Description
“The Apothecary Diaries” written by Natsu Hyuga and illustrated by Nekokurage. The story follows a 17 year old named Maomao during an alternate version of China’s Tang dynasty. She was trained to be an apothecary by her father, so this is how her love for poisons grew as she was often her own test subject for her medicinal experiments. One day she gets kidnapped and sold as a slave to the emperor’s palace. Surprisingly, Maomao gets hired by one of the four main concubines of the palace to serve as her poison tester and to aid the other characters with her great pharmaceutical skills.
About the Mangaka
The mangaka Natsu Hyuga seems to remain anonymous although, other than her popular manga “The Apothecary Diaries” she created plenty of other mangas like “Dropout of God’s School“, “Lies Don’t Work for a Saint“, “Memories” and more.
Characters
Maomao
Maomao is the main character, she has both a strong but calm personality. Her traits came from the need to survive due to her poor living conditions and the dangers around her due to living on the outskirts of the red light district. She’s pragmatic and doesn’t stand up against things she dislikes since she has the status of a lowly commoner. On the contrary she has a thirst for research in poisons and jumps at the opportunity of gathering medicinal herbs, poisonous mushrooms and such. Maomao is a skillful apothecary and problem solver, which is why she was hired to be at Lady Gyokuyou side, one of the four main concubines at the emperor’s palace.
Jinshi
Jinshi is sent to the imperial palace in order to maintain the well being of the inner court and the concubines. He is the highest ranked eunuch of the palace (usually no men are allowed in the palace except for soldiers and eunuchs), he seems to have taken a liking to Maomao, so he orders her to create poisons and solve poison related mysteries at the palace. Despite his beautiful looks and supposed confidence, Jinshi actually lacks alot of it so he uses his charming persona in public, but once you get closer to him like Maomao does, he’s childish, lazy and grumpy when things don’t go his way.
Lady Gyokuyou
Lady Gyokuyou is one of the four highest ranking concubines of the imperial palace, she is also named the Precious Consort. She is one of the nicest consorts of the palace, she cares about her ladies in waiting yet she is still very precautious. Her and her newborn baby were poisoned from the lady’s whitening powder, luckily when maomao was still a servant she went out of her way to warn her that the makeup was poison. For saving both their lives she hired Maomao as her poison tester.
Xiaolan
Xiaolan is Maomaos best friend, back when Maomao was still a servant they would always stick together even when working. She’s very positive and grateful despite being sold to the palace as a slave, and would always gossip about the trends and dramas around the consorts and she was the one who told her about a “curse” where each of the consorts’ newborns would pass early on, so it helped her friend realise it was a poisoning case. She loves the food that Maomao brings her after the ceremonial tea parties.
Gaoshun
Gaoshun is a high ranked eunuch and also Jinshis attendant. He’s been attending him since Jinshi was a kid, so he knows how to handle his mood swings. Gaoshun is wise, calm and humble and often helps Maomao when solving her poison solving mysteries.