The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 Adds Extra Material Not in the Manga

The third season of The Apothecary Diaries (Kusuriya no Hitorigoto) is currently airing, and it comes with a surprise: extra material you won't find in either the original novels or the manga. The author herself, Natsu Hyūga, confirmed it on her social media.

According to her, this season has several parts that are ahead of the manga in terms of progression. The work originated as a light novel, and the manga adaptation had already expanded on many moments. Now the anime has been given permission to add additional material to flesh out certain scenes.

Hyūga has not revealed which specific moments will be expanded or how they will affect the story we already know. The only sure thing is that the series will use those extra fragments to present some plotlines more completely.

24 episodes split into two cours

The third season of The Apothecary Diaries will have a total of 24 episodes divided into two parts. The first will end with the close of autumn, and the second will resume in April next year.

The new episodes once again follow Maomao, who will have to face new mysteries to solve. The series can be watched on Crunchyroll or Netflix depending on the region.

An anime adding original content is not unusual, but here it has a particularity: it's not filler to wait for the manga, but rather taking advantage of the fact that the original novel already contained scenes that the manga itself developed differently. It's a case similar to Fruits Basket, where the anime could be more faithful to the complete story because the manga had already ended.

It remains to be seen whether that extra material will change the season's pacing or integrate naturally into the episodes. The author has given no further hints, so we'll have to pay close attention to each episode to spot which scenes are new.

What do you think about the third season adding original content? Do you prefer faithful adaptations or taking these liberties to round out the story? Let me know in the comments.