Lakan!!! this scene made me emotional..she's still the same beautiful woman in his eyes!! 🥺

and it ended with sweet Jinshi maomao moment..but S2 confirmed for next year so we won't have to wait much and next arc is going to be hype too

I couldn’t able to hold my tears when Lakan cried T_T

I do gotta respect the dude T_T

This dude deserves most respect among all the characters of this series.

Love what they did with his character,this show teaches you to never judge a book by its cover. We were all hating him and when his revelation came we felt guilty about it.

Such clever writing,the series told us that exact message with the other cases and then decided to teach us it with Lakan’s character

Tbh, he did say he wanted to r*pe her so it's a little more than "judging a book by its cover" lol. However, he's a pretty good person overall.

Lmao..what? R*pe? She's literally a hooker and he paid her for her service....only at the last meeting, she do it with him and let her get pregnant while knowing he's saving up to buy her already....the problem was he got sent far away for longer than the expected duration...if not, they might be a happy family already....that old hag also no better with keeping her existence as a secret....terrible old hag! She even tried to turn maomao into one of the hooker too

I didn't say he r*ped her. I said he said in a previous episode that he "wanted to force himself on her" with a really creepy grin. I don't know why tf this was said but you can go back to it. It's in one of his meetings with Jinshi. Also, yeah, that old lady is kinda terrible.

He also said, with the same creepy grin, that since he couldn't afford her, he made her lose her value.

We all saw how that really went and that he wasn't even really the one who initiated it.

I think it's pretty safe to say he was just putting on an act and playing the bad guy in that meeting with Jinshi. Probably not for Jinshi's benefit though, since he'd have had nothing to gain. I reckon instead that it was to punish himself because he DID feel like he was guilty. Since he was a villain in his own eyes, he acted it out in front of everyone else as well.

Yeah, you're 100% right.

How is she terrible for caring for her most valued courtesan. She kept her there in that room because she was too sick to go anywhere else. Maomao also explained that when a courtesan lost their value they would usually be thrown out onto the street. So not only did Grams keep her and care for her after she ruined the reputation of the brothel she wanted to protect her in the very end.

The only way you can interpret force himself onto her is to rape her. That's what that phrase means.

Pretty sure he said that just to get under Jinshi's skin. He would never in a million years have raped her.

Yeah, you're right. It's just that our hatred for him before the last episode isn't out of nowhere when rape was heavily implied.

And people doubted me. Sorry that I'm late to the show. 2nd day of a freaking snowstorm. The only thing I hate more than snow is shoveling.

as they say..enough to make a grown man cry

Didn't thought the creep looking guy at first will be the first to make us cry

Glad we getting a S2 ^^
Hope it will be another 24 eps 🙏

hoping for that too..for Frieren as well as this🙏🙏

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries)
Source: LN.
Genres: Drama, mystery, historical.
Studios: Collab between both OLM and Toho Animation STUDIO.
(OLM known for Pokemon, Komi-san, Odd Taxi, and Nagatoro S2.)
(Toho Animation STUDIO known for Frieren chibi shorts, Detarame na Sekai no Melodrama 1 ep ona short, and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto chibi shots.)

Personal thoughts:
A rather very good franchise that shows a poison loving enthusiast like Maomao and Jinshi the eunuch.

A great series that has good blend of story with mystery set in early China that makes every ep worth watching with the plot.
The comedy was perfect and the drama hits the feels.

Every character is likeable and Aoi Yuki as Maomao was a very good choice.
Animation quality and visuals was top tier and top quality.

As for things are this matches Frieren with shear level in different ways and I give it a 10/10.

It didn't disappoint even a bit, from the very beginning I called it my top show of the season. And I didn't know anything from the manga or LN, it was just love at first EP. Maomao 🥰

Same here 🥰

hope so too also it looks like we are returning back to the era of some 24 ep series

Anime only adapted 2 volumes, there are 15 volumes in total
We have enough content for a season 3, even season 4

if this is not what you call true love then i dont know what it is
the way lakan run to her shows how he loves her all these years

felt bit sad for Meimei but ofc true love triumphs all!!

Why Meimei? From what I understood she was crying because Fengxian was’t honest about her plans and maybe if she talked o her things could’ve been different. If anything I feel bad for the couple that has to live a short life together with the scraps of past mistakes

It was implied in the manga that Meimei has some kind of feeling for him as well

Really tho? Because it doesn’t make any sense for her to be crying because of that and if it is her reasoning,it’s stupid to cut everything that alludes to it. It makes way more sense for her to be feeling for Fengxing,since we know she is attached to her

maomao is aware of that and meimei said another thing in the manga aside from being honest and thats giving her hope or something implying that meimei is waiting for Lakan to move on

Ok,but prior to that,is there any indication they cut from the adaptation? Because it still doesn’t make sense. And I got source readers saying both that she does and doesn’t have feelings,so idk who to trust.

yes, in the manga it was shown that Lakan often visited the house and Meimei is the one that take cares of him when he visit (They only play board games tho). I think the real reason why he go there is to see Maomao. Meimei probably grew feelings toward Lakan during those times.

Dont worry. He did

On EP18, on the bath scene, Maomao suggested that Meimei could work independently. Then, there was a short scene where Meimei is playing Go with someone, who seems to be Lakan, and then answered that she wants to work a little bit longer.

Ngl,the adaptation dropped the ball on this one,there had to be more hints than just that. It almost like they intentionally changed it to induce us to interpret her crying scene differently in the anime

Dunno man, it seemed pretty obvious to me from that bath scene that Meimei was hoping Lakan would buy her out.

Maomao even said something along the lines "I don't know what Meimei is thinking. If this is love, It's not for me".

Also, it wasn't the only hint. When Maomao brough Lakan to the brothel he was remembering playing games with Meimei when she was a child and that she used to blush, suggesting she liked him even back then, although he never noticed it. Even in the way he told him that he should choose wisely who to buy out, there was a hint she'd had liked it to be her.

But the crying part, that I don't think was just for her unrequited love. I reckon it was mostly for Fengxian. She clearly loved her and was sad that it ended the way it did. She'd have much preferred for them to have been happy a long time ago and "lose" back then.

Of course, if that had happened, it would have been easier for her as well. She'd have had less time to develop her current feelings and would have just had to get over a teenage crush.

mei mei was like his adoptive daughter. She was never his love interest... who he thought was already gone.

Maybe Lakan doesn't even see her as an adoptive daughter.
When he was ask to choose a courtesan, he don't even recognise her face.
From my perspective, he's just trying to keep his bet with MaoMao and casually selected MeiMei as she can be a playmate for the board games

he didnt choose meimei either...

So i guess his inner monologue explaining what he feels for his daughter went through one ear and out the other with you...

The way he also still sees her as the beautiful woman she was,the withered rose still looks beautiful in his eyes…hope he can cherish the little time he has left with her

The monocle even tumbled down and shattered, he's finally free from all his suffering.

Jinshi x Maomao FTW lol

them and bokuyaba couple were fav of the season for me

yuki x itsuomi
kiotaro x yamada

Some other notable ships..
Stark x fern
Ubel x land
Laios x monsters
Rishe x Arnold

one of those is not like the others lol, Land is working from home he is not on the ship

lol in spirits he is!!

He will succumb to armpits magic soon enough

Laios x monsters 🤣🤣its true tho 🤣

I thought she was going to ask his real identity, not for the ox bezoar! 🤯
Jinshi: Maomao baka!!!
🤣🤣🤣