This month, the novel got licensed by J-Novel Club, giving hopes for readers to see an anime adaption someday. Rumours began to spread about this and I’m just really hoping it will be adapted someday.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is a great manga. To put it simply, you’re just reading a girly Sherlock Holmes solving cases in an imperial court of ancient China. Well, she’s not as eccentric as the paintings of Holmes can be those days but you get the point, Maomao is an extremely intelligent girl with an unusual personality. As a daughter of a pharmacist, she learned a lot from her father. Each chapter seems like to cover an incident in the Imperial Court, related to poison most of the time.
From simple cases to harder ones later in the manga, every time she shows her skills and her knowledge in medicine but this is where she’s different, Maomao is not showing off. You see, the Imperial Court where the scenes take place is just a gigantic harem for the emperor. I will not spoil here how it works, you’ll discover by yourself (if not you already did) but to keep it short, the court essentially only has two types of people: girls who try to appeal the emperor and eunuchs running the place.

The logical thinking would be that Maomao is a young girl trying to appeal the emperor, both physically and by showing off her massive brain. Oh boy, this is totally the opposite, she’s the odd woman here. Maomao is not here by choice nor she wants to works her way up to the emperor, she just wants to live her life quietly.

So why is she solving cases for the court if she’s clearly not interested by the system itself? Well, the construction of the character can be quite simple here. Maomao is a sadomasochist. Literally. She clearly enjoys the pain a poison procures, the effects it has on her body, multiple times through the series we can see her body covered by the effects of different experiments she tried on herself. The joy it procures her is gigantic.

The other main character, Jinshi, the eunuch running the place, takes notice and made Maomao worked for him. Well they have a deal essentially but Maomao is personally working for him at some point.

Jinshi is a likeable character, although I do have some concerns about his building. He is introduced as a rich handsome guy but he can be confounded as a woman though since as a eunuch he doesn’t really process external masculinity. The plot entirely revolves around him, the action takes place in domain and as the superior of Maomao, he orders her around. So, what’s the matter? Well, the manga quickly imply that this might be entirely false and he might not be a eunuch at all. As the chapters go by, there’s more and more scenes where Jinshi seems to deeply care for Maomao and he actually might be developing romantic feelings.

The power of Kurusiya does not rely on the rom-com side and I’m seriously hoping it doesn’t take this turn. Maomao doesn’t care about love, I personally here don’t want to read a manga where the lead male is trying to seduce the lead female. It’s not the point of the manga, not its objective and not its driving force. The duo works fine for now, the visual disgust of Maomao for Jinshi is quite enjoyable, she’s really an odd person in this environment.

Although this possible turn of event can bother me, there’s too much to enjoy for the moment. The chemistry between the characters is excellent, the comedy is carried by the chibi faces of Maomao and some running gag regarding the behaviours of the MCs. The cases are quite entertaining, the world-building is intriguing, there’s a great potential here.

On the artistic side, I don’t have anything to say. It’s good but nothing special, it doesn’t depict at the perfection ancient China but it’s enjoyable. The characters are well drawn.

Overall, it’s a gorgeous story. I have high hopes for the future. Just don’t turn into rom/com average story please. Just don’t. Stay on the detective side and this 9/10 should carry on.