English Dub Review: The Apothecary Diaries “Let Them Eat Cake”

Overview:

Maomao treats a sick girl, but food poisoning and malnutrition are not the true problems that need solving.

Our Take(Spoilers):

Now we’re getting somewhere as far as a main plot for the season is concerned. The last couple of episodes have had a post-credits scene of sorts where a mysterious woman has been “helping” poor people by offering them cake. It sounds like a nice thing to do until we got to this episode and we saw what happened to some of the people that ate that cake. One family in particular had a mother die while having a miscarriage and the youngest daughter get sick. Without Maomao to help, the family would have been in a dire situation.

It wasn’t quite explained what was in the cake to cause these issues because we even learned that it caused the miscarriage, more than likely. I don’t know what you can put in something to essentially cause an abortion AND make someone super sick, but I think Maomao will figure it out eventually.

In my review of this week’s episode of Firefly Wedding, I mentioned that I looked into what a courtesan is, and not only was it for that show but this one as well. Maomao helps the two daughters get better and start a new life by becoming courtesans, and I was thinking that convincing children to become prostitutes isn’t a good idea. But while a courtesan is technically a prostitute, there is a lot more to them than that. In this case, they really will have a better life by doing this, especially in this house because Maomao of all people would know how well the girls are treated there.

I’m looking forward to learning more about this mysterious woman who’s feeding people poisoned cake. It seems a little bit more interesting to me than the story about the incoming plague, but I’m going to get real for a second here. This show somehow manages to make the most boring things in the world interesting. There haven’t been too many parts of this show that I haven’t enjoyed, so whether we focus on one or the other, or if somehow they’re both connected, I imagine I will be thoroughly entertained.

I hope the characters we were introduced to in this episode weren’t one-offs. But either way, I’m looking forward to where we go from here. I’m happy that this show has gotten as good a reception as it has because it’s one of the best anime airing right now.