Here’s one I’ve heard about, but due to being behind Crunchyroll’s paywall I haven’t been able to watch it until recently, when they dropped the first episode to promote season three on their YouTube channel.
The Apothecary Diaries is based on a series of light novel, translating to “The Pharmacist’s Monologue” according to the fan wiki, written by Natsu Hyūga, with Touko Shino on art. The last volume came out in Japan in 2025, having been serialized online since 2021. The anime came out in 2023 after the manga adaptations came out starting in 2017.
Set in the fictional country of Li, which takes inspiration from ancient China, the story follows Maomao, a young woman growing up in the red light district of her town until she’s kidnapped to work at the Imperial Palace. I…have questions on how and why that works, but maybe that gets addressed at some point. Maomao used to work at her dad’s apothecary shop, testing various poisons and remedies on her own arm. That gives her some insight when she’s kidnapped to work at the palace laundry when two of the prince’s sons end up sick. Season three’s first episode is also up as of this writing but we’re just going to watch the first episode tonight.
The video uses YouTube’s multiple audio track, so you can listen to the original Japanese using closed caption subtitles or the English dub. At least on YouTube the captions start up automatically, but I have my audio track set to English if that’s the option. I left the captions on because I was curious about the differences between the two languages, but you choose your experience. Enjoy.
