The Apothecary Diaries (Light Novel) Volume 1 Review

The Apothecary Diaries is certainly a popular subject right now having just enjoyed a two-cour anime adaptation with a second season starting in January and of course, both the original light novels and one of the two manga adaptations are available here in the West. Now as its popularity continues to grow, Square Enix Books have brought the light novels to print for the first time, but does Volume 1 impress? Let’s find out!

In a Chinese-inspired setting, our story follows protagonist Maomao, who has spent her life so far training as an apothecary. Thanks to her intelligence and willingness to experiment (mostly on herself!), she’s become very accomplished at this job. Unfortunately, one day while out picking medical herbs, Maomao was kidnapped and sold off to the imperial palace, where she’s now working as a servant.

Fortunately for Maomao, it’s not long before she catches the eye of Jinshi, the head eunuch of the Inner Court of the Imperial Palace. After anonymously offering advice to a consort to save the life of her child, Maomao’s talents are recognised by Jinshi who believes she’s wasted as a simple serving girl and invites her to work as a food taster under the Emperor’s favourite consort – Gyokuyou.

Although our protagonist isn’t thrilled to have more intensive work on her plate, working for Gyokuyou will at least allow her more time to practise medicine, so she eventually agrees to Jinshi’s proposal. What she doesn’t know is that the inner court is full of drama and strange happenings as the consorts compete with one another or hope to relieve some of their boredom. Maomao’s curiosity leads to her being wrapped in several mysteries that put her medical knowledge and deductive abilities to the test under the watchful eye of Jinshi.

The Apothecary Diaries is part historical drama and part mystery, a combination that author Natsu Hyuuga has nailed. With over 250 pages of content here, there’s plenty of time for Hyuuga to flesh out the setting and the large cast of characters. Maomao tries desperately to keep to herself and not get involved with others, but Jinshi is somewhat besotted with her, partly due to the fact every other woman he meets is all over him due to his handsome appearance but she can’t stand him. Because of this he often requests Maomao’s help or invents reasons to get closer to her, which inevitably leads to Maomao learning more than she’d like about the other residents of the Inner Court.

They say curiosity killed the cat, which is particularly fitting for Maomao (whose name is derived from the Chinese word for cat) as is the concept of having nine lives. Despite her intentions, Maomao can’t resist an unsolved puzzle and before she knows it has gotten herself caught up in many troubling matters. I appreciated how some of these were ordinary stories such as ghost sightings and others setting up for much bigger storylines in the future. It’s well-balanced, offering readers plenty to get invested in, while not overwhelming you.

Even if you’re not as interested in the setting or the political side of things (which admittedly is more pronounced in later volumes than it is here), Maomao’s character and the mysteries are still more than enough to hold your interest. And maybe that’s one of many reasons I enjoy this series so much in all its multimedia forms; it has a very broad appeal that will reward you, no matter the reason you started reading it. The anime and manga have their own merits of course and, depending on your preferences, may prove better starting points, but the original novels are well-written and incredibly charming in a way that nothing else quite captures in my opinion.

As mentioned The Apothecary Diaries comes to print thanks to Square Enix Books who are reusing J-Novel Club’s existing translations for the digital editions, but giving it an extra editing pass. Translation has been handled by Kevin Steinbach who has done a good job of giving the large cast distinct voices and handling many of the Chinese terms thrown around.

This is Square Enix’s first and so far only light novel release in English, but it’s a solid start. The book is a tiny bit smaller than a standard Yen Press light novel in the height department and a little bit wider with a slightly larger text size inside. It includes colour pages by illustrator Touko Shino which do a good job of showcasing the main characters for this instalment. The paper quality is good and I like how the publisher has chosen to slightly emboss the covers and spine.

One thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was the choice to add a dropped capital to the start of new paragraphs something which can happen a couple of times on a page. I’m not used to seeing this design decision in light novels and it’s not present in the J-Novel Club digital editions, so I found it quite distracting. In the free preview, you can see it for yourself, particularly on page 13 which is an example of it being present twice on a small page. I think it would have been fine at the start of a chapter, but it’s overdone here.

The Apothecary Diaries light novel series is ongoing in Japan with 15 volumes currently released. Here in English J-Novel Club has released 11 volumes digitally with 12 coming out early November and 13 currently being released to subscribers of their service before the eBook release. Square Enix meanwhile has released Volume 2 into print with #3 set to follow in early November and they also release one of the manga adaptations.

Overall, this print release of The Apothecary Diaries is well worth adding to your collection. This is a series that offers plenty we don’t regularly see in the light novel market and even if you’re already acquainted with Maomao through the manga or anime, there’s still a lot of charm here in the original work.

A free preview of this release can be found on the Square Enix website here.

Our review copy from Square Enix Books was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).