There's this YouTube video called “Audience Hate Bad Writing, Not Strong Women” by Master Samwise, which summarizes my thoughts on the recent trends of using characters in today's landscape, especially in anime. The video focused more on the American industry aspect and how they're representing women, and the same concept does apply in the Japanese aspect but not in the way you would expect, and it's not just an issue of the portrayal of women but also men. In the video, Master Samwise made a brief mention of how these American blockbusters tend to skip over character development as a trade-off between spectacle and half-baked representation. I believe this also applies in the anime industry, not just in terms of representation but also in terms of how much anime viewers crave spectacle-well-drawn top-of-the line animation while putting characters as a mere minor trait.

Most anime that came out today are pretty straightforward with their plotlines, and they do ways to create wild and heart-wrenching moments where characters had to face intense crumbles of downfall until inevitably getting back up from their knees through their sheer will and making the impossible possible. These are your basic kinds of storytelling that's effective to make audiences connect and care with your characters; however, recently, this formula has been used so much that we're just blindly following the determined routes of these characters that, in their minds, ensure us, the audience, that we'll connect with them, but forgetting the part where they'd actually have to write a compelling three-dimensional character to fully sell us in. We've seen this a lot recently, especially in the fantasy genre and shounen titles, where you struggle to connect with these characters because of how much they're not just more than the predetermined formula they've plastered upon, and seeing these tropes getting distributed and redistributed a couple of times without any effort of giving personality, you'll end up with products that's basically the same just with a different shade of paint. ***

Now with that in mind, how does “The Apothecary Diaries” stack up amidst the abundance of similarly plotted characters being given secondary priority? Well, it surprisingly does the opposite. We follow our main character Maomao, who's been kidnapped by the kingdom and works there as a lower-class servant, but after a certain incident regarding noble women that's filled with superstitions and beliefs about its cause, Maomao steps in and secretly treats these noble women without the knowledge of everyone. Unbeknownst to her, the palace has been searching for someone who treated these noble women and offered her a higher position as a poison tester for the palace. On paper, the anime does sound like an intriguing series, and it's definitely a step above the “I accidentally got myself into a certain situation I couldn't get out of” trope. It gives the story the ability to make characters have room to make decisions and comments on their own instead of being forced upon them; this helps us, the viewers, to connect and relate in a genuine manner. It does help even more that the series doesn't have an overarching “quest” or an “ultimate goal” to hook the audience. It's an exploration of where Maomao lives and her weekly encounters with weird and new things relating to her field as an apothecary. It might not be for everyone to have episodes have an episodic feel, but that complaint immediately disappears once you realize that the series is not about being an apothecary, how this kingdom and world run, or how there may be a plot twist along its story; however, it is just a series where our main character Maomao navigates through this world as well as being an apothecary on the side. ***

Maomao carries this series on the back of her shoulder without tiring out. She exerts a lot of personality from her enthusiasm for poisons, where she would do odd things to enjoy them, witty dialogue, her unique problem-solving skills, her ways to not get involved too much with the people around her without being nonchalant in a way, and how she lives through her own wave with confidence that deviates from the generic anime character that you just can't stop looking straight to your screen and be amazed at what and how she will act next when she's given a situation, whether for mundane teases by Jinshi or being offered a highly intensive job of poison testing. Essentially speaking, Maomao is not carried by the story, but the story is carried by Maomao. There are lots of moments where you can see where it's going, especially when you can spot a specific formula where a certain story flow is. You'd be fortunately dumbfounded by Maomao’s unique way of facing the issue, and you'd just be applause for taking such logical steps according to her own values and what's best in the situation. Other characters in the show have the same qualities as Maomao, where they carry the scenes in their own unique way, from Jinshi’s silent obsession with Maomao to the minor characters, such as Gaoshun, who is your confused yet relieved royal guard, and the background characters, such as the maids, who excrete so much personality despite not giving much more screen time to shine. The world of this series excretes so much life from its well-rounded characters, curious minor characters, and loud background characters, a basic trait in storytelling that most anime series recently failed to provide, which this series nailed hard while sprinkling more. ***

There are still a lot of great things about this series that will be pointed out by other people, such as that well-balanced silky vibrant look, how its mystery is structured and how, despite being structured as an episodic series, it leaves many clues and stories for future episodes to progress without overwhelming the viewer or getting too stuck in one single arc. As it stands right now, The Apothecary Diaries is one of the most entertaining and captivating series released recently because of its three-dimensional characters and how it trusts the audiences that they'll connect with these out-of-the-current written characters without the reliance of an adrenaline-kicked overdrawn animations, a testament that there's still more stories that can be told in this medium without the reliance of plot-driven tropes. ***