The answer might surprise you.
Summary:
- The Apothecary Diaries is often mistaken for a shoujo series.
- It is actually marketed towards male audiences.
- In reality, anyone can enjoy the series.
The Apothecary Diaries (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) is one of those series that are often mistaken for shoujo. And it’s true, it does remind us of shoujo or even josei a lot: it has a strong female lead, it explores the topic of interpersonal relationships a lot, it has hints at romance.
Targeted at Men?
And still, The Apothecary Diaries is not a shoujo. The series is rather huge, and it has a novel, light novels, two manga and now an anime. And you may be surprised to learn that only the original novel has “female” right where its demographic is written.
On top of that, The Apothecary Diaries manga is considered a seinen one, which means it’s marketed towards young adult men. And this actually makes a lot of sense.
The series doesn’t focus on romance for the most part. Yes, romance is also there, and a number of readers and viewers even want it to be paid more attention to, but The Apothecary Diaries makes you understand that there are more important things.
It explores political conflicts, science, and mysteries; it has detective aspects and drama, of course. There’s thoughtful character development, and the dynamics between the series’ characters are very engaging to watch and follow. Basically, there’s something in the series for anyone to like.
Anyone Can Like It
And that brings us to a very simple conclusion: no matter what category you’d like to put The Apothecary Diaries in, there isn’t a particular target audience that will like the series more.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve just finished high school or if you’re married with three kids, there are concepts in the series that will resonate with you anyway.
The only thing that you should be careful about is the rating of The Apothecary Diaries. For example, the anime adaptation is rated PG-13, and this is very accurate.
The series might be a bit challenging to watch and understand for younger audiences. But there aren’t overly explicit moments and scenes in The Apothecary Diaries, so teenagers will be fine.
When fans try to describe the target audience of the series, they mention Sherlock Holmes. Of course, Maomao is not exactly Sherlock, but we have to admit that she does remind us of him a lot.
So if you’ve always loved the works by Arthur Conan Doyle, there’s a high chance that The Apothecary Diaries will be your cup of tea. And it doesn’t matter what your gender and occupation are.