Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Apothecary Diaries
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Andrew Cunningham
 Posts: 559 Location: Seattle |
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The author said on Twitter it's actually just glass, and he deliberately designed it so he could flip it and wear it on either eye. Pure affectation. |
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Beltane
Posts: 33 |
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A minor correction. The person that Lakan classifies as a bishop is Gaoshun, not Jinshi. Lakan sees Jinshi, the person wearing the bird-embossed robe, as an "advisor", which symbolically speaking is quite spot-on.
The advisor's position is right beside the "General" AKA the King. It can only move diagonally, and it's confined to a four-square space AKA the palace. Its main purpose is to defend the general, which is quite fitting considering Jinshi's position. |
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Andrew Cunningham
Posts: 559 Location: Seattle |
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I don't think Lakan is assigning ranks based on their actual positions as much as their talent. That's what gives him the advantage in war; if it was just their titles, anyone could do it. He knows who can actually get the job done.
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Covnam
 Posts: 4398 |
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I hadn't thought of that, but it seems to be the case with how it's presented. Not the first character to say that people look like x/y/z, though it's not always clear if it's meant to be literal of figurative. |
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Azure Chrysanthemum
Posts: 237 |
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It is literal in this case, he does indeed have face blindness. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 20109 |
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Lakan sets another challenge Maomao/Jinshi's way and Maomao takes it head on, finally ready to confront her biological father on her own terms and basically hijacking something he cooked up back in the day to throw him off so she could surprise him with those manicures...
It was great to see Lihua again. I'm glad Gyokoyou is pregnant but I'm still pulling for Lihua to get another child, especially all the effort she's making to spice up her and the Emperor's sex life. Xiaolan! Back to being a great gal pal for Maomao! I just love how you can tell Maomao is genuinely happy to see her. Loulan and even her father coming off kind of suspicious. The go pieces for heads are as unsettling in animated form. Though that also just set up the reveal that Lakan sees Maomao's face....and probably her mothers. Great way to set up their backstory playing out in full next week. |
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Thesarum
 SubscriberPosts: 781 |
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Only "Kind of" suspicious? They're practically wearing dark glasses and long coats inside while whispering in a corner. Best friend is back! While she's come off as a bit of an air-head gossip in the past (though this has come in very useful), she puts in good work here and it's clear Maomao enjoys having her around. Their relationship is uncomplicated and supportive, and god knows Maomao needs a bit of that in her life. Many people are kind to, and supportive of, Maoamo. But very few come without any sort of difficult context that needs navigating. Jinshi doesn't really want to always lean on Maomao, but when he's got nowhere left to turn, she's where he ends up. When he needs a miracle working, it's his apothecary-cat that works it. Will be interesting to see what her move against Lakan is going to be. |
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everydaygamer
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Wait seriously? I thought it was just a metaphor for how little he cares about others to the point where he only recognizes them as pieces on a game board. The fact that he does see Maomao's face indicating he actually sees her as a person and not as just another game piece. |
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yeehaw
 Posts: 887 |
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Yeah I'm pretty sure it's just a metaphor. The not seeing others faces thing is just a trope and makes sense with the character. And yeah he can see Maomao's face so he's obviously not actually face blind. Pet peeve of mine is when subs call someting that's obviously not chess chess. According to google what they call chess in this episode is sometimes called Chinese chess but I don't think they call it that in China. Also the painted nails being called manicure slightly bothered me. That word was first used in 1873 and I'm pretty sure the show is set before that I am very normal |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2657 |
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I dunno, I think it's a little more literal than that -- but it also feels to me like it's not just prosopagnosia, as it exists in the real world. It's, like… some bizarre combination of prosopagnosia, synesthesia, an almost supernatural ability to perceive aptitude, and hell, maybe some of whatever Yukari Marii has. …That'd make a fun fanfic. “I thought his knack for getting captured enemy officers to join our side was bizarre, but yesterday he ordered this foot-soldier from the West into the heart of the enemy camp, and today a WOMAN came back claiming to be the soldier! And she dressed and acted like a noble!” “Lakan had that man disappeared.” “You mean he was secretly executed? Or sent to a labor camp somewhere?” “No, I mean Lakan had four court ladies stand on all sides of the guy and he just vanished into thin air.” |
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NeverConvex
 Posts: 2690 |
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Wait -- what in the show implied it was definitively part of the real world? |
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yeehaw
Posts: 887 |
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What has implied it's not? |
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NeverConvex
Posts: 2690 |
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.. I didn't say it was definitely not part of the real world, so I don't know why I would have an answer for that question? I'm not sure what the mangaka was going for. That's why I asked Shay Guy why he seemed confident that it was meant to be more than a metaphor. Looking back, I think I just misunderstood his sentence, though. I thought by "as it exists in the real world." Shay meant "since, in the show, it is part of material reality", but now I think maybe he actually meant "as compared with how prosopagnosia works in our world."
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Shay Guy
Posts: 2657 |
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Yeah, it's the latter -- "prosopagnosia, of the sort that exists in real life". Lakan's disorder doesn't seem to just be that, to me. Sorry for any confusion. (Natsu Hyuuga wouldn't be the first writer to not quite get this particular disorder. Kotaro Uchikoshi didn't do the best job either.) |
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shosakukan
Posts: 386 |
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In the equivalent scene in the Apothecary Diaries novel by Hyūga Natsu where Lakan mentions the names of 'chess' pieces, those names are the names of shōgi 将棋 (Japanese chess) pieces. Not the names of xiàngqí 象棋 (Chinese chess) pieces. It seems that some staffers for the manga and anime adaptations thought that to make Japanese chess pieces appear in an Ancient China-esque country was a not-very-good move and they changed them to Chinese chess pieces.
In the novel, Lakan has said that Jinshi is a 'gold general' piece (of Japanese chess) and Gāoshùn is a 'promoted silver general' piece (of Japanese chess). In the anime version, Jinshi appears to be an 'advisor' piece (of Chinese chess) to Lakan's eyes and Gāoshùn appears to be a 'bishop' piece (of Chinese chess). In the starting setup of a Chinese-chess game, on the board, an 'advisor' is located at the position equivalent to a 'gold general' (of Japanese chess), and a 'bishop' is located at the position equivalent to a 'silver general'. A line from a poem composed by the famous Táng-period Chinese poet Bái Jūyì says, '兵衝象戲車。' So it seems that there was an ancestor of the present-day Chinese chess in the Táng period. At the Kāifēng city, which was the capital of Běisòng, ancient Chinese chess pieces were excavated, and they resemble pieces of the present-day Chinese chess. I have read a scholarly article about xiàngqí written by Japanese literary writer Kōda Rohan (Rohan was very good at not only reading Chinese classics but also shōgi), and according to Rohan, in Guǎngxiàngxìtúxù, Běisòng-period literary writer Cháo Bǔzhī described the Běisòng-period Chinese chess, but the number of the lines on the chess board which Cháo Bǔzhī mentioned was different from the number of the lines on the present-day Chinese chess board. So it seems that the Běisòng-period ancestor was still more or less different from present-day xiàngqí. The Chinese chess in the manga and anime adaptations of the Apothecary Diaries looks like fairly near to the modern-style one. Hyūga Natsu, the author of the Apothecary Diaries novel series, has said that Lì is a fictitious country which is roughly modelled upon Táng and things which come from other periods, too, appear in the Apothecary Diaries. The Chinese chess in the Apothecary Diaries anime/manga may be an element which comes from an different era than the Táng period. Also the Chinese chess which Júzhōngmì (a book about xiàngqí written in the Míng period) depicts looks like fairly near to the modern-style one. The Chinese chess in the Apothecary Diaries anime/manga might have been borrowed from the Míng period. Of course, there is a possibility that the artists for the manga and anime, simply and in a quick and easy way, just referred to the ordinary present-day Chinese chess and just drew it in the manga and anime, however. |
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