KUSURIYA NO HITORIGOTO 2ND SEASON

DESCRIPTION

CAST

NOVEL DramaKusuriya no Hitorigoto
ANIME DramaKusuriya no Hitorigoto
ONA ComedyMaomao no Hitorigoto 2nd Season
Not Available DramaKusuriya no Hitorigoto (Zoku-hen)

REVIEWS

• 

  Henrique

  60/100
  Infelizmente uma segunda temporada pior do que a primeira

  Kusuriya é um dos melhores animes dessa década e justamente por isso decidi fazer essa review, já que senti que precisava expressar meu sentimento em relação a essa segunda temporada e por que não a considero nem perto de ser tão boa quanto a primeira. Não sou bom com palavras, nem com articulação textual, porém tentarei ser claro ao máximo. Tratarei de 3 pontos principais (o enredo, os personagens principais e a produção) e minimamente de alguns outros detalhes.

  Primeiramente, é necessário postular que Kusuriya é uma obra com um enredo muito bem pensado. Desde a primeira temporada é notável o quanto os mínimos detalhes estão conectados para criar uma história engajante e que instiga o leitor a colocar o cérebro para funcionar, tentar conectar os pontos. Essa temporada não foi diferente, no início histórias que pareciam desconexas foram ligadas para o surgimento de um grande final com diversas reviravoltas. Apesar de não achar esse método de todo ruim, acredito que nesse caso em específico ele não funcionou, uma vez que os arcos iniciais dessa temporada foram maçantes, muitas vezes desconfortáveis de se assistir, com destaque em particular para o arco da caça, que considero o pior de toda obra até aqui. Um dos principais motivos sendo que nele ocorre o ápice de um dos aspectos que considero os piores nessa porção da história: a relação de Jinshi e Maomao, assunto do qual tratarei mais depois. Deixando isso de lado, devo dizer novamente que toda complexidade envolvida na vivência do antigo imperador, nos impactos das atitudes dele e a árvore genealógica da família real são fantasticamente executados seja no que é deixado explícito ou no que é implicitamente explorado e provavelmente será mais tratado em uma próxima temporada.

  Sobre os personagens, novamente inicio dizendo que esse é um dos aspectos fortes da história, principalmente na primeira temporada, na qual são os personagens, suas interações e intenções o que a tornam tão interessante. Entretanto, nessa continuação temos uma abordagem que apesar de parecida é muito mais intimista quanto a seus dois personagens principais, Maomao e Jinshi. Em todos os momentos que ambos apareciam na tela era possível perceber que a autora estava preparada para dar o próximo passo na relação dos dois, porém acredito que da forma errada. Apesar de entender tanto que o Jinshi está impaciente por não conseguir transmitir seus sentimentos à Maomao, que tem dificuldades em entender os sentimentos de outros, não pude deixar de me sentir desconfortável perante às constantes investidas que sempre deixavam a Maomao incomodada, configurando, pelo menos para mim, assédio. No mais, acho muito interessante tudo que envolve a Shisui, suas relações com conhecidos próximos, e em particular com sua mãe. O anime nos mostrar ambos os lados dela para só depois revelar que eram a mesma pessoa é sensacional e um dos pontos altos dessa parte.

  No tocante à produção, infelizmente tenho mais críticas do que elogios. Não darei um passo maior que a perna e dizer que essa temporada estava muito mal produzida, até porque não havia quadros mal desenhados, nem erros que poderiam ser considerados risíveis. Todavia, é fato que haviam muitos mais quadros estáticos nessa temporada, fato que se evidencia principalmente no arco da guerra, em que basicamente não há movimento. Além disso, a direção também teve uma queda. Em particular quero destacar a cena de finalização da Shisui, em que ela dança, que apesar de toda carga emocional que carregava, foi feita fora de tom e com uma assincronia intensa entre o que acontece na tela e o sentimento que aparentemente quer ser transmitido. Ainda que se considere isso proposital para representar a dualidade e falsidade na vida da personagem, há outros episódios em que a mesma coisa acontece, em particular no arco da caça. Sobre a trilha sonora, não há muito o que dizer além de que continua muito boa, combinando bastante com o tom da obra.

  Finalizando, também gostaria de opinar sobre as openings e as endings. As duas aberturas são ótimas e deixam para trás o fantasma da segunda abertura da primeira temporada, que deixou bastante a desejar. Já os encerramentos são ambos bem comuns, e na minha opinião, piores que os da primeira temporada, porém não ruins.

  Em suma, em resposta a uma primeira temporada que te deixa cheio de expectativa, veio um balde de água fria com desenvolvimentos desconfortáveis, uma produção pior e mais chato de se assistir. Ouvi de pessoas que leram os livros que os próximos arcos serão melhores e por isso continuarei. Obrigado por ler até aqui e espero que minhas palavras tenham agregado em algo na sua experiência da obra.

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• 

  Ionliosite2

  20/100
  Maomao is still a Mary Sue

  Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is, by all means and purposes, a female oriented power fantasy. Yes, this is exactly how I started my review last time and that's because this series is really not better than the first season, hell, Maomao at this point is no longer the underdog she was supposed to be at the start, she has more support than ever and is as capable as ever.

  What has improved since last season? Well, I don't have to see Maomao intimidating stupid ladies-in-waiting, but I guess that's about where my compliments come to an end, as it follows the same formula of having a mystery and Maomao solving it with some parts building a bigger picture to resolve at the end of the season. Maomao and Jinshi's romance is as bad as it has ever been, but you now get him acting like a toxic shoujo male lead, like Jinshi gently laying down Maomao and pulling her leg up while asking her if she wanted to find out if he had a dick, and honestly, they completely lack chemistry since the first season and they don't seem to be moving their relationship as it's so one-sided that it hurts, but I guess the moments where he is the most forceful will be the closer they get to have any kind of thing remotely similar to romantic tension in the foreseeable future.

  Of course Maomao is still a Mary Sue, you can scream to me that she isn't, but what people don't realize about this term is that it works on a spectrum. Sure, there are some characters that might fit better all the criteria, but Maomao covers most of them pretty easily, she just lacks fighting abilities to kick people around, and you will always see a discourse about this. It still looks like that, without Maomao, the integrity of the palace would fall in any moment; her underdog aspect of being a lowly servant has been pretty much put into irrelevance ever since Jinshi bought her; we were told last season about her father Lakan, a very high ranking member of the military who would literally wage a war if something were to happen to her; she has been working under Gyokuyou, one of the emperor's main consorts, as her attendant, so basically no lady-in-waiting ever pesters her again; the fact that Maomao and the series still act like she could catch fire any time is nothing short of stupid and dishonest. The closest argument you could get from this season was that Maomao was "kidnapped", which I put in quotation marks because nothing ever happened to her, she was taken to a festival, then put inside a house where she didn't suffer anything beyond doing some medicine for immortality, she could read, she could eat, she could rest, the two worst things that happened to her there were that she was hit with a fan (which is even less than the metal bat from the previous season) and she was put inside a closed room with insects and snakes, but she is very quirky, so she just ate them, which means that at no point in time she was in any danger. Nothing about this arc made me think that Maomao wasn't a Mary Sue, and just as I put it at the start, one of the thing she lacks to be a Mary Sue to a "T" is having any kind of fighting abilities.

  At the end, the only episodes that may be worth a damn are completely ruined by their cop-out solutions: the kids that dramatically died last episode by drinking some shit? They aren't dead and drank the medicine that can "kill" a person and later "bring them back to life", of course, this was quite obvious if you remember that said medicine exists, but it doesn't make it any less stupid. Suirei? She doesn't have any punishment whatsoever for what she did this and last season, she quite literally plotted to kill the emperor's younger brother and is quite literally associated to the clan that tried to do a rebellion, and instead it's her comically evil step-mother who takes the fall for everything she did because she was abusing her, it's so unrealistic that she didn't get executed and instead is living with the kids alongside Ah-Duo. Shisui? She has this stupid "emotional" dance with music and everything while she gets shot multiple times and then falls from a high place, of course, that is a fake-out and at the end she is perfectly fine. For the last year, I have been pestered about this series being mature, smart and realistic, which is quite obviously untrue, these events are quite literally on the level of intelligence of battle shonen (which are kid's shows), events like emotional deaths followed by death fake-outs is overused in those, you can see them in Bleach, Naruto or One Piece and they are already stupid there, despite the fact that they are quite literally for kid's so they don't try to be smart, this series pretends to be smart while at the same time pulling this kind of stuff which is honestly embarrassing, I wish this was me twisting the events or anything, but this is quite literally what happens in the series, this author has no backbone at all.

  It has been a pain watching this series, it didn't help that I was sick to the point of being bedridden without wanting to watch anime for an entire month, so I had to catch up with many things instead of just taking it more slowly, and Kusuriya was easily the thing I wanted to see the least between the list of anime I hadn't dropped at that point, you don't have to worry about me anymore, as I'm not excited in any way to even see the continuation of this series.

  Thank you for reading.

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• 

  Excalibur7

  100/100
  For me, its already one of the greats.

  season 1 of Apothecary Diaries already had us all loving the series and it's characters but season 2 just completes that pack that a series needs to achieve perfection. In a total of 2 seasons including of 48 episodes it has become one of the greatest to come in recent times and to drop 2 seasons worth of 24 episodes each in just 2 years with no drop in quality shows the passion that the studio is putting in the show.

  I don't have much to say regarding the second season of Apothecary Diaries cause in itself it is a great season but when put in perspective of the whole show then the plot we have seen till now concludes perfectly in this season.
  Everything no matter how small from season 1 contributes to the build up that eventually leads to this perfect conclusion in season 2. Every episodes have been interesting to watch, some may feel slow but you can enjoy them separately cause eventually it will have meaning in the bigger picture. The first half of the season was kinda slow but the second half is where it starts binding everything that had been scattered all over for the audience to pick. It continues to be engaging throughout every episodes until the last, many a times even a single dialogue can reveal something or change the meaning of something else entirely that's how good the show has been written.

  The thing that really gets us emersed in the situations and the drama happening on screen are the visual animation and it's music (so good). The visual style of Apothecary Diaries has always been amazing and beautiful to watch since season 1 and it continues in this season as well (sometimes even better).
  Next is the music which is of course by kevin penkin (the goat), been a fan of him since watching Made in Abyss and he did an impeccable work here too. Scenes like Jinshi's dance, Lakan's plea to Jinshi and many emotional moments in the last few episodes including Shisui and Maomao couldn't have been as good if not for the osts.

  As a character Maomao has always been great but the ones whom i really liked in this season are Jinshi and Shisui (Loulan), we get to see why Jinshi has been acting as an eunuch in the rear palace and his real status which was obvious cause of the hints scattered all over the place and seeing him in episodes after Maomao is kidnapped was something that was really needed for him as a character and for us to see that without even Maomao the episodes can be entertaining and engaging. Jinshi had been the deuteragonist of the series all along and he needed some episodes to focus on him entirely.
  but the last few episodes were for Loulan to shine, we see her as a joyous, playful girl who is free of all worries throughout the season and wondered of her relevance in the show even though there were hints along the way for us to catch on her real identity, she was an important element to move her family on to the last stage of their rebellion and to twist the perspective of audience entirely as to what was really happening behind the scenes but the other side of her character portrays her friendship with Maomao as Shisui leading Maomao to care for her in her last moments.

  season 1 was like a 9 for me but season 2 is like 9.5 or even 10 cause i just love this anime. The plot for the rebellion ends but i have heard that we only saw first 4 volumes of the 16 volumes that are in light novel, i wonder what the plot now will be if there is so much to adapt, perhaps it could be regarding Jinshi's actual biological parents and his ascension as king or perhaps not. Also those foreigners helping the shi clan in their rebellion could be of some relevance as they were not caught, it can go many ways from here all i can say for sure is that if the show maintains the quality as the previous two seasons then the coming years including 3 or 6 months of Apothecary Diaries is something to look forward to.

  It's been fun watching this series from episode 1 and seeing it become one of my favorites, i will be looking forward to season 3 and more Apothecary Diaries in the future.
  But for now its goodbye to the show.

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