Though people often call it a perfect light-novel adaptation to be ever made, The Apothecary Diaries anime still makes one significant blunder time and time again. It’s not because the studio could have done better, but because they are already trying their best to faithfully adapt the source material.
Yes, you read that right. Their faithfulness is exactly what gives birth to a narrative inconsistency. This is one of the many challenges that a series or even a manga faces when adapting a really well-written light novel like The Apothecary Diaries.
Because it can get quite hard sometimes to perfectly differentiate the contrasting human behavior between mumbling and actually thinking silently! And Maomao does that all too often.
What The Apothecary Diaries light novel does so great about Maomao’s character
A part of the reason why The Apothecary Diaries anime has gotten so widely popular is Maomao’s whole character writing itself. She is nowhere near like your typical anime protagonist, and it’s extremely rare to come across such a versatile character in the media in general.
Even the light novel has become one of the best-selling ever, thanks to the entire character dynamic between her and Jinshi. But the problem with the anime adaptation in particular is that it often forgets to portray Maomao as ambiguously as the light novel. So, they often miss out on something profound about her character that the light novel nailed.
It’s very easy to overlook as a light novel reader, but thanks to one fellow Apothecary Diaries enthusiast on Reddit, we noticed how Maomao often tries to think something silently within her mind, but ends up mumbling instead!
Related“I hope they don’t mean an open ending”: I Would Be Devastated if ‘The Apothecary Diaries’ Author Ends the Story Without Maomao and Jinshi Getting Together
The light novel uses a clever tactic to present such scenarios by italicizing her thoughts separately. So, you might think she is successfully hiding her emotions, but no! Later, we find out she was actually mumbling instead, without even realizing it, and whenever we see Jinshi recalls those moments, it gets clear. (Refer to this post for a better understanding: The unreliability of Maomao’s thoughts)
This results in a fresh character dynamic between her and Jinshi, and as readers, it’s always fun to look at these subtle details.
The light novel would always be better than the anime because of its narrative superiority
The anime, on the other hand, took on this approach where they just say Maomao’s thoughts from the light novel out loud. So, it ends up becoming less surprising and often overshadows Maomao’s character as someone naive, who cannot keep her thoughts contained.
Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries [Credits: OLM, TOHO animation STUDIO]
For some reason, they might think they’re maintaining their faithfulness towards the source material, but actually, this just makes her character comparatively less compelling. They are being too direct with the adaptation, while the light novel was always about how indirectly the characters interact with each other.
Related‘The Apothecary Diaries’ Won’t Have Any Issues Recovering From a Major Loss Before Starting Season 3
Why is the studio doing so, though? Are they not passionate enough about the project as we all thought they were? Apparently, it’s not as simple as that. We need to understand that such na arrative approach would always be hard to structure properly in an anime format. It only works in writing, and that’s why the light novel would always have an edge over the anime.
So, The Apothecary Diaries may not be as perfect as the light novel, but it’s still a banger show. In fact, there are a lot more things to look forward to in the anime now, and fans should just stay hyped about it.
The Apothecary Diaries is currently available to watch on Crunchyroll.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
