The Apothecary Diaries Ep. 49 “Locusts”: A Brewing Plague [Review]

The Apothecary Diaries begins its long-awaited third season, introducing Maomao to a potential plague in Ep. 49 “Locusts”. The nature of the plague is quite obvious as you can tell from the title. The real mystery here is how all the characters plan to deal with this looming threat to the entire society. But for now, we have a nice slice of life episode to enjoy, with bits of drama and mystery to spice things up a bit and prepare for the coming storm.

The Apothecary Diaries Ep. 49 “Locusts”: Details in Brief

The Apothecary Diaries Ep. 49 “Locusts” is the first episode of the third season of this historical mystery drama anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the light novel series of the same name by Hyūganatsu.

OLM (Berserk, Odd Taxi, Komi Can’t Communicate) is the animation studio behind this anime. Akinori Fudesaka is the director behind this anime, with Wataru Nakagawa as assistant director, Norihiro Naganuma as the writer, and Satoru Kosaki, Kevin Penkin, and Arisa Okehazama as the composers.

Speaking of the music, the opening theme song for this third season of The Apothecary Diaries is “Kumo o Nukekazashimo e Watashidake” (雲を抜け風下へ私だけ; lit. ’Beyond the Clouds, Only Me Downwind’) by Yorushika. Meanwhile, “AIYOU” by Eve is the ending theme song for the same.

You can watch The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 exclusively on Crunchyroll.

The Apothecary Diaries Ep. 49 “Locusts”: The Good

Longtime fans of The Apothecary Diaries will be eagerly awaiting Ep. 49 “Locusts” after waiting for well over a year since the finale of the second season. Fortunately, OLM delivers on those hopes, and gives us a most excellent first episode for this season. Much of that greatness rests on an excellent story that Hyūganatsu has written, and is a treat for fans wondering about the aftermath from the finale of the previous season. In fact, Maomao (voiced by Aoi Yūki (JP) and Emi Lo (EN)) remembers that finale quite well. Multiple times throughout the episode, something reminds her of Loulan, aka. Shisui (voiced by Asami Seto (JP) and Suzie Yeung (JP)), and she gets a brief flash of Loulan’s smiling face before she returns to reality. It’s somehow both subtle and not-so-subtle at the same time, being a clear visual reminder of just how much Maomao misses Loulan without stating it outright.

However, Maomao’s reminders of Loulan isn’t just purely for melancholic remembrance. Loulan’s obsession with insects is a key part of the new plot that Maomao has found herself becoming deeply involved in. This occurs not only directly from Loulan herself, but also people that Loulan has extensively interacted with. It’s hilarious to see how much her insect autism just rubbed off on everyone she was close to, including Kyō-u and now Chou-u (voiced by Natsumi Fujiwara (JP) and Anne Yatco (EN)) and that one random guard who had been in charge of guarding Maomao at the Shi clan’s estate. It’s also incredibly relevant, with their collective knowledge about insects confirming to Maomao that a terrible locust plague is about to hit the land. All just from the differences between grasshoppers and locusts. We’ll just have to see how that locust plague turns out in the next episode of The Apothecary Diaries.

A Treat for the Eyes as Well as the Mind

All that with OLM’s animation team providing some gorgeous animation for this first episode. Seriously, the animation is incredibly smooth for much of the episode. The result is that the characters’ movements feel noticeably more fluid and natural than in previous seasons. Even when the characters are doing comedic things such as trying to sneak by someone while making sneaky sounds, and suddenly sprout a dog’s tail in order to wag it as hard as he can in response to some very positive stimulus.

It’s also a sign of increased confidence on OLM’s part that they’ve noticeably increased the animation budget, especially after having taken over from Toho Animation Studio entirely. This is an entirely OLM-run venture, without any outside help, and you can even see that increased confidence in the opening animation sequence. It’s somehow a bit more artsy and even higher quality than in the previous opening sequences. In fact, astute viewers will notice the imagery of a venomous serpent biting down on an opium seed pod, and deduce exactly what that strange bar that mysterious woman was handing out to famine-stricken farmers was. Alas, it will be some time before we will know if this is connected to the foreign opium trade in China because that’s for future episodes of The Apothecary Diaries to reveal.

The Apothecary Diaries Ep. 49 “Locusts”: The Bad

Unfortunately, despite how good the animation of Ep. 49 “Locusts” is, you can still clearly tell when they cheap out on the animation just a bit. The most notable example is the cooked locusts and grasshoppers. When the camera zooms out a bit, you can see the pile of insects devolve into simple shapes and colors. I will point out though that this is a common animation technique to avoid increasing the workload of the animators by avoiding having to draw complex things on zoomed-out objects. It’s still noticeable though. Understandable, but noticeable.

Oh, and of course, action junkies will likely be disappointed by this episode. There’s no action in this episode in the slightest. Only drama and mystery mixed in with some comedic slice of life bits taking place in an alternate medieval China. If you want action, you will have to look elsewhere.

Anime Recommendations

If you still desire blood, action, violence, or some combination of the above, then you might want to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, Blue Box, Solo Leveling, Black Butler, Nyaight of the Living Cat, May I Ask for One Final Thing?, TRIGUN STARGAZE, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, and / or Kagurabachi for that. However, if you want more story-focused anime like this one, then you might also like Spy x Family, Senpai is an Otokonoko, Apocalypse Hotel, Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, My Dress-Up Darling, This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Hana-Kimi, Journal with Witch, Witch Hat Atelier, and / or Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia.

What did you think about this week’s premiere of The Apothecary Diaries Season 3? Are you pleased by the return of our favorite feline-like autistic detective girl? Tell us your autistic thoughts in the comments section below.

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