Is The Apothecary Diaries worth reading?

What it is

Is The Apothecary Diaries worth reading, or is the anime enough? The Apothecary Diaries (薬屋のひとりごと) started on Syosetu in 2011 and is still running there; the novels are on J-Novel Club digitally and in print from Square Enix. Maomao, an apothecary's daughter from the pleasure district, is kidnapped and sold into the rear palace of an empire that looks like imperial China, where she scrubs floors. Then she can't resist working out why two consorts' babies are sickening, and the beautiful eunuch Jinshi notices. He makes her a food taster for Consort Gyokuyou, and from there it's a mystery series: a poisoning, a haunting, a fashion for a lethal face powder, each solved with plants and a straight face. Not isekai, no magic, no system.

What readers love

Maomao. Reviews rarely get past her: she tests poisons on herself for fun, finds beautiful men tiresome, and treats every case as a chance to learn about a new herb. Readers like that the deductions are honest, with physical evidence and court politics that mean something. The setting gets nearly as much praise, the rear palace as a workplace with its own hierarchy, gossip and boredom, and the pleasure district outside the walls as its mirror.

What divides them

The pace and the romance. The opening chapters are thick with palace routine, and plenty of readers say they were a long way in before a mystery arrived. The relationship between Maomao and Jinshi is the other fault line. It moves slowly, she isn't interested, and some readers find his persistence uncomfortable given his rank rather than charming. Readers arriving from the anime also argue about whether the novels' running inner monologue is the best part or a slog.

Is The Apothecary Diaries worth reading if you've seen the anime?

People who've read past the adaptation mostly say yes. The novels give you Maomao's reasoning, where the anime could only give you her face, and the reasoning is what you came for. Going by the reviews, it reads best as a procedural with a court attached, and the frustrated reviews come mostly from readers who wanted a romance with mysteries in it. The web novel is far ahead of the English books, which is where a good deal of the impatience comes from.

If you like a clever, unbothered heroine and a case a week in a historical court, you'll be fine. If you need the romance to move, you won't.

Based on reader reviews; we'll write our own once we've finished it.

If you enjoy it, support the author where it's published: Syosetu. Licensed English edition: J-Novel Club.