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19:50 YES!! Thank you!! Someone FINALLY picks up on this!! Everybody hates Lihua at first because ‘she’s mean’ completely negating the fact she is the perfect storm of hormonal haywire: postpartum, sick from the lead face powder, faced with psychological stress from the political climate of keeping the only son alive, then grieving her son!! She is literally at her LOWEST when we meet her!! Thank you, Montana, for having some compassion!!

Something about Maomao that immediately stood out to me and made me genuinely love her as a protagonist is the fact that she is very capable. She may silently judge everyone, be perpetually unimpressed with the theatrics around her and actually be a massive nerd about poisons and medicine, but she knows exactly when to keep quiet, stay out of trouble and be very good at what she does. The story balances her dorky moments and serious attitude about what she does well, and while it's not exactly rare, with Frieren being a great recent example, having a protagonist that is very capable at what they do right from the start, but not to the point of having no stakes is done great here.

Note about the Harem - The Harem structure in China is very similar to the Harem structure that was common in countries within the Middle East at one point. One woman was considered the true wife of the ruler while he was allowed to take in multiple wives as political pawns and "gifts" given by foreign royal families in order to establish a bloodline connection with the current ruler. However it was up to the ruler which one of his wives he had children with and some of them he never had children with at all. They would be considered his wife in name alone and sometimes that was enough for the families of those wives. But the women that did have children with the ruler would have more privileges than others.

Fun fact; 'Maomao' basically means 'cat in Chinese.

Apothecary Diaries is seinen - seinen stories emphasize realism, complex character development, and intricate plotting. They often feature darker themes like political intrigue, explicit violence, horror, and complex romance. :)

Im so glad you guys are picking up this show.
And VA trivia: Maomao's va voices Lucy from Cyberpunk and Suma from Demon Slayer. Jinshi's va voices Sanemi from Demon Slayer and of course Gojo

Oh yeah and the old lady is voiced by Envys VA

I think the main difference between Frieren and Maomao is that Frieren is more emotionally detached and aloof because of how she experiences time, and Maomao is more of a case of her being jaded and bit cynical because she's a just over all the drama and social norms of the time period.

While it may be Obvious~ NO ONE SHOULD SPOIL THIS!

The Apothecary Diaries is one of the most brain tickling anime series that just feels so good to figure out as you watch. Maomao is one of THE best written protagonists~

I'm excited to watch this again with these reactions~

The babies were not directly given the face powder. But babies will touch everything including faces while nursing and their hands go right into their mouth.
They'd be more likely to continue doing so because the lead compound here, (probably lead acetate) is VERY sweet to taste. (before the industrial production of sugar in the New World, sugar was expensive and imported, and unscrupulous distributors would "punch up" inferior sugars with lead to make them sweet.
(Romans used lead for wine cups cause it made the wine sweeter and easier to drink, even when it was poor quality)    
So the babies would be inclined to lick their fingers after touching the made up faces.

Something you should remember going forward in this anime is that a lot of the hair colours are mostly creative stylizations, so in story MaoMao doesn't have green hair it's black and Jinshi doesn't have purple hair it's again black but there are some exceptions like Lady Gyokuyou who actually does have lighter hair due to her having foreign ancestory!

A note about the eunuchs. In Europe you usually only removed the nuts. While in Asia you usually removed both nuts and veggie. Either way you got people with rather poor muscle mass, prone to overweight and rather feminine features. FYI.

Gotta love how they started this reaction and were introduced to Jinshi RIGHT after the only season of JJK without Gojo. I find that funny. 😅

21:29 That's probally because it's not a shounen, it's instead considered a seinen so it's intended audiance is slightly older than a shounen would be, more of a young adult demographic than an adolecent one

Maomao is 17 when this starts. She is considered an adult for the setting. Jinshi is  claimed as 24 yrs

There is not trivial details in those show. They may not apply to the case in the episode but means something later.
Also the author uses symbolism in flowers and colors to make a more enriching experience.

Each major woman character is a flower and every flower has meaning. Colors have symbolism too.

For example, maomao is named after the medicinal cats foot flower and wears green and has green hair, a symbol of a healer.

Jinshi has purple. A symbol of nobility and mystery.

Every head concubine is symbolic in colors and a specific flower.

The thing about Maomao is that she's very practical. She knows what is and isn't feasible, and how much she can realistically do without risking herself or others more than necessary.

So when she's kidnapped, its not feasible for her to do anything about it. She can't overpower three grown adult men, she's not high enough status that anyone would care about her opinion. So all she can do is get a tiny bit of revenge by purposefully withholding her skills to prevent her kidnappers from profiting any more than they already have, and work out her term so she can go back home.

Does it suck? Absolutely. But obsessing over how much it sucks doesn't accomplish anything, and trying too hard to leave early, either by escape or by convincing someone to do something about her kidnapping could very easily result in her head taking a very short journey to the ground.

But she's also a decent person and willing to take calculated risks when warranted. Yes, interjecting herself into affairs of the Emperor's consorts is a very poor decision, but she can't ignore babies being poisoned, so she'll leave a note warning them without directly risking herself.

I feel like the difference between her and frieren is frieren is apathetic but still seeks her own adventure, while maomao is very pragmatic rather than apathetic and is trying to avoid adventure. Plus to your point the lifespan difference giving that quality different contexts.

Maomao is an old soul. When you see how her father behaves, it makes way more sense, if that was her upbringing — why she’s so calm, so analytical, and why it’s nearly impossible to make her lose her cool over anything that happens to her personally. She almost never breaks composure for her own sake. But when it comes to someone else’s well-being? That’s where she cna lack control over her emotions— and you see just how expressive and sensitive she can be.

I am absolutely sure that Montana is going to love Apothecary diaries.