Season aired: Winter 2025
Number of episodes: 24
Watched on: Crunchyroll
Translated by: ???
Genres: Drama, Mystery, Romance, Historical
Thoughts: When writing a final review, nothing is harder than reviewing a perfect anime or a boring anime. Luckily, The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 falls into the former, but it doesn’t leave me lots of room for discussion. The story about Maomao, an apothecary girl obsessed with poison and accidentally becoming too important in the royal palace after catching the eye of the beautiful Jinshi, a mysterious man in charge of the rear palace, has enraptured anime fans all across the world. The chemistry, mystery, and drama have led to some excellent world-building, fascinating plot twists, and electrifying romance.
When it comes to the technical side, the second season doesn’t pale in comparison to the first. While it’s become more known that the actual production side struggled behind the scenes, the end product manages to hide it still with excellent direction, smart utilization of resources, and other presentation variables like soundtrack, character design, and voice acting. Because of that, I think there’s really only three things to discuss in full about The Apothecary Diaries: the character of Shisui, the story’s clever use of real-life history to world build, and perfect growing chemistry between Maomao and Jinshi.
Shisui, introduced at the beginning of the second season, quickly catapults into one of the more important and consistent supporting characters in Maomao’s life. Where Maomao obsesses over poison, Shisui is addicted to bugs, and in many ways, the two are similar. Throughout history, insects have caused hundreds of millions of human deaths —- just look at mosquitoes, which still kill countless people each year through disease. Many insects are also venomous. Shisui’s particular fascination with bugs is a great parallel to Maomao’s proclivity for disease and poison, while her bright, bubbly, and sensible personality makes her a foil to Maomao’s low-key, quiet, and eccentric ways. There’s also an amazing plot twist with Shisui that I won’t spoil, but I think particular praise needs to go to the character design for that reveal.
The Apothecary Diaries already sported a major cast of incredible performances, with special shoutout to Aoi Yuki and Takeo Otsuka as Maomao and Jinshi respectively. Asami Seto, however, doesn’t allow the two main leads to outshine her as she steps into the character of Shisui. Her role requires something that neither of our two main leads needs to voice act for. Unfortunately, diving into any more details of her brilliant performance would only lead to spoilers. Just know that she joins the duo to form a trio of voice acting powerhouse performances.
Since the first season was mainly used to lay groundwork for the characters, their relationships, and their specific corner of the world, this season, The Apothecary Diaries widens that world and gives it more context. This was the second most impressive element of the story to me. The world is clearly inspired by dynastic China (likely Tang due to the costumes of the women as well as the Tang dynasty producing some of the most famous historical women doctors of China), but rather than copy history one for one, the story draws inspiration from it to build a new world. Characters largely resemble historical figures, but their personalities and actions are unique, creating a ripple effect that feels real yet isn’t.
As someone who takes her heritage seriously, I find it especially difficult to be inspired by history without completely bastardizing the truth, yet miraculously, The Apothecary Diaries successfully pulls that off. The economic, historical, and cultural impact of bad players in positions of power is very real and reflective of what’s happened, and the author was clearly able to transform those impacts into her fictional world rather than copy one for one. This mastery of historical fiction is a large reason why I spent most of this season tweeting about historical influences.
Finally, this season’s success was inevitable, given how well Jinshi and Maomao’s development moved forward. Anime romances often fall into two categories: those that take too long to develop, and those where everything happens too quickly. Jinshi and Maomao carved their way into the illustrious third, where their relationship moves forward and changes at a pace where everyone’s anticipating what’s to come while still basking in the yearning phase.
Story-wise, both the original source material and the adaptation found this pacing, but I don’t think it could’ve been pulled off without the incredible chemistry between Aoi Yuki and Takeo Otsuka. With the way their relationship changes, it’s incredibly difficult to portray as both Maomao and Jinshi like to hide their true selves, albeit in different ways. Their growing feelings come off more subtly, and yet, the audience is able to hear them. In season one, Aoi Yuki sounded genuinely guarded and outright annoyed, but by the end of season two, Maomao’s rebuffs sounded more gentle, more sarcastic, and with that, more accepting.
Jinshi’s always carefully testing the boundaries of what Maomao’s comfortable with, and with every new line Maomao allows him to cross, his voice grows more sincere, showing more of his true self to the girl, which Takeo Otsuka pulls off without ever losing the suave, pretty boy voice. In my interview with The Apothecary Diaries’ director, he mentions that the two voice actors are genuinely similar to their characters, which might’ve helped this development sound so natural.
Watching The Apothecary Diaries without Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End present is such a surreal experience. Having two of the best anime of the 2020s airing at the same time was like eating Michelin-star restaurant food after another, which can ironically make it hard to appreciate both equally. Without Frieren this year, it’s incredible how The Apothecary Diaries towers above other anime in terms of plot, characters, and adaptation. With the story continuing and with no signs of any element slowing down, there’s a genuine chance this anime series will get cemented in history as one of the greats.
Rating
Plot: 10 (Multiplier 3)
Characters: 10 (Multiplier 3)
Art/Animation: 8 (Multiplier 2)
Voice acting: 9
Soundtrack: 8
FINAL SCORE: 93
