Rating: B+
The Apothecary Diaries is back in animation, and all is right with the world!
The latter part of the first season was rife with all manner of dramatic events and revelations, but with the franchise’s bona fides now firmly established, it can afford to start off its second run of episodes with a more low-key transitional episode. Thus we get all manner of mostly more light-hearted tidbits, though the episode does start off with a brief but telling look at how each of the four high-ranking consorts are doing. The most significant details from these scenes are that Lishu’s food taster is still firmly positioned behind her, as if her chief lady-in-waiting now, during Jinshi’s visit, while Loulan has enough new ladies-in-waiting to potentially cause drama within the Inner Court. On the Jade Palace front, Lingli is now old enough to be walking, which becomes the impetus for the episode’s main plot point: the discovery of the other Maomao.
That does, in fact, refer to the stray kitten pictured above. Her appearance smoothly allows the series to spill some facts about pets in the palace (there are few and they’re all neutered) and also to briefly introduce a servant girl who’s currently unnamed but will become a recurring character as the season progresses. It also reveals who amongst the regular cast members are and are not fans of cats, and interestingly, Maomao isn’t one despite her name. Easily the episode’s funniest scene comes when Maomao rattles off a list of cat traits that she’s heard others give as reasons for liking cats and Jinshi realizes that each one in some way applies to the human Maomao from his perspective. Either Jinshi is responsible for the cat being named Maomao as well or else someone else who recognizes the similarities gave it that name, but doubtless it was a deliberate choice. (As a bit of trivia, the cat’s name is written with different characters and would be pronounced slightly differently in Mandarin, so it’s not technically the exact same name, but that distinction gets lost in Japanese and probably will when the English dub rolls around, too.) The cat’s presence also allows the Emperor to show his sense of humor as well in the title he’ll later bestow on it (“Admonisher of Thieves” for its mouse-catching abilities).
That’s far from the only thing going on here. Maomao has also taken it upon herself to arrange some sexual education materials for the mid and lower-ranked consorts (probably either on prompting from the Emperor or by suggesting it to him), which also leads to a novel being distributed around the Inner Palace as well. That novels are considered lowbrow in this setting is a rather interesting point, but so is how this is slyly being used to promote greater literacy within the Inner Palace. At least in Xiaolin’s case, that inspiration seems to be working, as she’s now being taught by Maomao – who might not necessarily be the best of teachers for something like this. (Although she does get at least some credit for realizing herself how esoteric her first few writing examples are.) This is a time and culture where just being able to read and write would practically guarantee a decent-paying job, so this isn’t a trivial task by any means. The end of the episode also introduces the next big plot thread: the visit of the caravan and the two buxom women riding with it.
As a final note, new opener “Splendid Bounty” by Lilas Ikuta (who also did themes for Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction) is easily my favorite OP yet for the franchise on both visual and song fronts. The new ED is fine but far less memorable.
I have been following this franchise via its manga form (which the anime continues to follow pretty closely), but before the end of this second season the anime should surpass where the English adaptation is so far. I’m also eagerly looking forward to seeing how certain upcoming events get animated, so this should be another fun season for one of the top series of the past few years.
USA Anime 