mev

JinMao

Maomao quickly got adopted by the aro-ace community (for good reason) but as the series goes on, I think she's probably more of a graysexual / sex neutral. She's not sex repulsed. She was simply raised to view sex as a transactional thing, not a romantic thing, and never saw how it could apply to her. (She lacks certain assets.) She also saw women around her using men and being used in turn, selling their talents and bodies, and decided she wanted no part of that aspect of being a courtesan, because she could see the damage it could do to both parties of the transaction. Her own mother died of an STD. Men in the pleasure district waste all their money chasing fantasies that are not real.

That said, she was trained as a courtesan and knows exactly what women need to do to please men, to the point where she was the one running the darn sex ed class for the rear palace.

I don't think she'll ever change her views on sex as a transaction, but Lahan planted the idea in her head that she'll probably want to have at least one kid for the experience, and there's only one way to do that. So there's her incentive. It's funny because she objectively knows Jinshi is attractive (and has a decent frog, ahem) but that isn't the same as being attracted to him. He makes her flustered sometimes and there's a massive level of denial that comes from her perceived status difference, but as the story progresses, we've learned that status difference isn't nearly as steep as she thinks it is. And you can come to care for someone, even love them in a non romantic way, without being sexually attracted to them. This seems to be about where she is as of volume nine. She doesn't reciprocate his feelings, and she really doesn't understand why he picked her, but there's an affection and some level of resignation that his infatuation hasn't cooled yet, and may not ever. (She hoped it would.)

Then there's Jinshi. I pinned him as the classic nonbinary bisexual stereotype at first too, but he's more of a pure monogamist demisexual type, if anything. (Or as someone put it, he's "Maomaosexual.") Which is a disaster to have as a position such as "imperial male" whose only real job is to try to father as many children as humanly possibly.

I realize now that pretending to be a eunoch in the rear palace was his way of avoiding getting forced into his own political marriages he wasn't interested in. Taking the "eunoch medicine" (was it some sort of proto-spirolectone? was it just a libido blocker? who knows? pretty sure it stopped erections and maybe suppressed facial hair growth to some extent) wasn't a big deal for him because he, too, wasn't particularly interested in sex. Not with the randos who only wanted him for his pretty face. Probably the Emperor being a lusty bear and the horror stories about his grandfather had him also decide he wanted none of that either.

Until he fell in love with Maomao, and then he wanted to have her no matter what it was going to cost him, no matter how long it took. (And no matter how long it took him to convince her to come around to the idea - which he still hasn't done, although it seems she's finally starting to get resigned to it.)

Too bad for him, Maomao being the La princess means that's going to be a messy political marriage too. (And it's what he was trying to avoid! Who could have known that the cute little apothecary that was working as a laundry girl was the missing daughter of General Lakan?) The whole nation is apparently already aware she's been proposed for the position of the Imperial Brother's consort - and her getting dragged on the trip west with Lakan and Jinshi in this current arc is all but declaring her the front runner and daring the other factions to do something about it. I keep thinking back to the hairpins - she has Jinshi's, Gyokuyou's, and even Lihua's hairpins still. At the right place and time, those three could make a powerful statement about how many allies she has in the court.

Other Character Thoughts

The real nonbinary beauty Ah-Duo, who had a hysterectomy alongside Jinshi's birth. (I had one of those myself a few years ago. Its been swell. 10/10 highly recommend if you don't want kids.) In a modern setting you'd probably be able to keep your ovaries, but she likely lost those as well during the traumatic birth, so she went through menopause at the age of 16. That's, uh, not great from a health standpoint, but hey, she's alive, and thanks to the intentional baby swap, her son's alive. She is the mom friend everyone deserves. I'm so happy that after she "retired" that she got her own estate and became the local zookeeper for People Who The Government Had To Pretend Died For Reasons But Didn't Deserve It.

(On that note: We now know for sure that Ah-Duo knows Jinshi is her son. She proposed the swap! Anshi knows; she agreed to the swap and loves her grandson much more than she did her second real son. Suiren knows. The Emperor knows but can't say anything. Luomen knows but won't say anything. Maomao figured it out but also won't say anything. I suspect the women in the Ma family probably figured it out as well - Taimao, Maamao, and Chuo, all independently, and all tacitly keeping the secret. Gaoshun may suspect but like Maomao, knows not to think too hard about it. Gyokyuou does not know; she thinks of Jinshi as a brother-in-law, not a stepson. Probably a good thing, considering they are close in age. I think she knew that the local eunoch running the rear palace was the missing Imperial Brother, and that's how their relationship has always been. And I don't think Jinshi knows he's Ah-Duo's son. It's going to break him if he ever finds out. Being "the spare" his whole life has been bad enough. He definitely never wanted to be first in line.)

There's the bisexual Big Sister Pairen, who could have quit being a courtesan long ago if she wanted to, but she likes sex work and has a libido the exact opposite of Maomaos. Maybe some day her prince Lihaku will be able to afford to buy her out. (Hopefully Maomao gives him tips on how he needs to ride into town. On a white horse. With a parade and stuff.) Having a true sex positive character in the same series as an aro-ace spectrum character to act as a foil is a great contrast. (The fact that Pairen is also implied to be a succubus sucking out men's energy to stay youthful is also funny as heck.)

Then we've got the one off characters, like the Shrine Maiden. They never call her this by name, but today we'd flat out call her trans. Not that she had a choice... she was castrated at birth. I'm happy her tale didn't completely end in tragedy and she's now got a place on Ah-Duo's Government Secret Farm. Same with Suirei - sure, she directly or indirectly caused the deaths of a lot of people as part of a conspiracy to kill Jinshi, but she was ordered to do it by her stepmother. So she didn't have much of a choice.

Same with Lishu. Her life has been one of misery but maybe she'll finally get a chance at a happy ending in a future volume. Hated by her dad. Married to a pedophile (that her father thought might be her real father - fucking EW) .... who promptly died. Sent to the nunnery. Sent right back as a bride to his son, still as a 9 year old. Even more ew. (The emperor absolutely treated her like a daughter the whole time, thank god.) Multiple assassination attempts. Bullied by her own maids. Treated like shit. Threatened to get swapped to the Imperial Prince as a consort. Falsely accused of infidelity because stress stopped her period. Humiliated. Ended up locked in a tower. Drugged. Almost driven to suicide. Saved, but sent right back to the nunnery since clearly she wasn't fit to be a consort.

That poor girl.

But she's still got a chance at happiness, if Basen gets to claim her as his reward. Crossing my fingers for them.

Going Forward

Basically, the LN is taken and illustrated by an artist and we call it a manga. And when the manga has reached a certain number of Chapters, and gained a lot of popularity, it is converted into an anime. So that's the flow of things. We have

WN -> LN -> Manga -> Anime

I think that clears up a lot of misunderstandings. Firstly, the WN is published on a weekly basis, some chapters from WN are taken and translated properly to make a LN. The LN is illustrated by an artist to make the manga and the manga is generally adapted to make the anime.

In case of 'Kusuriya no Hitorigoto' or 'The Apothecary Diaries', the anime is doing a great job of adapting the overall story because not only are they properly animating every scene from the manga but also adding their own scenes from the LN.

Where can I read WN, LN and Manga?

WNs are the hardest to find, since they are released on a weekly basis by the Japanese author. They are written in Japanese and a few fans translate them for everyone. You can find it here...

(They have translated chapters of vol 10, 11 and 12)

The LN has reached until vol 9 and vol 10 is scheduled to release in Jan 2024. Currently, there is no source where you can find it for free (not that I know of, because even I have purchased the e book from Amazon) though the first few pages are available to read for free! So you can check them out!

Where did the Anime, Manga left off?

The Manga has reached ch 66. If you want to start reading the light novel from where the manga left off, you can start reading from vol 4, chapter 4.

The Anime has released ep 8 and it has covered manga material till half of ch 13, if you want to read manga after finishing anime.

If you have any other questions regarding the LN, WN, Anime or Manga, feel free to ask!