Three new cast members are joining the ongoing second season of The Apothecary Diaries, who will all appear in the 34th episode on March 14, 2025. Season two first aired in Japan on January 10, 2025 and is expected to run for two consecutive cours.
The three newly announced cast members will play new maids joining the Jade Palace, which include Satomi Sato as Haku, Hitomi Ueda as Koku, and Miku Ito as Sekiu. The new characters are also highlighted briefly in the preview for the 34th episode.
They join a main voice cast that stars Aoi Yuki as Maomao, Takeo Otsuka as Jinshi, and Asami Seto as Shisui.
The second season features a few returning staff members from the first season. Norihiro Naganuma (Season 1 director and series screenwriter) is credited as chief director and series screenwriter, with Akinori Fudesaka (Season 1 assistant director) as director, Ko Nakagawa (Season 1 Episode 6, 13, and 19 storyboard artist and director, Episode 24 director) as assistant director, Yukiko Nakatani as character designer, Misato Aida as color designer, Katsumi Takao as background art director, and Mayo Suzuki (The Apothecary Diaries project PV) as compositing director. TOHO animation STUDIO and OLM are in charge of the animation production for season two.
Satoru Kosaki (Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song-), Kevin Penkin (Made in Abyss), and Alisa Okehazama (The God of High School) are the music composers once again.
The anime is based on the light novel series written by Natsu Hyuga and illustrated by Toko Shino. It was first published by Shufunotomo on August 29, 2014 and has released 15 physical volumes as of March 2024. J-Novel Club releases the light novels in English digitally for North America, while Square Enix publishes the series in print.
The series originally began as a Shosetsuka ni Naro web novel in October 2011. It was later republished by Shufunotomo as a single volume under its Ray Books imprint.
A manga adaptation illustrated by Nekokurage was released in May 2017 and another alternate manga adaptation was launched by Minoji Kurata in August 2017. Square Enix licensed the first manga series for release in English.
Crunchyroll streamed the first season of The Apothecary Diaries worldwide and is also streaming the second season, outside of Japan. It describes the second season as:
When a favored concubine becomes pregnant, Maomao is put to the test as her food taster. She must keep her wits sharp, not only to protect the concubine but also against rising dangers in the palace. A new concubine with powerful ties, an unsolved attempt at Jinshi’s life, and a foreign envoy with impossible demands hint at a grand conspiracy poised to engulf the empire.
