The Apothecary Diaries, episode 6

Rating: A-

More than any other, this particular shot strikes at the essence of how much of an adorable little freak Maomao is. It is the franchise’s signature moment, the one that any fan of the LN and/or manga versions was eagerly waiting to see, and the anime production has executed it well enough that it’s easily one of the top individual scenes of 2023. I fully expect that we’ll see a ton of memes of this as the weeks progress.

Actually, this shot may serve that purpose even better:

But the dramatic food poisoning incident at the garden party is hardly the only important thing going on in this episode. Such affairs are often seen as sources of high-level intrigue, and indeed, something is going on here with the misdirected poisoning attempt. However, at least as interesting is all of the cattiness going on behind the scenes between the ladies-in-waiting of the four high-ranking concubines. We saw back in episode 4 that the ladies-in-waiting can be very territorial even within the Rear Palace, and their tribalism is in even fuller display behind the banners while their mistresses are on display in front of them. Maomao is at her mischievous best in the confrontation with Lihua’s underlings, but also of interest is the thing with the hairpins. Lihua granting one to Maomao for the latter’s vital help in Lihua’s recovery is a loaded affair, as it’s both a gesture of respect and a bit of a stab at a rival, but military officer Lihaku looks like he’s just fishing for bites. (Anime-only viewers should remember him, as he’ll figure quite prominently into a later storyline.)

The other thing which comes out in those early scenes is at least a partial – and rather shocking – description about how the very young-looking concubine Lishu fits into the pictures. As I understand it, younger Lishu was a concubine to the previous emperor, while older Ah-duo was a concubine to the emperor’s son (the current emperor) at the same time, effectively making the nine-year-old a mother-in-law of the (at the time) 30-year-old. There’s definitely a lot more story to be told here about how this unusual situation came to be (including why a woman of Ah-duo’s age who doesn’t have a child would still be in the harem), but be assured that more explanation is coming.

The garden party itself is one of the few places where the anime version loses a bit to the print versions, as their extra elaboration on how the seating at the party carefully reflects one’s status gets lost; in the anime form, only one brief comment by Maomao refers to it at all, and then only obliquely. This is also the scene which emphasizes that Maomao’s delight at being a poison tester isn’t at all normal; even those watching recognize it as a harrowing job. It’s also where Lishu’s story really starts to take off.

At least some of what’s going on with Lishu can be pieced together from what’s shown here, in the scenes leading up to it, and in the scene later where Maomao asks Jinshi to call for Lishu about the poisoning. This reveals that Lishu doesn’t just not like mackerel; she’s actually strongly allergic to it, much as Maomao is allergic to buckwheat herself. Both Lishu “mistakenly” getting the salad with mackerel and the earlier kerfuffle over the color of her and her entourage’s robes being inappropriate suggests that someone is messing with her, and the poison tester is almost certainly in on it. However, the poison tester’s reaction to Maomao suggests that she didn’t intend to kill her mistress and had no idea that the fish was actually harmful to Lishu. It further suggests that she wasn’t involved with the actual poison, and ironically may have serendipitously avoided harm to herself if she did, indeed, arrange for Gyokuyou and Lishu’s food trays to be switched. In other words, she was only out to mess with Lishu, but someone out there is gunning for Lishu for real. That provides some juicy hooks for upcoming episodes.

And of course we can’t forget about Jinshi. The concern he shows for Maomao is definitely beyond just an official capacity; he’s clearly fond of her, though not necessarily in a romantic way. What’s more, the anime version more than just vaguely implies that Jinshi may actually be the emperor’s younger brother, rather than a eunuch. He certainly has the same eyes as the Empress Dowager, and that would explain a lot of things we’ve seen so far. (And to be clear, this is pure speculation on my part rather than a spoiler.) Only time will tell if that proves to be true.

In all, this episode has a bit of everything which makes this series great.