TOHO animation has started rolling out character videos for The Apothecary Diaries: The Late Lady’s Treasure, and the first one, posted Wednesday, adds two names to the film’s cast. Miyuki Sawashiro voices Ruoqing, and Ai Mikami voices Yinshan.
Who the two new characters are
Ruoqing is a middle-level courtesan who died five years ago inside the Emperor’s inner palace. Her dying wish was for her remains to be returned home five years after her death, and that request is the thread the film hangs on. Yinshan served Ruoqing as a lady-in-waiting and now attends Mu Qing, working as a general servant of the Bi clan.
Sawashiro and Mikami join a cast that was already fairly stacked. Mariya Ise plays Mu Qing, the Bi clan’s son. Nobuo Tobita plays clan head Birō, Kumiko Watanabe plays his wife Shūu, and Hirofumi Nojima plays eldest son Bisen. Kenshō Ono plays Suija, leader of the Kajadan river pirates, with Ryōta Takeuchi as his subordinate Eishō and Jirō Saitō as Kaja, the pirates’ late former leader. Anime News Network notes that the romanizations of those character names have not been confirmed.
What the film is actually about
This is a brand-new story written by the original novel author, Hyuganatsu, not an adaptation of an existing arc. Maomao and Jinshi travel to the hometown of a concubine who died five years earlier in the imperial harem, tasked with returning her remains. Along the way they run into pirates, hidden treasure, the secret behind the Empress’ remains, and a mysterious boy who holds the key to the whole thing.
Building the film around an original story is the safer play here. The TV series has already covered a lot of the novels, and handing the author the pen keeps the movie inside canon instead of stitching together a greatest-hits reel.
Release and where to watch it
The Late Lady’s Treasure opens in Japanese theaters on December 11. Crunchyroll has picked up the North American and worldwide rights, excluding Asia but including India, with Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment set to announce a release date later. That is the same arrangement we covered when Crunchyroll first acquired the film.
Where this sits in the franchise
The third TV season premiered on October 2 at 11:00 p.m. JST in the Friday Anime Night block on NTV and 29 affiliates, and its second cours is scheduled for April 2027. The first season ran in October 2023 for two cours, and the second followed in January 2025, also for two cours. Crunchyroll has streamed all of it and is handling English dubs. You can catch the details on the third season’s themes in our breakdown of the second trailer.
On the publishing side, J-Novel Club puts out the novels digitally, Square Enix Manga & Books releases Nekokurage’s manga adaptation plus the novels in print, and Viz Media handles Minoji Kurata’s The Apothecary Diaries: Maomao’s Notes on the Inner Palace. A live-action series is also in the works for Amazon Prime Video worldwide in 2028.
Hyuganatsu began the story on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō website in October 2011. Shufunotomo started printing the novels with illustrations by Touko Shino in August 2014.
The film has a date and now a fuller cast, but the one thing anime viewers outside Japan will want most, an international release window, is still missing. That answer is coming from Crunchyroll and Sony at some point in the next several weeks.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: Character visual for The Apothecary Diaries: The Late Lady’s Treasure, via MyAnimeList News.
