The Apothecary Diaries

  Manga series with Ancient Chinese setting are rather uncommon and even more so for the really good one. There is this particular series called Apothecary Diaries that has been gaining popularities on my social media feed thus I give this series a try. Based from a popular Light Novel series with same name, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto or The Apothecary Diaries is a slice of life manga featuring young girl named Maomao who possess rare talent of medicine and eccentric personality that found herself end up working in the Inner Court of Chinese Imperial Palace under the wing of equally eccentric yet Handsome Eunuch.With her medicine knowledge and uncanny Problem Solving ability from her background growing up in Red Light District. Maomao will explore the court Intrigues while at the same time constantly gaining patronage of powerful individuals throughout her adventure in the Imperial Chinese Court.

 In Chinese Literature, there are 4 Great Literary works which are predominantly catered to Male Audience with one sole exception of  红楼梦/Dream of the Red Chamber which is essentially Shoujo genre of its time. These Dynamics still carry on until this day even for Japanese Manga and essentially The Apothecary Diaries is the current equivalent of Dream of the Red Chamber taking the baton passed from Saiunkoku Monogatari as both series have a strong willed female character as the main protagonist who struggle to find a place for themselves in a male-dominated society with their exceptional talent.

 The Apothecary Diary main strength lies in its storytelling of Ancient Chinese society in a very palatable manner for the current young adult audience. While personally I am not too invested with this series because I find the Court Intrigue is still rather dilute compared what Imperial China era could offer. To be honest I would say Imperial China era Court Intrigue is literally an Intergalactic scale of Game of Thrones and Apothecary Diaries could go even deeper to delve on this particular aspect if they wish to. Regardless I would commend the quality of writing that this series could deliver until now. While Apothecary Diary doesn't explicitly mention the particular era it is based one, I would argue that this series leans more on Song Dynasty instead of Tang especially if the former didnt face Mongol Invasion and survived until 14th/15th Century.

I would say my primary reason of interest getting into Apothecary Diary would be Maomao's Parent background story which is quite a tragedy that stems from misunderstanding. If not for the unnecessary tragedy, the alternate outcome for Maomao's mother would be way better compared to the misfortune that befall upon her. I hope that the future chapter of the Manga series will delve further on Maomao's parents story resolution despite we can't expect much from Fengxian's current circumstances. To conclude, Overall I would commend the story quality of Apothecary Diary to be another good glimpse on Imperial China ear and props for the Japanese Author to be capable of bringing up story of such quality.