First Look: Winter 2025 Anime Quickies: The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 and My Happy Marriage Season 2

The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 (1-12)

What can I say about The Apothecary Diaries that hasn't been said? (But if you're interested in what I HAVE said read my reviews here and here) Maomao's still the best, the story and worldbuilding are still great and this season has a brand new weird girl for Maomao to be friends with, along with a lot of other interesting ladies.

This season goes way more into the backstory of the world Maomao lives in, and while The Apothecary Diaries has always had plenty of dark content, this season gets particularly dark, because it goes into more detail about the previous Emporer's pedophilia (and actually does call it that, a rarity in anime, sadly), though it's not graphic--we don't see the emperor do anything with the little girls, just talk about it.

It also portrays what could be a rape scene, though it's vague. Basically a woman is half naked on top of man in bed, yelling about tormenting him, while he looks terrified, so um, probably? It's also revealed that slavery was previously a thing, though it's been outlawed in the current era (and Maomao does point out the courtesan system of "buying a woman out" is basically slavery in all but name, which was interesting to see her acknowledge). Is it weird to be happy to see an anime condemn slavery and pedophilia as a bad thing? Yes, but that's where we are.

I've heard there are protests about the former Emporer being portrayed as kind of pathetic rather than like, one dimensional evil I guess, but 1. Lots of reprehensible men are pathetic and 2.I don't think the point is to make the audience excuse his crimes. Rather, it's an extension of a running theme in The Apothecary Diaries- the greatest evil is the fucked-up imperial palace system. It's the system that gave this man power to do what he did in the first place. It's emphasized over and over again this man was not fit to be emperor, that he was incompetent and morally weak, but he was forced to be, and given power he misused. Meanwhile, so many young girls and women were exploited, and it's not surprising some of them snapped.

The former Empress portrays herself as someone who was ambitious and conniving and walked into the relationship with him willingly, but I think the show makes it pretty clear this is just a way she looks at it because she doesn't like feeling like a victim (and also just her self loathing) since she explicitly says it was her father that wanted her to do this..and also the fact she was like 10-12 (the manga clarified 10, apparently. Yikes). Again, it's the system of the court that's the root problem, the society which requires girls to sacrifice themselves for their family's quest for status. I think it's fine that the show doesn't hold your hand on this stuff.

On the other hand... as of the last episode of the season, Jinshi is back on his bullshit. And this time was particularly disturbing because he almost kissed Maomao, while she was clearly trying to think about how to escape and even wondering if she should kick him. Granted, it did come after Maomao accidentally groping him (a lot. It makes sense in context. She was in shock.) so he might have gotten the wrong idea, but I'm not gonna let him off the hook because she was very visibly freaked out. It's also honestly just sad that Maomao thought he was trying to assault her out of anger, she understands SA is about control, and thinks Jinshi, as her boss, is gonna do that to punish her. For such a depressing concept, the show treats it weirdly lightly, much like it did last time Jinshi was a creep, which really contrasts with how SA is handled in other parts of the show.

So yeah. I really hoped we'd moved past that with Jinshi, he'd been doing fine for like one and two cours, but alas this remains a pretty sizeable caveat for the show. Maybe this is building to something that will be addressed at some point (Jinshi forgetting about the power dynamic between them has been a reoccurring problem) but the show treating it so flippantly makes it hard to trust that.

My Happy Marriage Season 2

Pleased to report this season of MHM actually addressed some of my issues last season about modest domestic femininity contrasting ambitious evil femininity (seen in my review here), and woman who couldn't perform domesticity thinking of herself as a failure and no one refuting that.

This season disrupts all that introduces a plotline where Kaoruko, the sole woman in the magic military, is admired for her ambition and the show sympathetically explores the sexism she faces.

it's honestly great to see Miyo stick up for her. When she hears those two men talking shit and straight up goes up to them and goes "I thought this job was based on merit?" and even then gets cutting with "Considering you can't even win in a fight against her, maybe save that criticism" (paraphrasing) and it's like, dang, go Miyo. She wouldn't have been able to confront someone that confidently at the beginning of the show, so it really shows how much she's developed.

I also appreciated that the show doesn't go with a "you just have to girlboss it up when men treat you badly", the show lets the Kaoruko get upset and dejected about the unfairness of it all.

I do have some things I don't love about the storyline with this Kaoruko (love triangles, ugh) but one thing I do love is the emphasis on her friendship with Miyo, and how Miyo doesn't care at all about the possibility Kaoruko crushed on her husband and is having a hard time letting go of that. She straight up says there's nothing to resent about that, and that she doesn't think friendship is less important that romance, which is nice to hear on a romance anime.

The first arc of the season was a little trying, with Miyo having to deal with a mean-mother-in-law and of course it has a whole thing where it revealed MIL has a heart deep down, so now she's off the hook for treating her daughter in law like shit because Miyo proved herself! Even though she shouldn't have had to! We really didn't need to see Miyo take abuse from another mean family member, so it's repetitive. At least Kiyoka threatened to disown his Mom, that's a good guy right there.

But I really did enjoy the arc after it, despite how the villain dragged sometimes, we really see Miyo step it up and show how she's coming into her own. She rescues her husband and saves the day again, and you see how much she's owning her bravery now. She even slaps an asshole right in the face! And the relationship between Miyo and Kiyoka remains sweet, with the last scenes of the season being especially cute.

It's not a show I'm hooked on, but it's a nice bit of entertainment with largely likeable characters, some good development for the lead, and it's nice to see a shoujo (the light novel is aimed at women and the manga runs in a shoujo mag) get such lavish animation and attention.