#xiaoling

I love fantasy shows, and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is one of the animes I am watching this season. I know that The Apothecary Diaries is another hyped up show and I actually love the difference between them. Frieren is a western-inspired fantasy story while The Apothecary Diaries is an eastern-inspired fantasy story. I love that I’m now reviewing two fantasy shows of opposite spectrums.

From what I saw, this anime seems to be about Maomao, the protagonist, who was kidnapped and sold to work as a palace servant. She used to be an apothecary and lived with her dad before her kidnapping, so she has a plethora of knowledge about herbs and poisons. She had involved herself with solving the mysteries behind the illnesses of the baby prince and princess and realizes that they were poisoned. She tries to warn the consorts about the poison, but it was too late for Consort Lihua as the prince died while the princess, daughter of Consort Gyokuyou, survived thanks to the mother heeding Maomao’s warning. This catches the attention of both Gyokuyou and Jinshi, a very beautiful eunuch who is in charge of the rear palace where this all takes place. I think that the story is going to be about Maomao using her knowledge to solve poisoning cases, so I think that the story will be episodic in a way, which isn’t bad.

Maomao as a character and protagonist is very interesting. Because she’s an apothecary, she was able to educate herself into knowing how to read and write, a trait that not many low-class girls like her have; this is evident with how Xiaoling, her friend, asked her what her tag said and how she was the only one who read Jinshi’s sign when servant girls were called to his office. I really like smart characters, so to see Maomao be that sort of character makes me excited to see more. I just hope the writing will be consistent for her. She was super cute with how she liked seeing herbs and such. I can’t wait to see how she’ll use her knowledge to help people. I already like her.

Jinshi feels very sketchy to me. He’s beautiful as heck, but he’s giving me trust issues. Is he using Maomao or does he genuinely want to work with her? If so, what’s his reason? He seems like a man of high status and what I know about asian/oriental fantasy stories is that any man of high status are suspicious. I do have to say, the anime really does like to emphasize how beautiful this man is as there are always close ups of his face or some parts of his face to show off his beauty. Someone in the animation studio must really like him.

The other characters in the story haven’t shown much, so I can’t say much about them. Xiaoling is cute. Gaoshun is probably that one character that has screen time but doesn’t say much due to his role as Jinshi’s attendant. Lihua seems like she’ll either be a villainous woman or one with development later on. Gyokuyou seems like a nice lady. I’ll talk more about the characters once they get more screen time in future episodes.

This story is Chinese inspired from names to buildings, but why is it that Gyokuyou’s name is in Japanese while everyone else’s names are in Chinese? I’ve noticed that Japan has a tendency to do this sometimes when it comes to animes with Chinese affluence. From this spreadsheet I saw on TVtropes, Gyokuyou’s name in Chinese would be Yuye. I mean, sometimes, Chinese, Japanese and Korean names would be translated into how it would be pronounced in their respective languages, but in a world where there are names like Maomao, Jinshi and Lihua, a more Japanese name like Gyokuyou does stick out like a sore thumb.

Not just Jinshi, the entire animation is very beautiful. The studio is OLM Incorporated; they have done many projects, but they’re also known for animating the Pokemon anime since the beginning and are even animating Horizons. The whole scenery and the way everything is colored is so beautiful. I really love how the flowers look, honestly. The rhododendron flowers look really pretty. Maybe it’s just a me thing, but any anime that can animate nature super well is a good one for me. The music is also really good too! The opening is addicting to look and listen.

The voice acting is superb. They got an all-star cast with a few rising stars. Aoi Yuuki stars as Maomao. I think this is a perfect fit. Yuuki has the range to pull off the serious, comedic and cute moments. Maomao was so entertaining to watch just from the first episode because of her performance. Jinshi is voiced by Takeo Otsuka. I feel like I’m seeing that name a lot in recent animes. I know he voiced Aqua in Oshi no Ko and Aqua is one of my favorite characters there. Unlike Aqua, Jinshi is more of a dynamic character, so instead of seeing him all moody and depressed like in Oshi no Ko, he’s all chipper. I think this shows Otsuka’s range and I can see why he’s getting casted left and right—he’s definitely a rising star. I don’t think I’ve heard Yui Ishikawa voice such a hot woman before. I’m usually familiar with her voicing teenagers, so this is the firs time I’ve seen her voice an adult and a mom at that. Lihua hasn’t shown up yet, but I do commend Ishikawa for going out of her comfort zone. I didn’t even know Yoko Hikasa voiced Gyokuyou until I looked it up. I don’t remember the last time she used that tone for a character. She has been voicing strong-willed, tough older ladies lately, so hearing her using a rather softer tone caught me off guard. Everyone else did a great job; I’ll talk about their performances in future episode.