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The Apothecary Diariesis an outlier in 2024, wherein a lot of anime fans thought it would quickly be forgotten and shoved under the carpet but it turned out to be one of the top 5 anime to air in 2024. And now the fans eagerly wait for the second season ofThe Apothecary Diaries, which has already been announced.
From a quick glance at the synopsis, it may seem like a straight-forward show but fans haven’t recovered after watching one mystery after another that was presented in the first season. Problem is, there were many plot holes, so fans expect the creators to clear that up in season 2. First beginning as a novel series in 2011, most of the popularity that the first season ofThe Apothecary Diariesgained was because of the novel’s prominence and the anime’s animation quality. And the director explains how.
The official reason whythe Apothecary Diariesbecame popular globally
ABEMAhas recently revealed its “half-year ranking” for 2024, confirming thatThe Apothecary Diariesis at the top for “most views” for new anime series on streaming platforms.
According toRedditandCrunchyroll,The Apothecary Diariesranked as the 6th best-selling light novel series in 2019, with 461,024 copies sold; the 5th in 2020, with 527,950 copies sold; and the 3rd in 2021, with 496,626 copies sold. As of November 2023, the franchise, encompassing the light novel and its two manga adaptations, had 27 million copies in circulation and as of January 2024, the series had surpassed 31 million copies in circulation.
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Not only that,The Apothecary Diaries’protagonist, Maomao, is prominentlydisplayed on the cover of The Official Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s February 2024 magazine issue. Additionally, a series of official art posters were released to be featured in pharmacies and medical facilities in Japan, as well as displayed in the EPARK healthcare app.
This collaboration betweenThe Apothecary Diaries, and the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare in Japan makes a powerful statement about anime’s popularity and potential to impact the real world. Andin a recent interview with Comicbook,The Apothecary Diaries’director, Norihiro Naganuma, discussed the success that the series has seen since its first season:
I think it’s clear there’s a lot of international interest in The Apothecary Diaries. I think vibrance is one of the keywords that come to mind when I think about an international audience. I really tried to think about how we could make a drama between characters in such a small amount of time. It’s not just about the movement of characters, of course, or even our use of color. There are many different ways you express and enhance emotions for the audience.
Fans of the novel were glued to the anime as well because the adaptation also had original content that the director thought was fit to create a smooth adaptation.
The originality ofthe Apothecary Diariesanime
The thing about anime adaptations of Light Novels is that there’s no image for directors to use to create scenes and animation sequences, so the animation team must make these sequences from scratch. Along with that, the director and scriptwriter add their own unique takes on the original source material to make the adaptation seamless.
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Of course, they also add new scenes and shots that weren’t there in the novels. So,during the panel at Anime Expo 2024, director Norihiro Naganuma stated how he managed to balance between honoring the source material and creating new material for the television series:
So the original work, the underlying story of The Apothecary Diaries, is actually a novel. So in order to tell some of its new more nuanced scenes and elements in the anime, we created original content. The anime uses a lot of different colors and images to ensure that its story is depicted successfully, I think even more so than the mystery, whenever there is some kind of incident, how Maomao reacts as her expressions change and how she feels about that incident, is quite important as well.
For the second season, the director reassured fans that the mysteries in season 1 will be resolved while growing in complexity and will also focus more on Mamao and Jinshi’s relationship. Despite its criticisms and overnight path to worldwide fame,the Apothecary Diariescertainly has a lot more in store that what has already come.
The Apothecary Diariesis available to watch on Crunchyroll.
Anand Bhaskaran
Articles Published :134
A Dragon Ball fanatic who also loves to read and talk about Indian spirituality. An MBA finance graduate with a passion for doing everything that is unrelated to it. Anand has over 4 years of experience under his belt, having worked with leading content heads in the anime community. Currently, he’s more into Slice of Life and Romcom shows than actual Battle Shonen. But unfortunately, he’s stuck with a job writing ONLY about Battle Shonen (smh).
