and was about to remember the horror of whatever he experienced on that day. He was later told that the old woman was his grandmother and the old man his father and that the man, the current Emperor, who he had always believed to be his father, is his brother.

If you recall from Season 1 Maomao speculated that there was actually a baby swap and that it was actually Concubine Ah-Duo’s child that survived instead of the Empress Dowager’s, and that would be why Luomen, her adopted father, was fired for not catching that that had happened. Although she mused that it was unlikely, maybe she had actually arrived at the truth, and the reason Jinshi was so close to Ah-Duo was ’cause kin sensed kin. Jinshi and Ah-Duo did share many of the same physical features after all. We know just from appearance that there is a large age gap between the current Emperor and Jinshi, and if the current Emperor was the most prominent male figure in his life, it would reason to believe he actually is Jinshi’s father, and Jinshi was just fooled by the people who told him otherwise. We learned in Season 1 Episode 20 that the previous Emperor was a pedophile who exclusively sought young girls, and given how young the one Jinshi believed to be his mom was in the dream, she may have been the previous Emperor’s former child bride and actually his grandmother rather than his mother since Ah-Duo being his mother would actually be a secret. I’ll come back to this topic later in my analysis.

Jinshi thought that Maomao seems surprisingly dull in strangely specific instances, such as when it comes to him, and believes that she’ll come to realize what he knows (that he is the Emperor’s brother) soon or that she may already know. He believes that he would be put at ease if she knew as he stay quiet about it forever as it’s a burden on him. If you recall, also from Episode 20, Jinshi wished that the current Emperor’s first son had survived, not knowing that is likely him, ’cause he didn’t want next in line for the throne, which is why he said all the Emperor needs to do is make himself a new prince. Jinshi probably wants to confide in Maomao how he feels about his situation as it’s not something he really desires. Whether he’s the brother of the Emperor or his first son, he’s the immediate heir to the throne, and he’s not happy about that.

The next day, Maomao is observing the school for servant girls that Jinshi set up and hears from the teacher’s lecture about how in the distant past this land was inhabited by a different group of people, which was mentioned in a previous episode. That teacher then said that those people had no leader, but a noble woman from a distant land eventually arrive and became pregnant with the child from the heavens who would become the first emperor of Li. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I believe this might be the first time the name of the country was mentioned in the anime. The teacher then continued and said that woman, whose eyes could see even in the darkest of nights, later became known as the Mother Royal. Maomao understood it to be fable of this nation’s founding. There’s a bit drawn from Christianity in this story with how the Mother Royal gave birth to the child of the heavens like how Mary is believed to have given birth to Jesus although the Mother Royal in this story seems to have a special status in Li with her being tied to the story of the founding of this country and perhaps the land she originally came from.

Jinshi then creeps up on Maomao, and she tells him to be careful, or they’ll see his face, which will get the students distracted since almost all the girls and women fawn over Jinshi aside from Maomao. When Maomao remarks that there are about twenty students, Jinshi indicates they were hoping for more with Gaoshun interjecting that they started out with ten, so the number is increasing. It seems Jinshi really is hoping they can make a good crop of doctors from this endeavor given they’ll be short-staffed in time with the surgery banning eunuchs stopping more from joining their ranks and with only men being permitted to make medicine at this point in time.

After Jinshi and Gaoshun have taken their leave, Maomao got Xiaolan’s attention during the class’s break, and Xiaolan revealed she has only learned a few characters and still has to learn more from the teacher. She revealed she sometimes goes directly to the teacher for help since he’s close by in the building next door, and Maomao noticed a shrine on their way there. Inside, Maomao notes due to the features she sees that the shrine must be divided into quite a few rooms due to the distance between pillars being quite short and the shape of the building. The teacher revealed the shrine was built by the people who originally lived here, and that when she moved here, the Mother Royal didn’t denounce the old religion. She told her that son that the one who rules this land must pass through that shrine with only those who can choose the correct path being fit to rule. He said that the capital city was moved to this city ’cause of this shrine, which calls back to when the old lady of the Verdigris House indicated that when their town was chosen to be the capital city it was still underdeveloped and had no lodging for the special envoy, which is why they chose the area close to the ruins in the rear palace to be the site of the special performance. He wondered whether it would ever be used again though since it’s been many decades since it was last used given the previous Emperor’s older brothers all passed away from an epidemic, meaning the rite of passage to determine the heir wasn’t needed. He’s glad that someone is taking an interest in the shrine since it’s been a while since that happened. When prompted by Maomao, he said that a quirky doctor would wander around the rear palace whenever he had the time, and Maomao asked whether it was Luomen, resulting in the teacher asking her if she knew him, which Maomao didn’t actually want to answer ’cause she doesn’t want to get too involved with the Imperial family if you recall from Season 1’s premiere her belief that the less she appears to know the better her chances of getting out of there before she draws unnecessary attention. But since she had already let the cat out of the bag, she shared that Luomen is her adopted father who began working as an apothecary in the pleasure district after he left the rear palace. The teacher smiled upon learning that, which prompted Maomao to wonder whether they got along with each other.

Back to the Jade Pavilion after Maomao finished doing her duty of tasting for poisons, the Emperor declared she is to accompany her to the Shrine of Choosing. Jinshi was also asked to tag along and asked the Emperor why he’s doing this all of a sudden, but he didn’t get a reply. To Maomao’s surprise, they were greeted by the school’s teacher, who told the Emperor that he might get the same result again, but if that’s acceptable, it’s fine when the Emperor asked for another shot at going through the Shrine of Choosing, which Maomao thought was a very casual way to address the Emperor. When inside there were three doors (green, red, and blue) with a message to not open the red door. After the Emperor chose the blue door, the teacher remarked that he again spoke very casually to the Emperor, remarking that he wished the Emperor paid more heed to the ones tasked to maintain this place as it goes unused for so long before someone suddenly wants to use it, and the Emperor merely apologized for his troubles, showing he’s a very even-tempered chill guy given how the teacher is addressing him. The next room again had 3 doors, green, brown, and light blue with a warning to not choose the brown one. The Emperor chose the green one, and after much maneuvering through the many doors, Maomao had lost her sense of direction and thought about why the Emperor brought her along, hoping that this would end soon since she clearly didn’t enjoy the experience. The final selection had blue, purple, and yellow doors with a warning to not enter the blue door. Maomao also noted there was another door leading to this room, suggesting a separate path converged to that room. The Emperor chose the yellow one, and it led to a room with the message, “child of royalty, yet not child of the Mother Royal, which Maomao took to be a rejection of sorts. The Emperor noted that he got the same result as before, and Maomao wondered why Jinshi had such a serious look on his face. The Emperor remarked that he must be incapable of deciphering the will of the heavens, and the teacher disagreed immediately, speaking in favour of the Emperor for once by saying when he wisely chose to include this shrine to be part of the Rear Palace he became the sole person to manage this place, asking what value could there be in the will of the heavens since he had really wanted the job.

Outside, Maomao observed that the Emperor appeared to have followed every direction without making any mistakes, yet he was still unable to reach the correct answer, so she wondered whether there was some other intent behind the Shrine of Choosing with her thinking the number of rooms or the colour of the doors chosen as possibly being the key to the test. The teacher then jabbed at Maomao a bit by saying Luomen probably would’ve figured it out. Maomao said that it’s true that her adopted father had an astonishing amount of knowledge of but being told that she can’t do it is annoying. She thought Luomen’s knowledge was exceptionally advanced in the field of medicine and wondered whether that had something to do with it. When the Emperor asked the teacher if he has any idea what “not child of the Mother Royal” could mean, Maomao thought back to the founding fable of Li with only the Mother Royal appearing without any mention of a father. She thought that given the story, one would expect this country to use a system based on a maternal bloodline, but their nation uses a paternal hereditary succession system. She then thought about what would we be the best way to carry on the Mother Royal’s bloodline, and sprung onto Jinshi the question on whether the previous Emperor’s brothers were all born to the same mother, and the Emperor indicated that the mothers who gave birth to the princes were sisters, to which Maomao responded by saying they were of close bloodlines. She then asked for permission to speak freely, which the Emperor allowed. Maomao asked whether several of the previous Emperors had poor eyesight, to the teacher’s surprise, and the Emperor confirmed that that was the case, but he also noted that the previous Emperor could see perfectly well. Maomao then declared her interest in going through the shrine again, and the teacher remarked that only princesses and concubines had been allowed to go through the shrine in the past to opine on the doors. That led to the Emperor musing that he could make Maomao one of his concubines although Lakan would give him grief for that, which Maomao thought had to be a joke, and Jinshi said with outrage while also sounding pleading about what the other concubines would think, and then he told Jinshi to take Maomao as a concubine, but Maomao literally had no thoughts about that and showed no reaction whatsoever to hearing that, as if she literally doesn’t want to think about things like that, merely ending that interaction with he’s being playful.

I’m not going to go through all that with the doors again as it’d be tedious, so I’ll mention only the final room, which had purple, white, and green doors with a message to choose the red door. The secret was that Maomao knew that many in the western region have red-green colour blindness, and the Mother Royal and her servants from the west created the Shrine of Choosing specifically to choose people who would continue to have the red-green colour blindness trait that runs in the Mother Royal’s family with sons going through this rite of passage with concubines closely related to them if they couldn’t pass the test themselves, allowing for the Mother Royal and the west to infiltrate and take over the entire country, which she didn’t spare speak out aloud, only revealing to those in-person that it was meant to select for that trait to continue her bloodline even though the test doesn’t guarantee that the test-taker is not a descendant of hers. The teacher indicated that in the past, only women with the right blood would partake in the test, but this time someone else did. Maomao reasoned that the Mother Royal married into the leadership of the country since it’s never easy settling into a new land, and the paternal succession system was followed to honour the leader at the time. She thought to herself that’s how the Mother Royal became the origin for the founding fable since after some time, the people who knew the truth would’ve passed away. Maomao then put it out there that that might be how the brothers passed in an epidemic ’cause of too much inbreeding. It was said that the Mother Royal possessed a rare intellect, and the teacher suggested Maomao be added to the bloodline to thin the bloodline while also warning that many do not favour the introduction of new blood, and the Emperor joked that Maomao needs to have at least 15cm more in the chest for him to consider it. But we see from the teacher, he was actually directing that remark at Jinshi, and Maomao still doesn’t get it, saying some things are better left unknown, which shows she has a defense mechanism preventing her from realizing the truth by pushing uncomfortable thoughts away, and it’s unclear how long this defense mechanism can keep doing its job.

After watching this episode, I believe it makes sense why the Emperor looked deep in thought at the end of Episode 30. It makes sense if the Emperor was using the Shrine of Choosing to test Maomao to see if she would be a good partner for Jinshi, and if that’s the case, Jinshi is most likely his direct heir rather than his brother. That would be why the teacher directed his remark to Jinshi, and it’s ’cause he understood the Emperor was testing Maomao’s fitness to be Jinshi’s mate. That would also explain all the teasing the Emperor made, as it was just like a family outing in which he teases his son and daughter-in-law.

If you also remember from the start of the episode, the old woman appeared to have more power than the old man, who may have been the Emperor at the time, who had to defer to her when she told him to go back to his room. Perhaps the epidemic that killed the previous Emperor’s older brothers was no real epidemic and was actually a mass murdering of the Imperial family ’cause that woman had some sort of leverage over the youngest son. That could explain why she had such great power despite being far past the age one would expect her to hold such power.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episode 30 (Season 2 Episode 6) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 17, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

This episode leads with the woman from the clinic who showed Ailan a room she could stay in last episode, and we find out her name is Shenlü later in the episode. The first scene shows her looking at a letter someone sent her (which I will come back to at the end), and this suggests that someone else suggested to her to approach Maomao later in the episode when Ailan returned the next day to say that a court lady wanted to see her, which Ailan apologized for since she reasons she should’ve taken the medicine Maomao prepared for her beforehand so that Shenlü didn’t see it. When Gyokuyou wondered whether there will be repercussions, that’s when Ailan spilled that that court lady wanted to borrow Maomao for a while.

When Maomao and Yinghua went to meet Shenlü, Maomao noted that Shenlü has green-tinted eyes, meaning she is likely from the same region as Lady Gyokuyou. She said that yesterday Shenlü gave off the vibe of a tough mother hen, but in this calm setting, she gives off a wise reserved impression. Shenlü then apologized for yesterday since she had no idea Maomao worked for the Precious Consort, which is Lady Gyokuyou’s title with all the high-ranking concubines having a specific title (Lihua’s the Wise Consort. Lishu’s the Virtuous Consort. And Loulan’s the Pure Consort if I recall correctly). Court ladies from outside the 4 pavilions often use these titles. Shenlü requests for Maomao to make some medicine to treat a servant girl in the Crystal Pavilion who has a bad cough that she last saw half a month ago. Shenlü had met the girl at the laundry area a number of times, eventually telling the girl to get some serious rest, but she went missing the next day and didn’t even visit the clinic. Maomao surmises that the head leady-in-waiting at the Crystal Pavilion must have denied the servant girl’s request to go to the clinic after Shenlü put it out there that the higher-ups might not have allowed to come to the clinic.

Once they’ve left the clinic, Yinghua says that she knows these types of things catch Maomao’s eye, so she told Maomao outright to get the right permissions first to do anything about this situation as Maomao has a bad habit of diving into things head-first, a callback to when Maomao went to sniff the servant girls and ladies-in-waitings at the Crystal Pavilion. Maomao mentally notes she needs to be patient and said she’d get Jinshi to make the introduction. She then saw a salamander and caught its tail, which reinforced Yinghua’s point and freaked Yinghua out, as it appears she’s afraid of critters like those, which I thought was pretty funny. Maomao wants to study how they grow back their tails due to her wanting to figure out how to regrow testicles. Oh, you devious girl.

Back at the Crystal Pavilion, we see there’s a girl that’s dying, and a servant girl tries to check up on her but was rebuked by Shin since it isn’t part of that girl’s duties. Shin then gets notified that the quack doctor from the medical office is here, and nobody is happy to see him given how he couldn’t save the prince and when Shin outright says that Lihua doesn’t want to see him, he produces the letter showing he is here by Jinshi’s order after Maomao in high heels whispers something to him as Shin wonders whether she has seen this “tall” court lady before. The doctor says he’s sure Lihua has great helpers, and Shin replies of course since all who work at the Crystal Pavilion were born and raised in noble families, so they truly deserve their spot in the Emperor’s service, which we all know is not true since they’re the laziest workers around due to their background. Lihua mentioned that Lihua is born from the imperial lineage and thought to herself why she wasn’t a concubine with her thought being interrupted with Maomao having caught sight of a shed that is out of place and directing the doctor to ask about it. When Shin says it’s just for storage, the doctor just as planned asked if she did any gardening recently to draw her attention away so that he could sneak up to the shed while Maomao distracted her, saying that Shin is wearing perfume today among other things.

Maomao then quickly gets to work treating the sick servant girl wondering why she’s being treated like this with Shin interjecting that it’s common sense to quarantine a sick person to make sure an illness doesn’t spread, but Maomao says the girl will die if she keeps getting treated like this, not that a death of a single servant girl would get Shin in any trouble. Maomao then says coming to the Crystal Pavilion made her think back to what happened here before when Lihua was sick, and Shin was burning incense as if to hide the scent of the sick. This time, she feels the opposite, that Shin put a sick person here to hide the smell of incense. Maomao remarks that the ladies of the Crystal Pavilion have too many secrets with how a basket full of banned goods from the caravan were found here, and she asked why Shin is trying to make an abortion drug, which unnerved Shin.

After Maomao has washed herself and changed into fresh clothes, Jinshi, Maomao, Lady Gyokuyou, and Gaoshun confront Shin, and I just absolutely love how Maomao was so in your face and aggressive with Shin, destroying Shin’s faulty logic about how the goods aren’t hers when one of the flasks has the same scent as she does today. That resulted in Shin scratching Maomao’s face, and that results in Lihua taking control of the interrogations with how she surmises that Shin never saw her as a concubine and said it came down to the wire about which of them would be chosen as a concubine, and Shin breaks down due to having perceived Lihua to be talking down to her, saying how she’s better at Lihua at at most things with Maomao thinking that Lihua’s breasts are why Lihua won out since she had more ‘caliber’ as a concubine. Maomao also observed that Lady Lihua wore the same outfit as Lady Gyokuyou before she started wearing outfits that would hide her pregnancy, thinking that ladies-in-waiting here are no good and were deliberately selected by Shin specifically ’cause of their upbringings. Eventually, Jinshi wonders whether what Shin said about her being raised from birth to be Empress amounts to a confession, and Shin completely loses it and throws all the scented oils at Lihua to try and cause a miscarriage, but she was stopped by Gaoshun. Maomao, still in a feisty mood, then puts out that Shin covets the position of Empress while Lihua just loves the Emperor in general, which rattled Shin further. Lady Lihua then punishes Shin with a huge slap to the face and was posed to also punch her too with her dramatics giving her the cover to give Shin a lenient sentence in merely just being banned from the rear palace, and she appeared so dignified unlike when she was sick, nearly to the point of death.

Outside, Jinshi asked Maomao how she knew the servant girl was in the shed, and Maomao said she had an idea beforehand since the girl would be somewhere out of sight, away from the bedrooms of the others. As a callback to earlier when the quack doctor asked if Shin had done some gardening, Maomao indicated there was an clue with flowers that were planted next to the shed being white when they were usually red ’cause in feng shui they say that green and white is a combo that brings good health. She said it was ironic that whoever planted them chose the white blossom though ‘since the white powder in the seeds of white blossoms can be used to induce an abortion. Jinshi reacted with alarm, and Maomao that they’re harmless otherwise unless you specifically have the knowledge about the abortions much like the scented oils. Jinshi asks her whether someone is deliberately spreading the knowledge about the use of scented oils for abortions, and she indicated she’s unsure, but you can never be too careful. Maomao then has an encounter with the girl who was trying to help the sick servant girl, and she was the one plating the white blossoms. Maomao let her know that she’s getting proper treatment away from the rear palace, thinking that Lihua is paying for the treatment herself since she felt responsible. It was just so wonderful to see this girl light up with the news, showing that there is at least one good person serving under Lady Lihua and the goodness of humanity in general.

At night, the Emperor visits Lady Lihua and casually remarks that Maomao was here again, and Lihua says he must know everything and that she has done nothing but save her. The Emperor looks deep in thought, either ’cause of all the threats to his concubines, ’cause this incident is having him think of making a request of Maomao he wouldn’t normally make, or maybe even both those things. Back to my thought at the start of the post that Shenlü approached Maomao after receiving a letter, it wouldn’t surprise me if whoever wrote the letter has some nefarious plans in order. Maybe this person’s request specifically involved Maomao saving the day to increase her profile for whatever reason. In retrospect, Episode 26 had Shin make an evil face upon reading a letter from the clinic, which perhaps suggests that she had a co-conspirator at the clinic, and that person may be Shenlü, who herself is conspiring with someone else with Suiren being the first to come to mind due to her expansive knowledge of poisons. The episode ends with an ominous shot of a building, and I wonder what it’s significance will be.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) Episodes 28 and 29 (Season 2 Episodes 4 and 5) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 12, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

These two episodes were a lot more straightforward than what came before and focused primarily on four things, Gaoshun telling Maomao about a story regarding two women, one of which who escaped a building while under the watch of men, Jinshi and Maomao handling the request of the two special envoys who are blonde women that want to see a moon fairy, Maomao pondering about the dynamic in the rear palace and about who taught Concubine Jin about the poisonous mushroom, and Ailan falling sick, requiring for her to be taken to a clinic. As it would be incredibly boring and tedious to simply recount everything in the order that it happened, I won’t be doing that.

So the two mysterious women from a foreign land who were seen at the end of Episode 25 are named Ayla and Aylin, are the two special envoys, and they actually get shown again the start of Episode 28, and Ayla, whose has red ornaments as opposed to blue with Aylin, actually met with Shishou, Concubine Loulan’s father, at night, and he had his daughter become a concubine that appears to be a different person every time the Emperor visits her due to her outfits and makeup varying wildly, which I believe is most likely a plot to allow her to live a double life as Shisui for some sinister reason. I wonder what the pair discussed although if I had to hazard a guess, it might have involved becoming one of the Emperor’s concubines given what happens later in the episode.

The special envoys had mirrors delivered to all the high-ranking concubines, and I’m not sure what the point of doing this was. Maomao thought it was done with the hopes of making a big business transaction, but she also considers that it might have been a provocation after seeing how Ayla acted later on it the episode. Regardless, shortly after, Gaoshun tasks Maomao with figuring out how two women who were under surveillance managed to trick the men surveilling them after telling a peculiar story about two daughters who looked like. They were located in a separate building attached to the main building through a corridor on the west and were watched through the east and south windows of the building with one man watching one woman from the third floor of the main building and the other from the first floor of the main building. Maomao realized that they had a very limited field of vision and reasoned that there was a large mirror placed specifically so that it appeared that the two were in the building at all times due to the embroidery looking different in a reflection, when in reality, one of them could escape at any time, and this. During this scene, Gaoshun mentioned that the ox bezoar that Jinshi promised to give to Maomao as a reward is hard to procure due to the demand for them suddenly going up, and Hongniang commented that Jinshi has been gifted many rare medicines from all sorts of people as rumours have been circulating that he is very passionately looking for an ox bezoar. In the meantime, Jinshi had Gaoshun deliver her a dried bear’s gallbladder, which is valued for its use in medicines for the digestive system. Jinshi intended to give it to her personally couldn’t due to his workload, but Maomao still has no idea what he feels for her. Gaoshun had stated that one of the daughters one day had become pregnant, but Maomao suspects that she was carrying a bigger secret than that, which is true since Ayla had snuck out to meet Shishou. I wonder what exactly Shishou’s role is as we know nothing about him aside from him being a favourite of the previous Empress Dowager. There has to be some reason Ayla approached Shishou of all people when she snuck out.

The biggest focus of these two episodes is a request from the special envoys to see an otherworld beauty who sheds pearls as tears he called a moon fairy. Ayla and Aylin’s grandfather told them the story about that when they were young repeatedly since he was the special envoy roughly 50 years ago. It was how he described a female dancer who had lights dancing around her as if she were being blessed. Jinshi said she was a courtesan from the pleasure district, and Maomao thought of the old lady from the Verdigris House. Maomao said the envoys know she was seen 50 years ago, so why can’t they just show her a different beautiful woman, but they had already tried during their welcoming party, and the envoys just laughed it off due to being very beautiful themselves. After Maomao had the old lady brought in, the old lady shared that the main reason she was chosen to be the main dancer at the time was probably ’cause of how tall (175 cm) and curvy she was and that a lot of the performance had to be improvised with them being made aware of the phases of the moon, having obstacles removed to give the envoy a better view, and picking out all the insect larvae from the orchard. She also revealed that people tampered with her outfit by rubbing insect carcasses on it, and after Maomao had a talk with Shisui next day, who was gathering the same insect larvae previously depicted, which is awfully convenient by the way if you ask me and made me suspicious, Maomao figured out that the pearls were actually moths sparkling in the moonlight attracted by carcasses of moths of the opposite sex, so she took the matter to Jinshi and the Emperor, who prepared heavily for the upcoming banquet for the special envoys and for the special entertainment to be given to them on that day. Maomao did her part in making sure that only Ayla and Aylin saw Jinshi dressed up as a woman dancing while being surrounded by little lights, and Ayla was so shocked that she went up to Maomao and asked whether the woman disappeared to, at which Maomao replied by saying, “Diana”, the name of a moon goddess in a western legend. Given Loulan’s father was important even 50 years ago, he may have been involved with the entertainment for the special envoy in the past, and that is how Shisui was able to give Maomao a nudge in the right direction.

During the bout of entertainment the Emperor had prepared for Ayla and Aylin, which took place before they had seen Jinshi, Ayla stepped out of her carriage to directly approach the Emperor and seduce him. She was very bored by the performances they were seeing, and Maomao had noted that Ayla gives off the energy that she believes herself to be the most beautiful person in the world while Aylin is the quiet type, which is not untrue given Aylin stopped Ayla after she interrupted the performance to approach the Emperor, and Maomao figured they were bored ’cause they both believe that there can be no woman more beautiful than themselves, which is why Jinshi’s performance came across as such a shock to them. After Maomao met up with Jinshi back in the building they had made preparations for his makeup and everything, Jinshi was pissed and had Maomao dry his hair since he had swam all the way to the opposite shore while in his heavy outfit as part of their plan to avoid him being seen so as to keep up their moon fairy ruse. And back in the building Ayla and Aylin stayed in, Ayla was fuming about how the Emperor didn’t visit her, and who knows whether she has some alternative plans in store for them.

The next day, Xiaolan shared with Maomao that she was going to school and proud to be part of the first generation of servant girls who were partaking in vocational training. Maomao was then bored and thought about how the problem about who had brought in the dangerous scented oils that when combined could seriously impact a pregnancy and who taught Concubine Jin about poisons, who she believes might have been Suirei. I have a thought about this as after Maomao finishes her pondering, she sees some members of the Crystal Pavillion, and Shin is among them. Maomao specifically noted that Shin was the only one from the Crystal Pavillion who didn’t smell of scented oils and thought that there’s probably always someone like that, but I find it extremely odd that Shin was the only woman who was serving Concubine Lihua that didn’t smell of scented oils. Perhaps Shin didn’t smell of them is ’cause she knows the harm those scented oils can cause and avoided involving herself with wearing those scents in case something happened to Lihua’s fetus, giving herself some plausible deniability and an alibi for why she isn’t at fault should something horrible happen. That she issued a complaint against Maomao might’ve been an act of self-preservation to avoid Maomao coming back to the Crystal Pavillion. While Shin might not necessarily directly threaten Lihua’s pregnancy, she might be hoping that someone else, like a servant girl or another lady-in-waiting, causes Lihua to have a miscarriage. Given that the title of the next episode is “The Crystal Pavillion for the Third Time, something is definitely suspect at the Crystal Pavillion.

In the last part of the episode, Yinghua tells Maomao to take Ailan to the clinic after she makes some medicine for her cold, and apparently it’s not the medical office with the quack doctor. It’s also located on the north side of the rear palace and is close to the washhouse, which is convenient for washing clothes and rugs often. Ailan says to Maomao tell Lady Gyokuyou that she’ll be back tomorrow since she wants to stay overnight just in case for Gyokuyou and Lingli’s safety. This clinic is full of older court ladies, and Maomao reasons that the reason there are older court ladies here must be ’cause they need clinic workers to have experience and knowledge. She bumps into Jinshi, who tells her to not let anyone find out she is making medicine as only mean are not allowed to be doctors and make medicine, which is why this more professional clinic isn’t the main medical office. Since the current Emperor banned the surgery for making eunuchs, they need a way to have more doctors, and that might be the purpose of the school since they’ll soon be understaffed when people become too old to continue serving the Emperor. When we flash back to the room Ailan is staying in for the night, the older court lady who arranged for her to stay in that room notes that Ailan has medicine on her since Ailan had taken it out for use with the court lady saying that she smelled medicine on the servant girl and said in an accusatory fashion that Maomao must be secretly making medicines. I’m sure this will lead to more conflict, and this week’s episode should be a blast.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) – Episodes 26 and 27 (Season 2 Episodes 2 and 3) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on February 10, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

So the caravan that was brought up at the start of Episode 25 is coming in advance of their banquet for the special envoy from a foreign land, and Maomao indicates it’s probably exciting for the rear palace given no shopping happens there and the lack of entertainment in the rear palace. Yinghua mentioned that Lady Gyokuyou will give them an allowance, which gets Hongniang furious as she’s doing too much chatting instead of working. It’s obvious that they will get a chance to go out there and buy clothing since Maomao and Gyokuyou’s other ladies-in-waitings were told that it’s time for a wardrobe change and since they organized so little to keep for themselves, the caravan would be the opportunity to stock up on fresh designs.

Back at the Crystal Pavillion, Lady Lihua directed Shin, her head lady-in-waiting to pass out a message, and Shin flatly says if she wants shopping at the caravan done that she’ll have one of the ladies-in-waiting do it. There is a strange close-up of the lower part of her face, which is probably intended to make us believe that there is something important about this interaction. A servant girl then tells Shin about a message they received from the clinic, and Shin breaks into an outright evil look after reading its contents. This does not look like someone who is benign in nature.

Maomao then has a talk outside with Xiaolan, who asked her out for the last day the caravan will be around as she might get some time off, and Maomao reasoned at the time that as a bottom-tier servant, she’s not allowed to start shopping ahead of Gyokuyou and her ladies-in-waiting. Maomao notes the rear palace is a peculiar environment as it it would appear if disease broke out in the rear palace that it would spread uncontrollably due to them only having 1 quack doctor, but she states the sanitation level is really top-notch with an underwater waterway carrying out waste flowing directly into the great river without ever going into the moat, which is the main source of water they use. I wonder if this will result in someone tampering with the waterway in the future to selectively cause an outbreak. whether it’s to explain why there aren’t widespread outbreaks, or whether they’re introducing filler info about the design of the rear palace, but given the sort of series Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is, it is more likely to be the first or second reason.

When Lady Gyokuyou and her ladies-in-waiting have finished with their shopping, Maomao notes that several robes and skirts are present with tight belts underneath the chest, which incidentally would easily reveal a pregnancy, and it gets her wondering whether this was done intentionally since Lady Gyokuyou’s pregnancy shouldn’t be public knowledge yet. As a precaution, she remarks to Lady Gyokuyou to ask whether the merchants have outfits with tight belts around the waste, which would obscure a pregnancy, and Gyokuyou and Hongniang did get the message with Gyokuyou asking the latter to directly ask the merchants that when they shop the next day.

On the final day, Maomao buys 2 hair ties for Xiaolan, and they run into Shisui, the girl who caught the cat, making this her formal introduction. Shisui has an orange highlight in her eye much like Concubine Loulan does. After missing that Suirei and the blue-eyed “man” who suggested to the younger brother of an official to kill his older brother with salted seaweed and who overdosed Kounen, the man with a sweet tooth who lost his ability to taste salt, with salt, I’ve been observing the eye colours of the characters more closely, and that’s how I realized that Shisui and Loulan both share that orange highlight in their eyes. If you recall from Episode 20, which I brought in my write-up of the previous episode, Loulan appeared to be a different person every time the she was visited by the Emperor, which confused him mightily, and that might literally be the reality with her ladies-in-waiting pretending to be her while Loulan is living a double life as Shisui. And if you also recall from Episode 17 of the first season, again from my write-up. it is possible to ingest substances that alter the quality of your voice as shown with Jinshi, which could allow Loulan’s ladies-in-waiting to have voices that can pass for Loulan’s. I have more to say about this at the end my article. Maomao brought back jasmine tea to the clinic, and apparently, Shisui is nerdy like Maomao is and into shrubs and insects and told Maomao there were tons of them on the north side of the palace, informing her there’s a weird smell coming from that side of the palace. The quack doctor thought that it might have been a waterway that was clogged, but given how every detail is important in Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, there might be something more to it than that.

After that, the show moved on briefly to someone who was coughing who had opened a basket carrying tons of flasks of who knows what they are. I don’t know if those items are the cause of his sickness or if they’re what he’s taking to relieve his symptoms.

Maomao then discovers after the caravan left that scented oils became all the rage in the rear palace, and she noticed that there were multiple scents that could negatively impact a pregnancy, which led her to her visiting the Crystal Pavillion, which is most vulnerable to fads and trend-chasing, and she revealed to Jinshi, Gaoshun, and those at the Jade Pavillion that there were multiple scented oils, spices, and teas that could negatively impact a pregnancy if they were used for something other than their standard purpose with mustard even being used for abortion medicines, which could be chilling given we have two pregnant concubines in the rear palace right now. Maomao reasoned this incident is similar to the face powder poisoning incident that nearly took Lingli and Lihua’s lives and killed Lihua’s newborn son where multiple coincidences converged together to become an outright inevitable conspiracy. She advised for all the concubines to be notified immediately and thought to herself about the extent of the reach of the people who tried to assassinate Jinshi.

After Maomao played a rancid joke on Jinshi when he kept pushing about wanting to try the same tea as her, Jinshi received news from Gaoshun that middle-rank Concubine Jin had passed away with the cause suspected to be poison. The next day, Hongniang told Lady Gyokuyou about Jin dying from food poisoning with Gyokuyou mentioning that she heard Jin had been bedridden for a year now. Jinshi hurried to visit the Jade Pavillion, and when Maomao returned, he requested to speak with her in private away from Lady Gyokuyou ’cause he was investigating the Jin case with the Jade Pavillion being the prime suspect for carrying out Jin’s poisoning out of revenge for the previous poisoning of Gyokuyou during her first pregnancy, which Maomao found out later on her way to paying her respects to what was believed to be Concubine Jin’s corpse due to Hongniang’s deep feelings of resentment towards Jin. Jin was apparently a nasty piece of work who would verbally abuse people and even physically assault those who were of lower class than her, and she had poisoned Concubine Son, a low-ranking concubine who was sometimes visited by the Emperor, and Son was the one who trashed the venue out of spite for Concubine Jin due to her belief that Jin had poisoned her.

Maomao then went foraging for a very particular poisonous mushroom having connected all the dots and presented her reasoning to Jinshi that the corpse at the ceremony most likely doesn’t belong Jin since her hands were clean, and there was inflammation on her face, meaning she didn’t accidentally kill herself, and the corpse had recently been rubbed on by the mushroom, which prompted her to have 3 capable eunuchs come to find the real corpse of Jin. Maomao reasoned that it was a court lady, Tao, who she had heard about from the quack doctor, who had taken Jin’s place and that Jin had actually died a year earlier and had been regularly abusing Tao due to jealousy since Tao had found love while she couldn’t even get a visit from the Emperor. Maomao found out that Tao looked very similar to Concubine Jin, and that was probably why Jin’s lady-in-waitings used her to cover up Jin’s murder before Tao’s rapidly approaching marriage crept up up on them, resulting in them killing her as well, which would explain why Jinshi couldn’t tell that why Jin seemed to have become completely different overnight.

Back to my previous point, I wonder what Shisui’s motive is for telling Maomao about the smell on the north side. If I’m right, and Shisui is Loulan, she specifically wanted Maomao to solve the case regarding Concubine Jin, perhaps to lower Gyokuyou and maybe Lihua’s guard about the risk of being poisoned during their pregnancies. Concubine Jin and her ladies-in-waiting had to have learned about the very toxic mushroom from somebody else due to Jin’s high-class upbringing, and maybe that somebody was Suirei. Shisui may intend for it to be a cased closed sort of thing, but maybe Maomao will connect the dots later.

Alternatively, Suirei is directing Shisui to act this way as a direct intellectual challenge to Maomao like with Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes. It’ll be interesting to whether one of my two theories is correct or whether the truth is something else entirely. Every detail in Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is important as is the case for Re:Zero, and stories like these are among my favourites, and it’ll be a treat to see how everything unfolds.

I couldn’t find a good spot to inject this into my post earlier, but earlier in the episode, Jinshi told Maomao about the school he planned on building for servant girls when he pulled her away from Concubine Gyokuyou and after getting Maomao’s opinion, she suggested the north side since even though the southern courtyard is a convenient spot for delivering goods it happens to be by the main gate, a popular spot for high and mid-ranked concubines to gather, and some of those concubines are very prideful and might not like the idea of having the servant girls educated, which made Jinshi settle on the north side as Maomao pointed out that that area isn’t well-maintained and has many abandoned buildings that can be renovated. Maomao told him to call it vocational training and to offer a snack every now and then as positive reinforcement since nobody gets addicted to a gamble that pays off every time. She reasoned that Jinshi asked for her opinion ’cause he might overlook some things due to his high-class upbringing. It’s clear this is Jinshi’s plan to improve the literacy rate in the rear palace.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) – Episode 25 (Season 2 Ep. 1) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on January 13, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

It’s really nice to have The Apothecary Diaries back given how weak this season of anime looks. Jinshi and Gaoshun visit all the concubines, and one thing of note is that Jinshi noted the obscenely high number of ladies-in-waiting Loulan has, which was increased after the garden party, and I have always found this extremely suspicious given how bad it makes the other concubines look and ’cause there is no real use to have such an inordinately high number of them unless one has ulterior motives.

If you recall from episode 20 of Season 1, it was said that the Emperor didn’t like to visit Loulan compared to the other concubines ’cause she dressed so differently and with so many different hairstyles and makeup that it appeared it she was someone else entirely each time he visited, resulting in him getting confused.

Maybe that’s ’cause that is actually the case, and Loulan has some of her ladies-in-waiting impersonate her so she can do whatever she is plotting. I don’t think we have actually seen her speak even once in person, and we’ve just her look brooding or disinterested every time she’s on screen, maybe ’cause the one time she was shown speaking, it might’ve been someone impersonating her who was speaking. And if you recall from Episode 17 of the first season, it is possible to ingest substances that alter the quality of your voice, which could allow Loulan’s ladies-in-waiting to have voices that can pass for Loulan’s.

The OP for this season shows a scene with 6 Maomaos at the 25 sec mark, and I’m wondering if some of the new ladies-in-waiting Loulan’s father procured for her can actually impersonate Maomao, leading to Maomao being blamed for things she didn’t do. Regardless of what actually ends up happening, I’ve always been extremely suspicious of Loulan’s extremely high number of ladies-in-waiting, and she definitely doesn’t NEED so many of them.

Jinshi founds out from his visit to Gyokuyou that Maomao is at the clinic, and Gyokuyou has this info since Maomao is working under her again since she’s pregnant. Maomao’s making scented oils away from the Jade Pavilion since a high concentration of certain substances can cause miscarriages, which Gyokuyou doesn’t want since she’s expecting a second child. Maomao whispered that info to Jinshi since she didn’t want the quack doctor knowing since he can’t keep secrets. Maomao also revealed after Jinshi inquired about it that she was distilling alcohol to disinfect the Jade Pavilion since they have a a very young child there who they don’t want to get seriously sick.

Then Maomao’s package arrives, and it was poor timing as Gaoshun and Jinshi vetoed them being distributed due to them being too explicit. Maomao tried to reason that the Emperor might choose a girl he takes a shine to, so it’d be in their best interests to teach the girls of the palace about sex and ’cause the Emperor found the books she previously brought to the palace as teaching materials were not exciting enough, but they didn’t want to hear it. Gaoshun did remark about the fine paper the books were made of, and Jinshi made his own order of a novel from the same shop Maomao’s grandmother had gotten Maomao’s order from since one of his goals he revealed to Maomao in Season 1 was that he wanted to raise the literacy rates of the court ladies, and I guess improving the literacy rates of everyone in the rear palace, who would eventually become ladies-in-waitings, would be one way to do that. Xiaolan found the inspiration to read and write ’cause the one reading the novel to her became hoarse due to overextending herself, so she wants to read the copy of the novel made for her and the other girls since it will come in handy when she leaves the Rear Palace, which Maomao is very pleased to her since Xiaolan is thinking of her own future.

Back at the Jade Pavilion, Gyokuyou reveals to Maomao and her head lady-in-waiting, Hongniang, that she has gotten approval from the Emperor to have her daughter, Lingli, go out on walks under the supervision of 2 eunuchs as well as Hongniang and Maomao, which Maomao reasons is due to all of the Emperor’s children up ’til this point dying young, something she finds reasonable. Gyokuyou also wants Maomao to teach Lingli about flowers and all sorts of creatures, which she believes will prove useful after Hongniang protested since Lingli will be married off one day and could use the knowledge to fend for herself when she is in a foreign land, and Maomao thinks Gyokuyou is just so clever for thinking so far ahead for her daughter’s future. She’s clearly an excellent mother.

On the walk, Maomao teaches Lingli that the flowers she took an interest in are primroses although she may not remember due to how young she was. She then heard the sound of a kitten and rushed to it, which led to Maomao checking out what was there, and Lingli frantically wanting them to chase it, which led them to the woods where the girl being shown taken by surprise by something at night earlier in the episode catches the cat for Maomao after saying, “Found you”, showing she had encountered it before. This girl is in the OP, so she should have an important role, whatever it is. Maomao opposed letting the princess touch it since it was dirty and possibly had all sorts of diseases as a stray. She brought it back and helped it survive since it was really scrawny and not in great shape. The Emperor gave her the okay to keep the kitten, which they found out was a female, since he knew his daughter was really taken by her. After nursing her back to health, the Emperor granted her the title of the Admonisher of Thieves since she was protecting the clinic from rats that would pillage supplies.

During that time, Maomao and Jinshi both indicated they aren’t cat people unlike with Gaoshun and the quack doctor, but after Maomao listed all the reasons people like cats, Jinshi realized he actually was one after thinking of how Maomao’s behaviour was very reminiscent of the reasons she listed and pressed the cat to his face, which was quite fun to see. Maomao is also repeatedly shown with cat imagery and cat ears through these two seasons, and given she hissed in this episode, it shows the show and probably the source material very intentionally linked Maomao to cats, which is why the kitten was also named Maomao.

Maomao was never able to find out who brought the cat to the palace, but given how starting with the second part of the first season how all the details matter, her mental note that at the place you need a license to have a pet could possibly be important later in the season if the show ever intends to address where the cat came from.

I don’t know what to make of the two ladies part of the caravan that Gyokuyou’s ladies-in-waiting were talking about, but whatever their roles will be, I’m thinking it’s not something good given what little we saw of them.