What's It About?

Get immersed in the historical setting and intriguing characters of The Apothecary Diaries, the original light novel series that inspired the hit manga and anime! This jacketed, hardcover volume includes more than 300 lavish pieces of art from light novel illustrator Touko Shino. In addition to every illustration from the light novel series, this collection includes previously unpublished character designs, promotional and exclusive art, and an interview with Shino.

The Apothecary Diaries Artbook has art by Touko Shino, with English translation by Kevin Steinbach. Published by Square Enix (May 6, 2025).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Fair warning: this artbook is for the light novels of The Apothecary Diaries, not the anime or manga. That means that if you're not current on the English releases, you're going to get spoiled. While the biggest spoilers are in the very back, when the text that accompanied all of the color illustrations is reprinted, there are still some major events depicted in the images.

If you don't mind that or are up-to-date with the novels, this is a very nice collection. Unlike some artbooks, the focus here really is on the artwork. There's a brief interview with artist Touko Shino, but the majority of the book is made up of reprints of the color and black and white images from the novels. They're mostly in chronological order, with a few exceptions, and uniformly beautiful. Shino remarks that her most popular pictures are the ones of Jinshi and Maomao together, and it's not hard to see why; they really are gorgeous. Or hilarious, depending on what the two of them are doing – there are at least a few pictures of Maomao fending off the world's pushiest “eunuch.” Other notable images include one of Shushi at the ghost story event and several involving Maomao the person and Maomao the cat, with one of feline Maomao and a painted fan being a standout.

Shino doesn't give much commentary on the pieces themselves. They're pretty much just imported wholesale from the novels, with special illustrations (a Christmas one of Maomao and Jinshi in modern dress is great) included towards the end and character design notes sprinkled throughout. The notes are pretty basic, pondering things like whether or not Lishu's hairstyle would be possible in real life and discussing the colors of Maomao's big sisters. The result is a book that's wonderful to look at but not great to talk about, because there simply isn't much to say beyond, “the book is pretty and it has novel spoilers.”

I stand by both statements.