Kusuriya no Hitorigoto / The Apothecary Diaries is a smartly constructed, charming mystery series taken to a new level by an outstanding adaptation. Led by an extremely methodical director, this is how its team built a system for holistic greatness.

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We’ve previously introduced Kusuriya no Hitorigoto through its production circumstances, explaining the dynamics behind the scenes that explain the thoroughly solid foundation of its anime adaptation and how that same system enabled a once-in-many-years miracle of an episode; one that was understandably featured all over our animation awards, getting shout-outs by industry members and fans of animation alike. With the first season now finished and a sequel already looming in the background, it’s time to take a further step back to appreciate the greatness of the series as a whole. And to do so, there’s no better question to ask than What is Kusuriya?

To be more precise, it’s worth asking exactly what the Kusuriya anime is. Though the multiple iterations of the series may look intimidating to a newcomer, its history is not that dissimilar from many popular titles nowadays. Kusuriya was first published online on the Narou platform, becoming popular enough to be compiled into a novel in 2012. Its current serialization as a light novel began a couple years later, and is now up to 15 volumes; the first two of which, covering the adventures that you may have already seen in the anime. As is also common for beloved series in that space, Kusuriya has been adapted into manga as well—and here is admittedly when the situation gets a bit more unique.

Although there are many titles with concurrent manga serializations, those tend to happen in sprawling works worthy of being branded as a franchise, and that is very much not the case with Kusuriya. The series was first adapted by the duo of Nekokurage and Itsuki Nanao—artist and series composer respectively—for Square Enix’s Monthly BIG GANGAN in 2017, in what became a critical darling and commercial hit of a series in its own right. Just a few months after its launch, however, the series also began being interpreted by Minoji Kurata on Shogakukan’s Sunday GX, offering a more faithful (in its depiction of the events but also in a restraint closer to the prose of the novel) take on the events of Kusuriya.

Now, why would that be relevant to an anime adaptation years down the line? If you read what producer Mitsuteru Hishiyama said for an interview in issue 104 of Spoon 2Di, you’d think this is mere trivia. Hishiyama acknowledged the many forms this series has already taken (including a drama CD as well) and the fandoms with unique expectations building around each of them, but defended the team’s position to commit to the vision of the original light novel. Mind you, that would be a perfectly fair angle to take; while I’m strongly in favor of adaptations with a worldview of their own, interpreting someone else’s interpretation opens up a space for simple misunderstandings of the original intent, rather than actively challenging it in ways a director may think is needed. Had they done this, I would have found it reasonable. But, to put it plainly, they didn’t.

Back in the early stages of the broadcast, series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Norihiro Naganuma was already openly acknowledging the role of both manga serializations in his own adaptation. One such example is in the November 2023 issue of Animage, for an interview held before the series had even hit TV. Naganuma expressed his desire to draw not just from the novels, but also from both manga versions, while at the same time creating something that could stand on its own as a distinguishable interpretation of this story. He aimed to create a TV show that would satisfy viewers, but also spur their curiosity; leaving them with just enough hunger to wonder how those events would play out on different canvases, with their own methods of storytelling. That conception that each medium has more inherently fitting techniques is, as we’ll see later, something that is key to understanding Naganuma’s approach—and a topic that he approaches with more nuance than most directors who (correctly) think anime ought to use animation properly.

The director went on to highlight the aspects that he thought made each version of the manga stand out. Of Kurata’s Maomao’s Notebook, he said that it felt like a good complement to the source material due to how well it distilled the narrative into something easy to parse. While I don’t think its influence on the anime ends up being all that tangible, I would say similar things about how aptly the TV show turns a rather dense series like Kusuriya into an entertaining puzzle that right about anyone can put together. Compared to the massive influence that Nekokurage and Nanao’s manga had on the anime, though, the more philosophical effect that its sibling comic may have had ends up appearing quaint.

In a way, calling it influence is already underselling it. By all intents and purposes, Kusuriya often feels like an adaptation of its most popular manga series; dozens of sequences in every episode use the same angles, shot compositions, Maomao’s postures, specific expressions, extra embellishments, narrative framing altogether, and imagery that was not visibly present in the source material, both for gags and serious moments. Besides the countless visual cues, the anime also draws from what Naganuma calls the manga’s vivid character writing, which also influences the tone of the entire work. In a way, Nekokurage’s art and delivery have codified the texture that people associate with this series, and the anime has gladly embraced that… to a point.

In the same way that we can highlight the many similarities between both versions, relatively minor shifts in the presentation have led to a fundamentally different atmosphere and gravitas hanging over certain scenes; given the manga’s tongue-in-cheek nature, that tends to happen in moments where it perhaps goes over the line with that irreverent attitude, while the anime forces you to ponder what superficial banter might actually mean for the characters.

And that is precisely the first pillar sustaining Kusuriya as an excellent adaptation. It goes without saying that being entrusted with a well-constructed, charming mystery series is already a positive starting point, but it’s one not too dissimilar from projects that have fallen apart. Few of those, however, were supplemented with preexisting alternative interpretations to enrich the anime’s worldview—and even fewer were led by directors who have that type of thorough vision and are willing to put their foot down when necessary.

As not only the director but also the series composer, Naganuma has made a point to include moments the manga skipped over, write valuable connective tissue that wasn’t in the source material in the first place, boldly shift the tone when he finds events particularly significant, and reframe many events to underline the themes he found most important. While everyone familiar with this story will feel like it’s essentially following the same beats as whichever version they experienced first, this project is a textbook example of quietly transformative adaptation.

What are those themes that Naganuma decided to build around, then? On the surface, Kusuriya is the story of poison-loving scoundrel Maomao. She finds her way into a Chinese-inspired imperial harem by accident, doing odd jobs and solving mysteries with hyperspecific yet worldly knowledge that isn’t common in such a secluded setting. In the midst of that, she gradually—and often reluctantly—grows closer to the mysterious Jinshi, a supposed eunuch with dashing looks and a cryptic position within the emperor’s garden. The storytelling is brilliant from a mechanical perspective, as every single episodic mystery becomes a clue that helps both the protagonist and the viewer to solve the overarching mysteries of that season-long arc.

You may think that something this well-connected didn’t need reinforcing… and you might be right when it comes to needing, but the show definitely benefited from Naganuma isolating the most important recurring ideas and making sure they resonate throughout the series. First and foremost, he focused on parental love; something he noticed that both Maomao and Jinshi hadn’t been granted in regular fashion, but that is so natural and inevitable that it always manifests in some way or another in our lives. Alongside that, he also made sure to underline the universal theme of life and death, specifically the tenuous line between them for a low-born individual like Maomao. Even before the show shows its hand about the experiences that have molded the protagonist’s beliefs, Naganuma’s delivery emphasizes how strongly rooted those beliefs had become, and the almost physical walls they have built between her and people who’ve led less turbulent lives.

For a series that is as preoccupied with holistic integrity as Kusuriya, the ways those messages are conveyed are just as important as the content itself. Mind you, Naganuma is a director who is perfectly content to keep his tricks hidden from the audience, as subconsciously affecting them is his ideal view of the job. But don’t get it wrong: those tricks exist in spades, to the point of having baffled the team around him with his ridiculous thoroughness. In a series of interviews for Febri held prior to the broadcast, the director called his approach one of total balance; a holistic vision where narrative, character writing, color, sound, and every other aspect of animation is valued all the same. To achieve that, especially in a series with as many ingredients as Kusuriya, he prefers to handle the series compositionSeries Composition (シリーズ構成, Series Kousei): A key role given to the main writer of the series. They meet with the director (who technically still outranks them) and sometimes producers during preproduction to draft the concept of the series, come up with major events and decide to how pace it all. Not to be confused with individual scriptwriters (脚本, Kyakuhon) who generally have very little room for expression and only develop existing drafts – though of course, series composers do write scripts themselves. himself. In this case, and given that while watching anime you’re less likely to backtrack to check a previous detail than when reading, Naganuma said he paid particular attention to how the mysteries are built—which often translated into peppering the cases with extra visual clues.

On top of personally heading the writing efforts and being a very active storyboarder across the show, participating in 11/24 episodes on that front, Naganuma showed that he does indeed value every aspect of animation through his involved presence in every department’s role. Of course, that doesn’t mean he personally handled all the work himself; sometimes, that investment is shown through very precise delegation.

In the second part of that Febri interview, Naganuma talks about his unusual choice to rely on 3 different music composers for his work, arguing that they all bring something unique to the table (the inherently exotic sounds of Kevin Penkin, the freshness of Alisa Okehazama, and the dramatic quality of Satoru Kosaki) and thus are required to paint the full picture of Kusuriya’s worldview. Speaking to Animage in March, sound director Shoji Hata corroborated Naganuma’s words, including his claims that Kusuriya used an outrageously high number of SFX. His share of anecdotes only further reinforced that view of the director as an extremely thorough individual. Hata explained that Naganuma first envisioned one particular flower as the theme of each episode, drawing from Maomao’s relationship with plants as an apothecary to have a fresh visual motif each time, and connecting those to the themes and story beats through floriography. Not content with that, however, Naganuma also requested to have that effort extend into the soundtrack as well, so most episodes ended up having a song themed after that one thematic flower. Total balance indeed.

For as much as the director values that holistic approach, though, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t elements he finds particularly important when adapting a work into anime—ones that weren’t present in previous forms, as they allow you to present its charms from new angles. One of those is of course the audio, which as we’ve already seen was something he was particular about. When it comes to the visual presentation, those were the depiction of time and space, something he also closely controlled by storyboarding a massive chunk of the show, as well as color.

While Naganuma understands the power of involved character animation, he appears to be very conscious of the limitations of the current industry and the teams that are likely to gather around him. The competition to gather high-profile animators is fiercer than ever, and the industry is full of tragically unprepared youngsters who never received the training you’d require to properly depict a character drama set within spacious imperial courts. With that in mind, he shifted the character expression to other avenues he could fine-tune himself like the framing and choices of colors, while relying on the specific qualities of his team.

The aforementioned designer Nakatani was chosen through an audition, but you’d think she was born for the job by how easily she captured Maomao’s quirky charm. As a chief animation directorChief Animation Director (総作画監督, Sou Sakuga Kantoku): Often an overall credit that tends to be in the hands of the character designer, though as of late messy projects with multiple Chief ADs have increased in number; moreso than the regular animation directors, their job is to ensure the characters look like they're supposed to. Consistency is their goal, which they will enforce as much as they want (and can). on every single episode, she kept a solid baseline of expressive quality to the whole show, protecting the precepts that Naganuma had entrusted her with; like, for example, the higher linecount than she’d initially envisioned when auditioning, as the director explained that a series like this would end up having quite a lot of close-ups and thus pack more of a punch with higher illustrative power. Of course, it helps that by her side she had colleagues who also happen to be exceptional character artists; most notoriously, living legend Atsuko Nakajima, who acted as chief supervisor in 17 episodes as well.

Had the nature of the project been completely different, Naganuma might have tried to embrace traditional character acting to a larger degree. After all, he was delighted about the already iconic fourth episode led by China and Moaang, which humanized the cast from a completely different angle. In his constant praise of their work, the director has called their take on Kusuriya something in between a prestige drama and a high-profile documentary, which are forms the series could have taken in an ideal world. As things stand, however, Naganuma is aware of the unsurmountable costs of such an approach. Demonstrating a keener understanding than other directors, he said that the episode landed so well precisely because it was made by a small team being granted enough time to thoroughly flesh out their ideas, also noting that the production as a whole was only able to slot it in because it happened in the early stages. While Kusuriya’s planning has been better than the norm, an episode like that was a beautifully abnormality that the director himself can only admire. To nail the show’s delivery in the regular, there was a different type of ingenuity that his team needed.

As previously mentioned, color was one of their most reliable weapons in that regard. In this regard, the director’s thoughtfulness becomes more apparent the more you hear him talk about the way those palettes were assembled—something he has extensively commented on across all the previous interviews, and even in those on the show’s official website. Naganuma does indeed believe that there are some tools that, by being available in some mediums but not others, should be given preferential treatment when possible. He also understands that those interact with near-universal concepts like the feelings specific colors evoke, hence why anime’s forms of expression are strongly codified. And it’s the uncritical reliance on those that he wants to avoid.

One specific example he has repeatedly brought up is the usage of red, a color that is all over the show in many forms. There are immediate mental associations with danger and death itself, and more specifically to the setting of the show, it’s a color of glamour, of extravagance and embellishments, one you’d see in many forms in a fancy imperial harem and obviously, on a red light district. Each of those deserve a specific hue, as do the more literal elements that are also painted red.

While a regular show might have one or two evening sky tones with those reddish colors, Naganuma explained that he asked the team to prepare 5 base variations of any time period like that to have much higher specificity, and that then the number would be doubled so that each of them also could have variations depending on the prevailing mood. Speaking to Animage in January 2024, art directorArt Director (美術監督, bijutsu kantoku): The person in charge of the background art for the series. They draw many artboards that once approved by the series director serve as reference for the backgrounds throughout the series. Coordination within the art department is a must – setting and color designers must work together to craft a coherent world. Katsumi Takao went further than that and explained that when accounting for the extra variations to give the setting more diversity, they ended up painting about 15 variations for each setting. They may be one singular place, one color with a predominant meaning attached to it, but the director wanted the team to aim for this extraordinary level of granularity.

In that same interview, Takao said that Naganuma emphasizes color more than any director he had ever worked with; and, considering that he has been in the anime industry since the 80s working alongside figures like Giraburou Sugii and Yoshiyuki Momose, that’s quite the statement. He never compromised until they landed on exactly the color he envisioned, in a design process that involved a back and forth between them and color designerColor Designer (色彩設定/色彩設計, Shikisai Settei/Shikisai Sekkei): The person establishing the show's overall palette. Episodes have their own color coordinator (色指定, Iroshitei) in charge of supervising and supplying painters with the model sheets that particular outing requires, which they might even make themselves if they're tones that weren't already defined by the color designer. Misato Aida—who is not as much of a veteran, and yet piled up invaluable experience in theatrical projects and especially in alongside studio Ghibli.

With the advent of more involved postprocessing, anime production is growing increasingly fonder of color scripts: a less thorough storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime's visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. that focuses more on the feeling of important scenes and how that should be determined by the colors. By taking this thorough approach when it comes to the color to begin with (Takao estimates that he paints 20-30 artboards per episode, as opposed to the ~10 that he would be tasked with in a normal anime), they effectively removed that need. Even for the preanimated teaser PV, he was entrusted with painting Naganuma’s storyboards directly, so that every shot’s mood was precisely defined from the start.

Even if you’ve already seen the show, I would still encourage everyone to rewatch it while keeping in mind all the thought that went into putting it together; for starters, because it’s a great series with lots of rewatch value, but also because it illuminates the excellence of the adaptation in ways that might not be clear the first time through. Despite having read Kusuriya in multiple forms, it took me those extra steps to fully grasp this show’s qualities, as well as properly understand how some highlights that seemed to come out of nowhere are the natural outcome of the methodical process we’ve been detailing.

Right off the bat, much of the original material added to the anime can be directly linked to the priorities the team had expressed. Though what stands out the most is the lengthy introduction to Maomao’s life before she was kidnapped—a way to flesh out the setting and to contrast the red-light district to the inner palace—it’s the constant allusions to motherhood and family that reinforce the first episode’s connection to the core theme of the series for Naganuma. Maomao’s first adventure in imperial premises was to solve the tragic passing of two children, but rather than stumbling into that, the anime offers new glimpses into the mothers’ routines, their mistakes, and sadly, one’s grief. Many of the mysteries that Maomao continues to face have that aspect of family and parental love, for the good and for the bad, so the director’s decision to emphasize it so strongly results in a very cohesive series.

Naganuma wasn’t lying either when it comes to his claim that he picked up the series compositionSeries Composition (シリーズ構成, Series Kousei): A key role given to the main writer of the series. They meet with the director (who technically still outranks them) and sometimes producers during preproduction to draft the concept of the series, come up with major events and decide to how pace it all. Not to be confused with individual scriptwriters (脚本, Kyakuhon) who generally have very little room for expression and only develop existing drafts – though of course, series composers do write scripts themselves. duties to adjust the mystery-solving so that it fits a TV series. To be more precise, that means that the anime will often guide your gaze towards visual clues in ways no preceding version of Kusuriya did before; nothing all too overbearing, but enough to push you in the right direction, since as previously mentioned Naganuma feels that you’re less likely to backtrack when watching something on TV than when reading a book or comic.

Speaking of the mystery, the first arc spanning 12 episodes—one novel in the source material—is also enough to understand Kusuriya’s favorite structure, which gives the series just as much internal coherence as Naganuma’s thematic tightness. Kusuriya is very fond of presenting its protagonist with episodic riddles, all of which will contain clues that will eventually help her solve the overarching mysteries of that arc; and again, doing so in a way that allows the viewer to do the same. A case involving a consort dancing atop the walls signals that it’s possible to climb up there, yet quite dangerous. By solving a failed poisoning attempt during a garden party, another consort’s precarious standing is revealed, while also raising awareness of deathly food allergies. A later case underlines that it’s possible to accidentally poison someone, while another one explains that honey can become a toxic substance depending on the flowers that the bees have pollinated. Such seemingly disconnected pieces gradually come together, forming a tragic puzzle right in front of the viewer’s face in a very satisfying way.

A show this tightly packed with meaning may sound like a stressful experience, but the team made sure to equip it with enough escape valves. The most abundant one is the gag animation, often involving Maomao living up to her kanji and morphing into a cat for levity. For as much as I enjoy her comical hijinks, though, the most interesting means of breathing for the series are the recurring lengthy sequences with little to no dialogue. In his Febri interview, Naganuma reacted particularly strongly about the notion that Kusuriya leaves a strong aftertaste, that it resonates, and there’s no better example than those moments that allow you to soak in the atmosphere.

The willingness to let special instants simmer can be felt as early as the third episode, where the beautiful scheme to have a couple reunited is accompanied by a lengthy montage that makes Maomao ponder the power of love. Episode #14 boldly opens with a silent, solemn sequence introducing a new consort; a stunning moment dedicated to an arc that won’t even be approached within this season. From episode #19 ending on a silent, very charged 2 minutes walk to the finale’s very meaningful, equally lengthy dancing sequence, Kusuriya remains willing to remove all dialogue and force the viewer to absorb these unique moments.

A particularly interesting detail about these special scenes is their relationship with the series director’s mindset. Though painting it as a binary is a gross oversimplification, it’s true that there are logical directors who build stories in a methodic fashion and appeal to the viewers’ rationale, while others are more instinctive and can spontaneously manipulate your feelings. As a viewer, Naganuma has always struck me as the former, and producer Hishiyama calling him a fundamentally logical person confirms that this is how those surrounding him feel similarly. Mind you, there is nothing inherently wrong with his approach, but I believe that it made him less compatible with some past works of his; MahoYome in particular would have been a more natural fit for the type of director with those natural, intangible sensibilities to match the whimsical setting.

As a more logically constructed series, Kusuriya was always the type of material that Naganuma could excel at, but it’s actually its more evocative moments that became the sweetest surprise. Did he change his directorial philosophy, then? Of course not, he simply committed to it more than ever. To put together those moments with a magical aura to them, Naganuma decided to formulate a logical, almost mathematical algorithm that remains obscured to the viewer. In that third episode’s emotional climax, for example, he’d regulate very micro-level choices like the light leaking into their carriage matching the color of their memories.

Even in China’s fourth episode, the furthest the show ever gets from Naganuma’s norm, his logically formulated details are all over meaningful scenes; only the Maomao-colored light illuminates the room when she’s taking care of a consort who has lost the will to live, but when the latter regains her strength and will, her blue source of light mixes with Maomao’s as she reciprocates her care. The entire show is packed with similarly meaningful choices of framing and color to denote emotional distance mismatches—ambushing the viewer with vivid reds when Jinshi notices he wasn’t as close with Maomao as he’d thought—and underlining specific feelings. To another type of director, these may come more naturally, but Naganuma is the type of creator who requires thoroughly solid internal logic even if that is not visible to the viewer.

By mixing and matching those moments of peacefulness—or calm angst—with the more hectic mystery-solving and character-focused hijinks, the second cours of Kusuriya builds an overarching story out of episodic clues in a similar fashion to the first one. If anything, by covering an arc with an actual conspiracy brewing in the background, the process of building a mystery out of self-contained riddles is even more satisfying. By figuring out a warehouse explosion and the poisoning of a bureaucrat, as well as retroactively connecting those cases to a victim in the first arc, Maomao notices a specific group of people is being targeted. Solving an inheritance puzzle is yet another case of parental love being at the core of Kusuriya, as the late father’s main wish was to reconcile his sons, and it also gives Maomao a vital clue about the villain’s vector of attack. While the identity of the culprit is hardly a mystery, puzzling together their machinations is an entertaining exercise that is very much possible for a first-time viewer as well.

In a broader sense, the mystery of this second arc is one of identity. Albeit with different levels of motivation, both Maomao and Jinshi gradually learn about the real standing of the other, while also trying to figure out the identity of that schemer. New characters whose situation you have to piece together are introduced; and for half of them, the answer won’t even come within this season. By detaching the camera from Maomao more than he did in the first arc as it follows this increasingly larger cast, Naganuma calls this arc more objective, versus the subjective picture painted by her point of view in the first one.

Although I agree with his assessment, I think that’s a conclusion that you can only reach retroactively, rather than a moment-to-moment truth. On the contrary, this part of the story toys even more with misleading, deliberately biased storytelling, which opens up room for very compelling directorial choices. Without getting into specifics too much for those who don’t want major spoilers, the framing of Maomao’s biological family is brimming with misdirection in a way that will repeatedly make you reassess where the blame should be directed and the magnitude of their sins; though in the end, as it happens with most great character dramas, things are hardly black and white. Genuine horror presentation is used to sway your perception one way or the other, and it’s not until the end of the arc that you can ask yourself where you truly stand when it comes to these characters.

As the show approaches these final stages, the last distinctive quality of this adaptation becomes more apparent. Though Kusuriya’s scheduling was respectable enough by current anime standards, the production was by no means impervious to regular fatigue. Save for exceptional circumstances—like projects made at a studio that suddenly has a different production line becoming free and being willing to help—the second half of a show of this length will inevitably feel the exhaustion of the team and shortening of the deadlines. If you were to measure Kusuriya’s quality as objectively as possible, you’d likely conclude that its second cours is indeed a bit more modest when it comes to the presentation, especially without an episode as magical as #04. The still fairly high floor of the production prevents the natural weariness from getting in the way of the viewer’s experience, but it’s the highlights that end up making this such a unique series in the current paradigm of anime.

A recurring topic in this site is the idea that sakugaSakuga (作画): Technically drawing pictures but more specifically animation. Western fans have long since appropriated the word to refer to instances of particularly good animation, in the same way that a subset of Japanese fans do. Pretty integral to our sites' brand. culture owes its existence to the historical freedom that individual key animators have had to go wild, even as the hierarchy still places many roles above theirs. In a current environment that promotes more disjointed productions, with increasingly more precarious schedules too, and influenced by producers chasing viral highlights, this reality has only become more polarized; if anything, the fact that the animation process itself is more fragmented simply denies the personal satisfaction for many of the artists behind these uneven spectacles.

All of this translates into modern anime tending to have lower lows to accompany the flashier—not necessarily better—bursts of animation dedicated to its highs. To find more consistent excellence, you have to go to the exact opposite end of the spectrum; meaning that you’re limited to exceedingly rare blessed projects. Those that have thoroughly excellent episodes, where not only the animation but all directorial aspects are especially on-point, can already consider themselves lucky. To have a show that is consistently at that level for its entire run is nothing short of a miracle. Kusuriya can’t compete with those outliers, but in a way, its ability to raise the bar for its delivery seemingly at will feels just as unique.

Rather than isolated bursts of technically complex animation—which amusingly did occur in its most uneven episode—the highlights of the show come in forms that correspond to Naganuma’s total balance philosophy. Whenever a moment that the team has deemed particularly important comes, the usually solid direction will skyrocket to fantastically gripping levels, the character art will convey feelings more sharply than ever, and the color work that the series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. values so highly will become even more evocative. These sudden yet very deliberately deployed moments of excellence continue arriving often and with an effortless aura to it, even as the show rears its end. While putting them together was obviously no easy task, that feeling of naturality makes a lot more sense when you consider how this project built a system to enable that holistic greatness.

Out of all these brilliant moments, the one I find most significant is the wonderful first half of episode #18, especially a couple of scenes that relate to Maomao’s past and that of her family’s. Within just a few minutes of right about the best content you can find on television, they embody every positive trait inherent to Kusuriya and to this Naganuma-led effort. For starters, they’re fascinating snippets that help you understand how the perception of the protagonist and of a certain courtesan’s was warped. On a visual level, the first highlight scene quickly demands your attention—how come that Maomao, walking across the appropriately lit red light district has her poker face dyed green? The answer arrives immediately: even as she was trying to pretend that she was alright, the preceding conversation had brought up a recurring nightmare that changed her life, which we’d already seen painted in that color before.

The inspired palette continues with the sad blues of a courtesan’s past, accentuated with reds charged with meaning; of danger, of gaudy embellishments, of the red light district, and thus also of an illness like syphilis that is linked to such an environment. The shot of a tree with red leaves sprawling in front of her directly evokes an illness that has grown out of control, and even returning to the present, the shadows of that incident still loom over Maomao. Such stunning delivery would be an accomplishment for a veteran director, and seems like a glitch in the matrix when you realize that it comes from a complete newbie. Mayu Tanimoto of studio OLM had been the show’s settei manager up till this point, and this marked her very first attempt at storyboarding and directing. Is there a trick to this, then?

Saying yes would make it sound underhanded, but again, it feels like a natural result of the production system led by Naganuma. The choice to include some of the imagery Nekokurage introduced with their manga—borrowing the depiction of Maomao’s nightmarish memories—pays off yet again, but even when envisioning all-new forms of expression, Tanimoto had much to draw from. That color-centric direction is made all the more effective with the accumulated work of preceding directors, enrichened by previous motifs. Given that her initial role was managing the many design assets Naganuma had ordered, she was deeply acquainted with the preexisting, physical tools at her disposal; it’s no surprise that she knew which elements to reuse and exactly where to rely on entirely new tones, as it’d been her job to keep up with those. It goes without saying that benefiting from such an environment doesn’t make her accomplishments any lesser, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore how directors like her got to shine this bright because of it—that would be doing a disservice to Kusuriya itself.

Just like the first season of the show ended strongly, this final conclusion lets us look at the future of the series with as much optimism as you can realistically conjure in this industry. An obvious upside of building an actual system of production, with focused vision and priorities, is that it tends to be more resistant to external factors.

Even if Kusuriya S2 isn’t quite as fortunate when it comes to exceptional surprises like the fourth episode, this has become a core team I can trust to run smoothly and very effectively. It’s worth noting that they won’t have Nekokurage’s manga depiction to cover another ~24 episodes season—that serialization is currently in the middle of the fourth arc that’d conclude a similarly-paced series—so they’ll have slightly fewer guardrails. At the same time, though, Naganuma’s Spoon 2Di #104 feature admitted that working for the first time with this team was a bit of a struggle, especially in the early stages as the team wasn’t used to his method yet, so all the familiarity they’ve built up since then ought to make up for that. At this point, I might trust their recipes better than Maomao’s, so keep this show coming!

Rena Igawa, who had animated Kusuriya‘s very first shot by handling the beautiful start to its opening, returned for the entire show’s climax by animating the entirety of Maomao’s dance in the finale. Even on this level, Kusuriya ended up being a perfectly structured series.

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