A second trailer for The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 is out, and it settles two questions fans had been asking: the ending theme, and exactly when the new season starts. TOHO animation began streaming the trailer on Friday, revealing that Eve will perform the ending song “AIYOU.”
Season 3 premieres on October 2 at 11:00 p.m. (10:00 a.m. EDT) in Nippon TV’s “Friday Anime Night” block across NTV and 29 affiliated channels. That run covers the season’s first cours; a second cours will premiere in April 2027.
Cast and theme songs
- Ending theme: Eve — “AIYOU”
- Opening theme: yorushika — “Kumo o Nukekazashimo e Watashidake” (I Am Alone, Breaking Through the Clouds Downwind)
- New cast: Reina Ueda as Bai Niangniang, described as a pale and mysterious nymph
The series adapts Hyuganatsu and Touko Shino’s The Apothecary Diaries (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) light novels, published in English by J-Novel Club.
What else the franchise has coming
Season 3 is only one of three Apothecary Diaries projects in motion. A film, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto: Bōhi no Hihō (The Apothecary Diaries: The Deceased Empress’ Treasure), opens in Japanese theatres on December 11 and features a brand-new story written by original author Hyuganatsu. A live-action series is also in the works for Amazon Prime Video worldwide in 2028.
Where the anime has been
The first season premiered in October 2023 with its first three episodes and ran for two cours, with Crunchyroll streaming it as it aired in Japan alongside an English dub. The second season debuted in January 2025 on Nippon TV’s FRIDAY ANIME NIGHT block and aired for two consecutive cours, again streamed by Crunchyroll with a dub.
The source material has an unusually long history. Hyuganatsu began serializing the story on the “Shōsetsuka ni Narō” website in October 2011, and Shufunotomo started publishing the novels in print with illustrations by Shino in August 2014. Nekokurage launched an ongoing manga adaptation in Square Enix’s Monthly Big Gangan in May 2017; Square Enix Manga & Books releases that adaptation in English and also publishes the novels in print, while Viz Media handles Minoji Kurata’s separate The Apothecary Diaries: Maomao’s Notes on the Inner Palace manga in print. J-Novel Club describes the premise: a sharp-witted apothecary named Maomao is pulled into palace service by the head eunuch Jinshi and ends up tasting the Emperor’s favourite consort’s food for poison.
Why it matters
The trailer is the last major marketing beat before the October 2 premiere, and the theme-song pairing is notable: yorushika and Eve are both high-profile acts, and slotting them into one season signals how much the production committee is investing in this cour. The April 2027 second cours also confirms the show is running the same two-cours structure it used for its first two seasons, which has kept the adaptation pacing close to the novels.
What the trailer does not change is the release-date question that brought most readers here. Season 3 starts October 2 on NTV’s Friday Anime Night block, which also carries Draw This, Then Die! this season. For the wider line-up, see our Fall 2026 most-anticipated ranking.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 trailer visual, via TOHO animation / Anime News Network.
