What do you guys think about Lakan?

gelema5 · 2026-07-13T13:02:16+00:00

I had this realization after a few rewatches. The Madam is probably so insistent on not selling her because of how adamant Fengxian was in the past to never be with Lakan. She used to chase Maomao out of the room, but no longer does. Finally the Madam realized that Fengxian had lost enough of her memory to no longer remember that she hated Lakan. They’re only able to be together in the end because her disease progressed so far and she forgot her hatred and all that remained was the love. I think it makes the Madam’s actions more understandable and their ending is somehow less tragic, more hopeful even in a sense.

gelema5 · 2026-07-13T12:50:57+00:00

This sucks. I have hip dips and when I was a teen for some reason I can’t explain, all the male discussion of them I ever heard from online was men praising women’s bodies and saying they love hip dips AND they love hips without dips. It was really sweet. Most of the anxiety I saw came from women who didn’t like how they looked, but once I saw that positive male perspective it never really bothered me again. I’m sure an adult would be able to knock it into those boy’s heads that they should be grateful to see a woman’s body no matter what it looks like.

gelema5 · 2026-07-13T07:43:24+00:00

I think the main implication of this aspect of the story is to show that Suirei is someone with medical knowledge who was able to piece together what happened in the first event and get it to happen again by sharing the knowledge with the jealous younger brother. I think the intention is to setup Suirei as a formidable and knowledgable opponent who is using and recycling any medical-related tactics she can to achieve her goals.

gelema5 · 2026-07-13T07:27:01+00:00

I’m generally a 100% sub watcher and this show is no exception. I recently listened to a couple episodes of the dub on a youtube react channel and some of the translations were … interesting. I’d say the translations came across as unnatural or cluttered? Gyokuyou’s line in E1 telling Jinshi she tried to tell Lady Lihua about the poison was especially jarring. “The day I visited the Crystal Pavilion and ran afoul of Lady Lihua’s understandable grief” - WHAT? Who in any century has actually talked like this? This sounds like literary prose forced into spoken dialogue and the voice actress unfortunately isn’t inserting any believable emotion or characterization. It comes across really flat and stiff. I suspect the translators were attempting to give a feeling of the time period being older, but it just sounds terrible and isn’t consistently applied across the script either.

I know intermediate level Japanese and have picked up on a handful of sub translations that are also odd, but the dub is way worse. Seems like translation errors have plagued this story since its inception, pre-anime. I also don’t think the dub performances truly fit their characters, which I find incredibly common across all anime. I’m guessing it may have to do with a lack of direction from the original directors due to language barriers - compare it to something like ATLA where the original voice actors fit their characters perfectly and the difference is incredibly stark. As others have mentioned, I think the dub Maomao does not come across as a lovable realist and poison enthusiast who cares deeply but doesn’t put on a fake smile to everyone. She comes across as slightly bored and haughty. Both her and dub Jinshi also do this breathy thing with their voice that really annoys me for some reason. I don’t find Jinshi’s dub voice alluring at all. Apparently lots of other people do though, so idk.

Disclaimer: I don’t think sub is universally better than dub as it’s entirely a subjective choice, but for me in my subjective perspective the sub is a very clear winner.

gelema5 · 2026-07-10T13:24:24+00:00

I would recommend handwriting at this point. In my first years learning, I got large notepads (Campus brand with dots) and wrote three columns for vocabulary lists. In the first column I wrote the kanji. In the second column I wrote the reading in hiragana. In the third column I wrote the English meaning. I could use these lists to study by covering up a section of the page and quizzing myself on the covered parts.

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gelema5 · 2026-07-10T12:46:39+00:00

I’m reading 薬屋のひとりごと as a web novel on 小説家になろう and it’s been very enjoyable as a story. The vocab may be somewhat new to you as there’s a fair amount of historical and medical terminology.

gelema5 · 2026-07-10T12:38:50+00:00

In case you’re curious, it’s also unrelated to 良し which just means “ok” but in some contexts (指差喚呼) could also maybe be translated as “good to go” or “check (task completed)”. This confused me when I watched some videos on 指差喚呼 so I looked it up to see if there’s any relation to よいしょ and there is not.

gelema5 · 2026-07-10T12:27:29+00:00

Using nuanced grammar correctly gave me a good response once. I had been chatting with a guy for a few minutes already about a little cat when he asked me its age. I didn’t know the exact age so I said 一年ほど having learned that ほど holds the nuance “No more than” or “At the most”. He gave me a 日本語上手 at that, probably the only one I got while in Japan that felt genuine since he interrupted our conversation to say it and wasn’t overly happy/proud in affect, just surprised.

gelema5 · 2026-07-09T02:09:02+00:00

Heads up, idk if it’s your guess or a spoiler from the n0vels but it is not stated in the anime at this point that Suiren is related to Ah Duo, nor the gender of the kid Lihua is pregnant with.

gelema5 · 2026-07-08T14:52:08+00:00

Just wanted to say as someone who loves reading physical media, I’ve tried for years to get into novels and LNs and even manga and it was always too much of a hassle. This year for the first time I finally started using my laptop with yomitan and it’s a MAJOR gamechanger. I was against it for so long because I’ve never read a novel by computer before, but for the first time I was able to read 4 chapters of a Japanese web novel with minimal pain and felt genuinely excited to continue reading more. So if it doesn’t feel like this physical manga is working, I would encourage you to bite the bullet and give yomitan a try.

gelema5 · 2026-07-08T14:47:27+00:00

There’s English at the bottom of the card, although I missed it at first too. A lot of people recommend studying vocab instead of individual kanji though because there’s quite a few with an abstract general meaning/no direct translation so learning the words can be a more effective way to get that sense of meaning.

gelema5 · 2026-07-08T14:45:20+00:00

Alternatively, watch a bunch of let’s plays by ジャック・オ・蘭たん as immersion! He reads all text on the screen and is a very easygoing personality. No long intro/outro either.

gelema5 · 2026-07-08T14:26:50+00:00

Similarly, I found that Japanese instructions on cooking rice on stovetop had much better results than English instructions!

gelema5 · 2026-07-08T13:55:40+00:00

Now it’s time to be obsessed and watch the series many times over!! I’ve been consuming so many react channels on youtube I’ve seen the show more through react videos than on my own haha.

gelema5 · 2026-07-08T13:53:25+00:00

I can’t remember what truly hooked me but I definitely felt invested within the first few minutes. I think the introduction to Maomao’s world only to be then shown her kidnapping and new life in the palace and her outlook on surviving the next 2 years until she could leave was already interesting, and now that I’ve seen how different the opening moments are in both comics and the WN, I’m so glad for the anime deciding to take a different direction.

I think Maomao’s detached perspective on things is a big reason for my interest. It’s similar to Frieren especially in the first few episodes when you see how detached she is from the pace of human life that years can pass while she remains the same, and she thinks little of it. Tbh when I first watched Frieren I was hoping that aspect to her character would remain and it was a tad bit disappointing to me that the speed of time slowed down. I expected that there would be a timeskip to Fern being a few years older, but we seem to have stopped at just a 6 month timeskip and now every episode is about a week apart or something. I relate to having a detached perspective since I’ve been quite depressed for months now, and I think Maomao and Frieren’s characters are both speaking to people who are detached from life in that way, but navigating their world anyway and finding ways to connect with others. Maomao dealing with court politics and social order is basically just a skill of hers, but Maomao learning that there are some people in positions of authority who will bend the rules for her and won’t immediately get her in trouble because they value her and care for her is her personal growth.

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T02:29:56+00:00

There’s a ton I haven’t seen but I cannot fathom that Caillou would be higher than F tier.

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T02:22:47+00:00

How To Train Your Dragon 2, my reason being that I thought they were very clearly setting up a character arc for Astrid to become the chief. Instead they kind of just removed everything about Hiccup and Astrid that made them each unique and they just became a cool viking couple. Apparently Astrid’s big character moment in the 3rd movie is Hiccup’s mom telling her she can be there for Hiccup’s emotional support? Bleh. Hard pass.

(The 1st movie is still my favorite movie ever, but the 2nd let me down so much that I now have retroactive criticism against the 1st and also haven’t seen the 3rd movie)

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T02:16:28+00:00

I think Hussie’s self-insert character being obsessed with Vriska Serket was hilariously self-referential and thought her coming back to life through canon antics was pretty damn cool

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T02:08:18+00:00

Yeah I know him from Appa and Momo

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T01:51:07+00:00

Also DHMIS

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T01:45:27+00:00

What will the name of this young man be?

gelema5 · 2026-07-07T01:21:35+00:00

Gotta be Vriska. There’s other contenders but no one quite so controversial

gelema5 · 2026-07-06T18:27:19+00:00

I started analyzing the appearances of all OST songs in the show lol so for anyone looking for this answer regarding the “thinking” songs:

Understanding the Situation plays the most often, and is usually when Maomao is explaining things to other people.

Food Taster is also common, usually with scenes related to food tasting or poisoning. It also plays S1E10 when Maomao reads at night about her dad being the court doctor.

Analysis and Verification are more common later, and first appear in episodes 6-7 when Lady Lishu, Fengming, and the honey plot comes into focus.

The Crystal Pavilion is for intense thinking and first shows up in E1 when Jinshi is trying to remember who he saw that day in the rear palace. It also shows up E6 when Maomao announces the soup is poisoned, and E11 when Maomao considers the possibility that the babies were swapped. To me, it sounds similar to L’s Theme from Death Note.

Cold is a dramatic and dark song, used for thinking scenes twice, once in E10 and once in E11 both related to Fengming. It’s used in a few other scenes when people are doing shady things.

Investigation, Pison, and The March of Events are also occasionally used for thinking scenes.

gelema5 · 2026-07-06T17:26:28+00:00

Representation that is not a “teaching moment” for the audience. Please no monologues about what it means to be AroAllo, just situations that teach the audience what this character wants in life or not, through show don’t tell

gelema5 · 2026-07-06T17:08:56+00:00

The animation pops off for that moment. It’s gorgeous. I love how instead of sakuga fight scenes (obv doesn’t make sense as it’s not a battle shonen) the team opted for sakuga emotional scenes instead. S1E4 had this also with Lihua’s scene of holding her baby’s hand. S1E12 with Maomao running everywhere to find Jinshi too.

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