@@arifarrafi3302if you think it's unnecessary you're stupid af. It's literally SUPER important. It's to really show the concubine how dumb she is and how ignorant she was with her decision to keep giving lihua the powder. But stay dumb I guess
@@arifarrafi3302 I mean, she needed to tip the powder on her to get her point across and she wanted to ensure that the lady-in-waiting didn't have time to flee from Maomao
@@arifarrafi3302How is that forced? She was frustrated that the lady in waiting couldn’t understand the powder was poisonous. That powder was eating away at her master, and yet she refused to comply. That ignorance alone is enough to infuriate anyone with a sense of justice.
Agreed. She doesn't unrealistically overcome every challenge in her life (I mean...she IS still just a servant) but she lives by her own code of ethics, regardless of the situation. Striving and overcoming challenges regardless of the hand dealt to her is what makes her a heroine.
@@patricktorres1292 Frieren is my close second, but unlike maomao, frieren undergoes character development, maomao is a fully fleshed out character she knows who she is.
if you love maomao.. try watching kaichou wa maid sama.. its an old anime, not that old tho.. the female character is strong and smart you'll love it..
This episode catapulted MaoMao to my favorite protagonist of the year (Frieren is a close second). I love everything about her character, extremely clever, wise, kind and hilarious. That's how main characters should be.
Maomao is great in this episode, but I also love how this is the episode where the story revises our perspective on Lihua as well. In the first few episodes I would say they made it SEEM like the concubine dynamic would be that Gyokuyo is the nice one and Lihua is the 'mean' one, but in this episode as Lihua recovers you see that she is also really nice. I also like that you can visibly see Maomao calm down when the servant girl starts to cry. She's still upset, but you can see the point where she realized that the servant acted out of ignorance, not malice.
"Ignorance truly is a sin" :( It also fits in well with the theme of the show being about poisons and toxins. Not only does lead makeup lead to sickness, but it can also lead to other symptoms of heavy metal poisoning as well. Like altered personality and increased aggression.
@@ashleypenn7845 True... while acting with malicious intent is really bad, ignorance can be just as bad; as acting with malicious intent means that you know the risks involved and that you're very capable at your job ordinarily, whereas in the case of ignorance; it is a sign of sheer incompetence which can lead to many more deaths that could have been avoided easily Someone with malicious intent might kill one or two people with purpose... whereas someone who is ignorant might end the lives of dozens of individuals simply because they didn't know the risks involved
I don’t know how many times I’ve rewound and rewatched that slap both in the episode and in various reactions. I loved Maomao from the first episode but this episode elevated her into best girl territory.
I like to think that the studio intentionally had ep 4 this good because they wanted to subvert the "Rule of 3." Yes the first 3 ep are great, but they're kinda chill, emotional yes, but chill. So you think you know what you're in for by this point, and then we get the slap and everyone is like "OH SHIT!"
Life in the inner palace is hard indeed esp for lower status ones. If something happened and Mao Mao couldn't cure Lihua, like it or not, it will be Mao Mao's fault. Even the eunuch who failed to find the powder got punished. How little higher rank ones think of the lower rank ones. Even smallest mistake can make one got punished, sometimes even when one has no mistake, they could put the blame on her/him. That's why Mao Mao has been extra careful not to get involved much and stay low as much as possible but sometimes her curiosity beats her😂. In this case, the ladies in waiting are ignorant and fool indeed, but even if they're not, it's not easy to trust outsider, esp in this case, Mao Mao is Gyokuyo's lady-in-waiting. Gyokyuyo and Lihua are like rivals for emperor's love. It's not easy to trust a lady-in-waiting from her rival. Even when Mao Mao has emperor's request, she has lower status compare to Lihua's ladies-in-waiting and probably Mao Mao wants to observe how they do it there. Knowing the powder, love it how Mao Mao just lost it. That slap is badass! She cares for people in her own best way. 🫶
The concubines are all political entities representing families. Their personal maids are also usually from their own family or that of allied families so there is a lot of rivalry and politics involved. That's why they were reluctant to let somebody who serves another concubine walk in and start doing whatever she wants, it's not really a case of just playing mean girls for the sake of it. Still, one of the best episodes of the early season and Maomao getting angry for the first time is cool to see, she's mostly been somewhat aloof up to now and not interested in expressing her opinion one way or another. This is something she feels very passionately about because it affected people she was close with in the past.
I started the show recently and I'm at episode 9 I think, but I'm really happy that they choose Aoi Yuki for MaoMao. She is the perfect fit for giving life to a character whose is cute, a little bit weird, bt intimidating and badass at the same time. And then let's be real, MaoMao who has a complex about her size, Aoi Yuki understands this very well since she is pretty short and it has happened that some of her fellow voice actors tickle her about it (in a joking way). For information, she is 1m45, or 4.7ft.
She’s done good work as far back as Madoka Magica, and maybe even before - I watched Kure-nai aaaaages ago and haven’t really revisited it since, but I remember enjoying her performance as Murasaki Kuhouin. But I don’t know if _anything_ in her career tops her performance as Maomao. Granted, there’s a lot of her career I’m not familiar with. Never watched Youjo Senki, Kumo desu ga, Rent-A-Girlfriend, Seven Deadly Sins, Fire Force, SAO, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, etc., and I’m pretty much manga-only on MHA and One-Punch Man. The only other Aoi Yuuki performance I can think of that I _have_ seen is Kayo Hinazuki in Erased. …And looking it up, I did see Oregairu S1, but she was more of a bit part there.
@@IZEASGT Oh I heard her in a lot of anime, Youjo Senki, Kumodesuga and Fire Force being part of it, but mostly, she is the main character in Symphogear, where she sing too (in character of course) and I remember her prestation in Overlord that made my jaw drop for her range. She also play Gena in Undead Unluck and even if she is only in two episode, she give her max and she top MaoMao imo. Also, if you have time, I recomand hearing her songs, she has a beautiful voice, but I might be based since I'm in love with her voice ^^'.
@@spadeas49 Oh yeah, I forgot about Hibiki! I did see the first season of Symphogear, but for some reason I wasn’t that into it, even though a lot of people I know adore it and I did recognize it as possibly the most _anime_ anime I’d ever seen. (Code Geass is close, though.) Maybe I’ll give it another shot someday. Scrolling through her MAL page sorted by favorites, I did also see SSSS.Gridman, where she plays a supporting role. And of course there was her debut in the final episode of the original Kino’s Journey. (Never saw the remake, where she stars.) And I guess that one bit part in Demon Slayer, and another in The Night is Short, Walk On Girl. At that point we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
@@IZEASGT You could give another try to Symphogear, since a new season has been anonced recently ^^. I dont't know if you know an old anime called Saint Seiya or Knight of the zodiac. It's an old shonen (1986) who is all about fighting people stronger than you, biting the dust and surpassing yourself, I mean, they end of fighting greek gods after all. Symphogear has this kind of spirit, this is a magical girls written like a shonen and with songs in it. And also, if I remember correctly, the first season is animated by a different studio than the rest, so maybe you will prefere the second season and what comme next better than the first.
As great as the whole series is, this might be the best-directed episode, and definitely the best of these early ones. All the little details of character animation - Maomao’s scrupulous adherence to protocol as she’s tasting food in front of the emperor (when she’s normally a little more lax when it’s just Gyokuyou), her wave goodbye to Xiaolan, the motion of her fingers as she discovers the powder on Lihua’s face, the way the Crystal Pavilion ladies tower over her but from the _moment_ of the slap the camera frames her as dominant and intimidating, the way you can see her becoming increasingly exhausted as Lihua’s care goes on, the anime-original scene of Lihua stroking her face as she sleeps. All still seasoned with the show’s usual bits of levity (the boing-boing gag is executed great, plus there’s bits like Maomao realizing “oshit, Jinshi saw all that, maybe I overdid it”). Sakuga Twitter _loved_ this episode. And of course the writing. Lihua makes a bad first impression in episode 1, and a lesser story would’ve made her a snobbish villain, but The Apothecary Diaries isn’t interested in doing that. She’s entirely sympathetic as a grieving mother, and like Maomao says, she’s proud and dignified, but not haughty. She’s not the villain, it’s the culture that pushes women to place beauty over life. And at the same time, the narrative has the utmost respect for “feminine” concerns - that scene of Lihua unloading her fears about whether she can bear another child, appeal to the emperor’s tastes, or compete with Gyokuyou’s beauty is great even before we get to the paizuri punchline. And that punchline is also nice on more than just the humor level - one of the first things we learn about the rear palace is how important looks are for one’s prospects, and Maomao’s low on that totem pole, partly because she’s flat as a board. And Lihua’s near the top of the power structure, with her awesome rack to contrast… but again, that doesn’t make her an enemy. Instead, Maomao gladly passes on what she’s learned that she can’t make use of herself. To me, it fits with how Maomao’s appeal to Jinshi may be linked to how she’s one of the only girls who doesn’t go all KYAAA over him, but the story never really thinks less of the girls who do - Xiaolan or the Jade Pavilion girls, for instance, are all delightful friends to Maomao. …God, I could gush about this story for ages.
I grew to love Lady Lihua as a character, yes she might be mean and too prideful when she first introduced, but it is revealed in this episode that she's just a lady that recently just lost her child and she's also very caring person.
and even before her sons death; she was simply stressed the f**k out because her son was terribly ill in such a situation, and given how competitive/suspicious the consorts are; it wouldn't take much for someone as stressed out as Lihua to snap at a fellow consort
They had a guest director for this episode, you might've noticed that this episode in particular has spectacular animation when it comes to movement and expressions, even more so than the rest of the show. We're almost through the series and this episode still remains my favorite so far. 👍
This was the episode that I couldn't put this show down. I was enjoying watching the first 3, but I'd take small breaks between each episode. Just a few minutes. I binged episode 1-13 (I think) in one night, and it was because of episode 4. After this episode the term "break" did not exist. I was a man on a mission and 6am in the morning I finally caught up and was needing more. I haven't had a proper binge in years.
The good thing about this series are japanese author did a good job on chinese traditional era genre.....This is the 2nd anime that using this era that I loved to watch...the first on are "Colourcloud Palace" better known as "Saiunkoku Monogatari"....Mc is a female protagonist known as Kou Shuurei/Shirley Hong.
Maomao is truly an excellent lead. If you described her sans any descriptors of gender, she would still come across as a great character. But her femininity and her relationship with femininity are core parts of who she is and how she is written, and they make her an even better character.
The story is modeled after the Tang Dynasty, so according to the laws of the time, all maids, including the third degree of relative, would have been executed. That's the era. In the original work, he is given a similar harsh punishment.
It was the scene with a slap that was that I sold my series in half) It was like literally a slap to the audience "Our heroine is not an ordinary" Tan ". It was so cool. Still love this series) And of course the embarrassment of Maomoma after the words of Ginshi)) is gold)))) So. This is one of my favorite episodes
Seeing how you enjoy Frieren and Apothecary Diaries you should really give Dangerous in Dungeon a shot. 2nd best of the season behind Frieren imo, great animation(food dishes especially), hilarious characters, original story concept that is just a really good time
This season of debut anime (Fall 2023) had some of the best female protagonist in awhile (Frieren and Mao Mao) heck Yor even got some of the female lead love (although not debut) for Winter 2024 debut you should watch Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon!
@@d112cons just watch this specific episode in English. You don't have to watch the whole series but this episode has the best joke in anime in the England version.
just asking if there's a sched for this month? love all the shows u're watching now but been waiting for sign of affection for awhile now 😭🥹 (not on patreon so not sure if it's there)
