#the apothecary diaries light novel

[aashi-heartfilia]

Where can I read "Kusuriya no Hitorigoto" Light Novel?

Since a lot of you have been asking this question lately, here is everything you need to know in brief...

What is a Web Novel (WN) and Light Novel (LN)?

A WN is basically weekly chapters released by the main author on a weekly basis. You can find it on a lot of Japanese sites. Some amazing people also translate them on a regular basis and post those chapters. LN is a compilation of WN chapters. A number of Chapters from the WN are taken, translated, properly rewritten and edited to publish a final LN. It has a few illustrations as well like the one you can see below...

Manga, Light Novel and Anime

Basically, the LN is taken and illustrated by an artist and we call it a manga. And when the manga has reached a certain number of Chapters, and gained a lot of popularity, it is converted into an anime. So that's the flow of things. We have

WN -> LN -> Manga -> Anime

I think that clears up a lot of misunderstandings. Firstly, the WN is published on a weekly basis, some chapters from WN are taken and translated properly to make a LN. The LN is illustrated by an artist to make the manga and the manga is generally adapted to make the anime.

In case of 'Kusuriya no Hitorigoto' or 'The Apothecary Diaries', the anime is doing a great job of adapting the overall story because not only are they properly animating every scene from the manga but also adding their own scenes from the LN.

Where can I read WN, LN and Manga?

WNs are the hardest to find, since they are released on a weekly basis by the Japanese author. They are written in Japanese and a few fans translate them for everyone. You can find it here...

(They have translated chapters of vol 10, 11 and 12)

The LN has reached until vol 9 and vol 10 is scheduled to release in Jan 2024. Currently, there is no source where you can find it for free (not that I know of, because even I have purchased the e book from Amazon) though the first few pages are available to read for free! So you can check them out!

Where did the Anime, Manga left off?

The Manga has reached ch 68. If you want to start reading the light novel from where the manga left off, you can start reading from vol 4, chapter 4.

The Anime has released ep 12 and it has covered manga material till ch 20, if you want to read manga after finishing the anime.

If you have any other questions regarding the LN, WN, Anime or Manga, feel free to ask!

~ Sunshine

[ladykyriaa]

Maomao, literally everytime she's describing Jinshi: "the beautiful gorgeous man that could very well be the sole reason for this country's demise. He's so beautiful that war would reign itself and everyone would lose theeir absolute marbles. But not me. His beauty doesn't work on me"

[trashcanzaddy]

the GASP I GASPED!!!

source: light novel vol 5, epilogue

[maomaojinshi]

I'm the only female in a house full of guys. I laughed my ass off at that flying turtle, and they all flinched. Guys just have no sense of humour.😂🤌🏻

[sidssideblog]

branded jinshi potatoes. hilarious.

light novel vol. 11 pg. 176

[roboticchibitan]

Something I really like about the Apothecary Diaries, especially the light novel cuz it's more obvious, is that the characters have real life problems.

I have dysgraphia and it's mentioned in volume six that Pairin, the courtesan who's like a mother to Maomao, sometimes writes her characters backwards and no amount if practice fixes it. That's dysgraphia!! And consort Lishu has deadly allergies and a lot of less than deadly allergies. An unnamed consort in volume six has seasonal allergies.

Maomao is clearly autistic (this is more obvious in the light novel) and I interpret her as ace because she can identify that Jinshi is gorgeous but it does absolutely nothing for her, which I as an ace person find entirely relatable.

Lakan has faceblindness (somewhat common in autistic people, I have a mild case of it) and it's treated as a disability he has to overcome. And Loumen and Chou-u are physically disabled.

Like! Those are real disabilities or real brain or sexuality things that real people have! They have depth! Their lives aren't perfect! I think that's really great and adds dimension to the world

[droppopangie]

Hello Jinmao nation, I am back with more content. I sketched this back before LN 15 released. I definitely predicted the cheek pull! 😆

[pampamtiger]

you really don't know when the author will throw the romance in the apothecary diaries; one time, you'd stress about the political problem that's stirring between shaoh and li, and the next thing you know, jinshi and maomao will have their argument that'll lead to some cute romantic scene but that would only last for 5 seconds, then you'd be thrown back into the complicated drama once more...

[jellyjyun04]

Spoiler

Just read The Apothecary Diaries LN book 11, we can see Jinshi jealousy. Cause Rikuson proposed to Maomao in front of Lihaku and Chue on book 10 (well, Maomao takes it as a joke tho) 🤭🤭

[linnaearosie]

Spoilers for the apothecary diaries light novels volumes 5-7

So, I binge readed volumes 5-7 of the apothecary diaries light novels. Here's my observations/opinions:

- Lishu needs to be protected. She did nothig wrong. I like that her pos father didn't just magicaly grow to love her after 5th book. He basically sold her to former emperor and tried to do it again when she was 11. I wish emperor would simply say the rumors are true even if they are not related so lishu could be permanently protected from u clan's head ( but I gusse it would be scandal and negatively impact imige of emperor). Bc Lishu is his and a dao second child. At the same time, he should simply never put lishu in this tower. He should sand her to a dao. My main negative though is that I wish that we would hear this possible emperor child rumor before vol 5.

- Basen and Lishu are perfect for each other. They are literally european knight-lady coded with romeo and juliet sprinkle into it. To be fair I wish that we maybe got one more interaction between them before the tower. Also instead of romeo and juliet it would be really fitting to use Lancelot and Guinevere or tristan and isolde.

- kokuyou, sazen and chou-u are fine addition to the maomao family at verdigris house. Not gonna lie, I wish that we expended more on potential maternal side of maomao family. You are telling me that Granny was mistress to previous owner of verdigris house and now her son? owns the business. It would be interesting to see him interact with his niece? and maybe offer us explanation why fangxian was still around ( also it would show potential duble standards that men have in knh world where previous owner and granny's son inherited his fortune their daughter wasn't granted as much opportunities. Assuming that they are full siblings).

- kokuyou is comic relief to the degree that he must simply hide something. Somewhere there is wardrobe full of skeletons. Also, given whole volume 7th resolution, I wish we didn't have crossdressing kokuyou at the beginning. But him and sazen... I kind of ship them

- speaking of queer characters. I don't know how I feel about En'en. Her fixation on yao's chasts size is awful and the fact that yao is 15yo is fack up. First Parin then En'en why wlw is presented that way is unknown to me

- Jinshi casually mentioned that he was almost sa by eunuch on his first day as jinshi. It's draw parallels between this and maomao freckles situation. Inner court being this distorted, fancy mirror of red light district is alweys interesting take.

- Quack doctor doesn't deserve to be this comic relief character. He is more the man then most of the officials (cougt cougt uryuu). He protected his family and I wish he got at least one major medical related win. Not gonna lie whole episode in his home village was you typical shounen filler and he deserves more. He is volume one character and he was always kind to maomao. Justice for Guen.

- Lahan and Maomao are so much alike that they are acting like siblings even when they are activlly trying to not. But, I hope that maomao predictions about Lahan an her and jinshi potentia l child are only her assumptions. Also, is lahan supposed to be bi? Jinshi is one thing but his interaction with kokuyou is also giving this vibe. But my crack ship after volume 7 is lahan x aylin. She played him but for the brief moment that they were working together they were giving me power couple vibe. And they weren't even in the same scene other then first meeting in western capital.

- also, is there magical element in my apothecary diaries? Don't know how I feel about this.

- lastly, maomao and jinshi relationship is so confusing. Why the author wrote this scene at the end of vol 5 is mystery to me. They could kiss normally why add this dubious undertones to this. Also, I wish that they interacted more after that, but this proclamation from jinshi at the end was nice. Last thing, why emperor don't tell jinshi/yue that jinshi is his and a dao son? Jinshi is acting reckless and we know that if he learn the truth it might fix most of his self esteem issues ( it might make them worst but still). Emperor for all we know still wants a dao's son to inherit the throne, so give the boy truth.

This post is so long. But if someone read this can you please tell me your opinion on this volumes

[honeybees-honeycomb]

Apothecary diaries novel spoilers up to like at least book nine incoming!

Watching Maomao continuously deny her family relations despite how useful they could be to her and how obvious it is to almost everyone else is hilarious and the kind of stubborn I aspire to lmao

[aashi-heartfilia]

What MaoMao feels for Jinshi...

(Vol 5 epilogue discussion)

Love, duh. She wouldn't let just anyone choke her to death. Isn't it obvious? She just doesn't realise it yet because of her repressed emotions. I've seen a lot of bad takes and people hating on the Vol 5 epilogue, saying it's one heck of a disaster but honestly, it's not. Here's why:

I think it does a very good job of humanizing Jinshi, the imperial brother. Before this point, we were always given a picture perfect image of Jinshi, in his most angelic form...but after seeing this, it looks like he's very much capable of murder, lol. No seriously!

Previously, Jinshi was always all sunshine and roses and this is the first time we see a pinnacle of his anger and frustration taking a form.

Honestly, anyone would be angry. Jinshi has done so much for MaoMao and almost everyone close to him knows that he has eyes on her and only her from pretty early on in the series and only MaoMao is the one person who seems to be in the dark. Or more precisely pretending to be in the dark.

She is literally running away from her own feelings and that's what made Jinshi so frustrated.

It was the same thing in the 'Frogging chapter' (yeah, that's what we're calling it). She was "playing the role of an ignorant maid who's in the dark as to what her supiriors are upto". Jinshi was trying to tell MaoMao that he is the imperial brother and he does in fact like her but that never happened because MaoMao kept pretending that it was a frog.

Same here, even if he didn't say it outright, he was dropping so many hints! Who else could have gifted MaoMao a Moon hairpin? Who would have given her beautiful dresses to wear in the banquet?

Jinshi is called the Moon Prince for a reason and that hairpin had a moon and opium poppy. even other people recognised that it was given by him to MaoMao like Rishu's half sister, so a smartass person like Mao should be able to guess that this was all from Jinshi.

The same person who's busy day and night made preparations for her, only to see some unknown random person dancing with her and kissing her hand.

He was jealous and it's only human.

In fact, I'm glad that he's not a complete saint.

He was mad at MaoMao for pretending to be in the dark when he has gone to great lengths to take care of her, and he was hurt that the same person would even suggest him to marry someone else, i.e. consort Rishu.

He was trying to tell her how he feels, and she wasn't even willing to acknowledge anything that is between them.

Adding to the fact, she knew the thing between Basen and Rishu and yet she chose to turn a blind eye, to the love that could blossom between them and suggested her name to Jinshi. It was wrong on so many levels because MaoMao knew everything and yet chose to give the most political suggestion she could think of.

Maybe because of her repressed emotions, she herself has become heartless while making decisions but just like a double edged sword, it has consequences.

So it was a mixture of anger, hurt and jealousy for Jinshi.

And he wanted MaoMao to feel the same.

The same amount of frustration he has felt as MaoMao keeps running away, just because it would be a little troublesome.

Yeah, he's shitty just like that, and so is she.

(and we love them for it ❤️)

Does it justify what he did? No. But it seems like MaoMao herself doesn't even mind it that much. She looked like well within her comfort zone. Otherwise, we know how capable she is of defending herself. But she was there, pretty much sitting with Jinshi until she dominated him completely and made her escape.

Guess they're both far from the vanilla couple that are usually expected in these kinds of series and I absolutely love it.

She was just mad he didn't poison her instead, like he promised her, to which he replied he would NEVER let her poison herself (because he also loves her a lot too, duh)

This entire scene looks more like a battle for sexual dominance, which MaoMao won.

She always has, since the very first day he saw the real her ❤️

[ladykyriaa]

Gotta love how they're describing his character as being an absolute simp for MaoMao

[trashcanzaddy]

absolutely fucking nobody: ... maomao: "I’d forgotten his[Jinshi's] looks were enough to be downright hazardous to the health."

source: light novel vol 8, chapter 16: the go contest (part 2)

[maomaojinshi]

[APOTHECARY DIARIES LIGHT NOVEL. 3]MANGA

Who would've thought Maomao was the origin of piracy.

[aamaimonn]

Pls share your thoughts as well!! Vol 4 is my favorite of all time and has been for a while. I need to know if anyone agrees lol