fusenReading 薬屋のひとりごと in Japanese
Maomao, an apothecary from the capital's pleasure quarter, works as a servant in the emperor's inner palace and starts looking into why the emperor's children keep falling ill. The prose is modern, but palace ranks and medicine come up on nearly every page and most names are read the Chinese way, which makes it a demanding first light novel.
Estimated from the free sample of volume 1 (ヒーロー文庫) and the official anime site. Checked on . How levels are judged
- Level
- Upper intermediate (estimated)Estimated level: this book’s text can’t be analysed here for copyright reasons, so the level is estimated with AI from the publisher’s free sample and other public information, not counted word by word.
- Furigana
- On the names (猫猫, 梨花妃); everyday kanji such as 林檎 and 侍女 have noneSeen in the publisher's free sample of volume 1
- Japanese
- Modern prose; palace ranks, court titles and medicine throughout
- Length
- Volume 1 is about 340 pages; 16 volumes so far
- Read it in
- E-book stores, the free web version on 小説家になろう, and two manga
How hard it is
The sentences themselves are ordinary modern Japanese. What slows a reader down is vocabulary from two fields that the story never leaves: the inner palace, with its ranks of consorts, maids and eunuchs, and 猫猫's medicine and poisons. Most of these words keep coming back, so the opening chapters are the hardest. The names add a layer of their own: they are read the Chinese way and given only in ruby.
Other readers' ratings: Natively and jpdb.
| Title | Level | Known with 5,000 words |
|---|---|---|
| 葬送のフリーレン manga | — | |
| 魔女の宅急便 children's novel | — | |
| よつばと! manga | — | |
| 時々ボソッとロシア語でデレる隣のアーリャさん light novel | — | |
| 本好きの下剋上 light novel | — | |
| 無職転生 light novel | — | |
| SPY×FAMILY manga | — | |
| 羅生門 short story, 1915 | 86.5% | |
| 薬屋のひとりごと light novel | — | |
| Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 light novel | — |
Words to know before you start
Words from the publisher's description of volume 1 and the official character pages, chosen by hand: the story turns on them. Without the book's text there are no counts here.
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 後宮 | こうきゅう | inner palace (reserved for women); harem |
| 宦官 | かんがん | eunuch |
| 妃 | ひ | princess; consort |
| 寵妃 | ちょうひ | favourite concubine |
| 寵愛 | ちょうあい | favour; affection |
| 侍女 | じじょ | lady attendant; lady's maid |
| 下女 | げじょ | maidservant |
| 下働き | したばたらき | domestic duties; servant; maid |
| 毒見 | どくみ | tasting (food or drink) for poison |
| 武官 | ぶかん | military officer |
| 年季 | ねんき | period of an apprentice's contract (usu. ten years) |
| 御手付き | おてつき | making a mistress of a servant |
Meanings from JMdict (EDRDG), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this list is shared under the same licence.
Names and their readings
No dictionary has these readings. They are given as on the official anime site.
| Name | Reading | Who or what |
|---|---|---|
| 猫猫 | マオマオ | an apothecary from the pleasure quarter, now a servant in the inner palace |
| 壬氏 | ジンシ | a powerful eunuch in the inner palace |
| 高順 | ガオシュン | the military officer who keeps watch over 壬氏 |
| 玉葉妃 | ギョクヨウヒ | the consort the emperor favours most, one of the four highest |
| 梨花妃 | リファヒ | another of the four highest consorts |
| 小蘭 | シャオラン | a maidservant and 猫猫's friend |
| 羅漢 | ラカン | a senior military official known as the strategist |
Things that trip readers up
- Consorts are named by title. The four highest consorts hold the ranks 貴妃, 賢妃, 徳妃 and 淑妃, and everyone calls them by name and rank: 玉葉妃, 梨花妃. Servants are mostly called by their role (侍女, 下女).
- The web version is not the light novel. The story first appeared on 小説家になろう; the light novel is a revised and expanded version of it.
- There are two manga. One is drawn by ねこクラゲ for Square Enix's 月刊ビッグガンガン, the other, subtitled 〜猫猫の後宮謎解き手帳〜, by 倉田三ノ路 for Shogakukan's 月刊サンデーGX. They tell the same story in different ways; check which one a store page is selling.
Where to read it on Android
| Version | Where | Looking words up |
|---|---|---|
| Light novel | E-book stores such as BOOK☆WALKER and Kindle (ヒーロー文庫) | The store apps aren't tested yet; see reading apps compared |
| Web novel | 小説家になろう, free | In Chrome: select a sentence, then ⋮ › Fusen lookup. Guide |
| Manga | Both adaptations, in e-book stores and the publishers' apps | Read the screen with the Lookup button, in any app. How it works |
Reading it with Fusen
Make a collection for the book and save words with + as you read. Palace words such as 宦官 come back chapter after chapter; the second time, the popup marks the word Saved 1×, and one tap shows the sentence you saved it with. How to keep a book this dense moving is in the immersion reading guide's Look words up without losing the story.