The first arc is Pharmacist’s Diary The story begins and ends with a mystery that few in modern Japan need to consider: Why do babies die before they are one year old?
It’s a stark window into a time when high infant mortality was seen as an unavoidable fact of life. In historical China, infant mortality More than 40%, which is a conservative estimate. One piece of general wisdom stated by characters in the novel is that you can’t really expect a baby to survive to adulthood until he’s over seven years old. Even the most privileged members of society would not be surprised to see their children die.
Given the pervasive nature of the problem, it’s understandable that even knowledgeable doctors are unable to explain the individual cause behind any particular death. In the story, Maomao, the intrepid pharmacist and pseudo-detective, uses her medically accurate understanding of drugs and biology to piece together the truth.
Maomao is an interesting character, not just because she’s a drug-loving gremlin, but because everything she knows is technically within the realm of pre-modern Chinese. Can Know. Sort of like. She did gain some anachronistic insights because her father studied medicine in a Western country, although this knowledge was also pre-modern. By bringing the two disciplines together and exclusively championing medical knowledge founded with scientific rigor, Maomao’s insights often impress twenty-first-century audiences.
This ultimately proves that pre-modern medicine itself was actually quite powerful. Doctors grasped the pieces of the puzzle, even if they were mixed with scientifically unsound cultural notions. For example, Maomao never mentions the European practice of bloodletting, nor does she relate her treatment methods to the five elements of traditional Chinese medicine. In this sense, she is a very anachronistic character. But the point is, the things she knows can be observed by anyone, even without a scientific background.
Transplanting characters like Maomao into the palace, mysterious accidents that bystanders regard as “part of the times” suddenly have real explanations. Sometimes, as in Episode 14, Maomao’s insights are no deeper than “flour burns easily”—not common sense by the standards of the time, though certainly not a satisfying reveal in any other kind of context. This simplicity makes Maomao a more believable character in the world she inhabits, while still drawing attention to the gap between modern and pre-modern science.
All this is to illustrate Pharmacist’s Diary is a great example of a historical (or pseudo-historical) mystery. Stories like this take viewers into a different cultural worldview, where modern science should not be taken for granted, and impress them again with the timeless art of logical thinking. A detective who is both out of place and out of place also Out of place – that’s the key. Maomao was an eccentric weirdo by anyone’s standards and technically only knew things that people of her time might have known, Pharmacist’s Diary A very good balance has been struck.
If it wasn’t already obvious Pharmacist’s Diary is a very charming show based on an equally charming book. These mysteries may not be the absolute highlight of the plot, but they are an integral part of what makes the characters and setting so compelling. With her sharp wit and unabashed nerdiness for unusual pursuits, Maomao became the heroine of her time. Move over Edogawa Conan, the anime world has a new ace detective.
(BTW, the author Detective Conan is a great admirer Pharmacist’s Diary even Draw Maomao In the detective spotlight. Her fame has spread far and wide! )