Kusuriya no Hitorigoto

Along with Frieren, Kusuriya was probably one of the most talked about shows of the past season(s). It's a chinese court drama type of story (although not entirely serious or heavy), with a pretty unique main character. The female mc stands out because she's smart, cunning and emotionally intelligent without being overly interested in romance - despite the anime clearly having a shojo feel to it. When it comes to media that is mostly aimed at women instead of all audiences, it's kind of hard to find female main characters like that. I guess this is also a general thing - when it comes to media that is heavily one gender oriented the mc usually feels like too much of a self insert, but I digress since the manga adaptation is coming out in a seinen magazine so this rule doesn't apply anyway.

I'll keep this review completely spoiler free due to the freshness at the time of me writing this. I think as an episodic court mystery story Kusuriya functioned really well. The main cast and their dynamic is likeable, and the mystery surrounding the highest of the officials and some of the main characters has still not been revealed in the first season. The pace of the show was good, but I have to admit I lost the plot nearing the last few episodes because.. I have no idea, I think I was half absent during one of the crucial episodes after Lakan appeared and then the end of the season didn't hit me as hard. Or actually, I was paying attention but I took a 3 week break from watching the show because I was busy or something. That's my personal issue with seasonal anime, sometimes I just lose the plot because I delay watching it for a bit and by the time I realize I'm not fully aware of what's going on I'm already 2 episodes past that point and too lazy to come back to it. I didn't have this issue with Frieren, because it's way less dialogue heavy and therefore more suited for a weekly watch. This was completely on me though, not the shows problem at all lmao.

There's two weird... complaints I have with this anime. Why do all of the prostitutes (aside from one plot related one) have absolutely comically huge breasts? Having humongous breasts is not a requirement to be a prostitute, as I'm sure we all know. It just took me out of the show completely, especially considering the fact that this anime really handles talking about prostitution and various horrible things that come with it with absolute grace.

My second complaint is the freckles. Ahh the freckles, why do they have to be fake! Why are we so afraid of putting "ugly" (for the time period) features on our main characters! I guess Maomao being smart enough to make herself look unappealable does show us just how far she thinks things through to stay unnoticeable, but still, she shows her intelligence in so many ways. Whatever, this is a really minor complaint about an otherwise really great main character.

I liked the silly little chibi comedy parts, it feels like that's something you don't come across as often nowadays. This anime is pretty lighthearted overall, and therefore loveable and easy to watch. As far as Fall 2023 goes, it's not my favourite because I enjoyed Migi to Dali, Pluto and Under Ninja more but among the most hyped things I think it was the best one.