The moment I saw the preview images of The Apothecary Diaries Exhibition’s recreations, which brought to life objects like the medicine-filled Maomao’s Clandestine Cabinet, a couple of costumes (one Maomao’s, the other Jinshi’s), and a Go board playing area, I started fantasizing about the potential immersiveness of the exhibition. Would it whisk me away into the historical China-inspired setting of The Apothecary Diaries? Would there be a zone explaining medicinal ingredients while surrounding us with props of said ingredients? Would there be a full fashion gallery? What about a section describing the politics of the Rear Palace?
Well, no. The Apothecary Diaries Exhibition, which recently landed in Malaysia as part of its Asia tour, is primarily focused on delivering visual material of Season 1’s characters and greatest hits. To illustrate that, the first thing you see when you peek through the curtains hanging over the entrance is Maomao’s back from the teaser visual, and one of the last sights in the journey is a section themed on her climactic Episode 24 dance, where you weave between suspended stills and words to get to the screen playing the dance and the nearby storyboards for it.
The exhibition is technically sectioned, most often by noren curtains — small exhibits in themselves due to their images and/or lines of dialogue or descriptions. However, it feels less a series of distinct, neatly segmented zones and more a continuous stream, perhaps because Incubase Arena Malaysia’s usual, presumably larger exhibition area is currently occupied by Crayon Shin-chan. That stream largely sweeps you from character to character, shown as stills, illustrations, design sheets, and key animation drawings. Mingled with these are video footage and materials for moments like the Episode 19 scene where Maomao gets beaten up by a distrustful guard before Lakan assists her, or when she declares, “This is poison.” Storyboards, related to a character and/or a particular scene, are in large supply too. Simply put, there’s lots of nice art to enjoy.
Dotted here and there are the immersive recreations, one of my favorite parts of The Apothecary Diaries Exhibition aside from the keyframes and the behind-the-scenes content (which I’ll get to later). A few of them are for dedicated photo spots, but all are certainly photo-worthy. You can find a photo spot that recreates Jinshi’s desk (and changes the background color to mimic some of the anime’s notable scenes), and also the poison-tasting setup at the Garden Party. There’s a Verdigris House-themed area that welcomes you with a lantern-covered entrance and the aforementioned Go table, which together creates the exhibition’s most immersive corner.
I still wish there were more, such as the recreations of the consorts’ and courtesans’ costumes and not just one of Maomao and Jinshi’s outfits. At least we get a number of accessories, the ones Maomao receives from various people, on display.
Because of my past anime/manga exhibition experiences, I thought it was a bit weird that this one didn’t have character profiles beyond the very simple relationship chart near the start. There’s also not much in the way of context-providing text for the exhibits that are based on specific parts of the story, outside of character quotes. My memory of Season 1 was fortunately sound enough for the most part, but when I got to the exhibits dedicated to Lakan’s relationship with Feng Xian, I had to refresh my memory with a visit to Feng Xian’s Wiki page because I’d forgotten the reason behind her finger severing, and seeing Lakan’s line about it being a curse wasn’t enough to fully jog my memory.
On the other hand, it was easier to connect with the behind-the-scenes material, which is fairly prominent. There are comments from staff members such as director and series composer Norihiro Naganuma, character designer and chief animation director Yukiko Nakatani, and color designer Misato Aita on their approaches to their respective tasks and noteworthy challenges. Sprinkled throughout are compilations of Naganuma’s personal highlights from the series (one per episode) with some commentary. They aren’t mega deep dives, but there’s just enough trivia and meat on the whole to make them more than a momentary distraction from the next character illustration.
I was especially drawn to the parts touching on the utilization of 3D layouts (proclaimed to be “essential to the achievement of realistic visuals that resemble live-action dramas” for the anime), the background artwork, and color. I spent some time gazing at rows of environmental stills of the Rear Palace, meant to illuminate the variations in the background art’s color and mood due to the scene’s time or weather. Close by, a screen shows visitors a glimpse of the 3D models that helped the production to realize The Apothecary Diaries‘ world. These particular production-focused displays are where the exhibition feels most engaged with the setting.
Despite my minor quibbles, this is definitely an exhibition that fans of The Apothecary Diaries anime should visit. There’s the artwork and production material, the making-of sections, and the zones that are all about reminding you of some of the series’ most memorable scenes. If you liked the mystery elements of the show, there’s a part of the exhibition that revisits its case-solving moments. I just feel that the experience would feel more complete with a few more props and basic lore descriptions. It was easy for me to enjoy the visual elements of this exhibition, and I recalled enough of Season 1 to never feel completely lost, but the world of The Apothecary Diaries felt a little distant at times.
The Apothecary Diaries Exhibition is running at Incubase Arena Malaysia, located on the second floor of the Fahrenheit 88 mall, until July 12 as part of its Asia tour. An announcement revealed that the themed cafe meant to accompany it will not be operating during the exhibition’s run, with no word on its launch at the time of publication. A merchandise section is available, however.
