STORY] (7.5/10)
The story starts off seemingly ok, but after the first episode it starts to show all its potential: it's the story of a woman struggling in a feudal society where everybody has more power than her, forcing her to play all her cards correctly in order to make the best out of the (not so good) situation. The show tries to recreate a credible court environment set in ancient china (although explicitly not historically accurate), and does a discrete job at it, or at least good enough to keep me interested.
The real problem is that the title is somewhat inconsistent in terms of "aura", or feel, if you prefer. It tries to build up pathos around historically credible matters, like the envy and the schemes constantly going on between the emperor's favourite ladies, each trying to sabotage the other in order to prevail in his eyes, but then it breaks it providing unrealistic reasons for the story to be solved and/or too optimistic and idealized outcomes where everybody is happy. Moreover, the main character often refers to modern concepts of medicine and chemistry to explain things nobody else knows (even the court medic), making her feel like she comes from the future and is sharing some yet undiscovered knowledge, more than someone from her day and age. In the anime this is justified with her master being exceptionally good and educated abroad, and with her being really curious about stuff from a very young age, but it just doesnt hold up since she's a half-orphan peasant, daughter to a recluded prostitute and an absent father.
Then, at some point out she goes from being a pharmacist to a sherlock holmes, starting to solve everybody's problems cause she just can and everybody lets her, while at the same time nobody ever resents her for more than 10 minutes, or tries to remind her of her place.
CONCLUSION: it would've been a 10/10, but it's too filled with classic anime elements (random cuteness/chibi, unreasonable and over-the-top excitement over random shit, pudic yet explicit romantic relationships, everybody ignoring obvious historical mentalities like misogyny/social class discrimination/...) and naïve storylines that completely ruin the immersion, forcing the viewer to constantly question whether or not what's happening is credible, often resulting in a "not really, but it's ok".
[CHARACTERS] (7/10)
All of the main characters have been given an actually well explored personality, with much more elasticity and depth than the average anime, of which of course I can only be happy. You've also got to love the fact that this is almost an all-female story without it being too centered around sexualisation and random boob moments: the MC and most main female characters are respectable for their merits, and not only for their looks, although that part is obviously remarked a lot as well. It's still an anime. And this is exactly the problem, all characters are too anime for the realistic vibe they were trying to go for: the good looking guy is both authoritative and simping like a fucking reverse harem dog, the MC is independent, smart and sensitive but we're never shown her ever truly struggling with something, she can figure out complex murders and subtle hints but cant figure out when people are blatantly hitting on her, she's always in control of her emotions despite her having a hard background or literally being beaten half to death by a guard, and so on. The show just keeps building up this expectation of excellence and then crushes it with random mass-pleasing elements that nullify all the previous efforts.
CONCLUSION: Could've been another 10/10, but it's just not.
[SOUND] (7/10)
In-story music is ok, and even though I'm not an OP maniac, I somewhat appreciated this one.
CONCLUSION: An unremarkable good work
[ENJOYMENT] (8/10)
Despite it all, the product was still enjoyable and had more good things going on for it than bad ones, making the overall enjoyment better than its critical analysis. The story and the characters are somewhat relatable, and the plots, while a bit superficial and always with a good ending, are developed well enough for them to feel interesting and worth following: nothing is ever left hanging, and all the episodes connect together perfectly in one solid and well oiled line of events. I'd love to see the second season making up for these, after all, small mistakes that could be easily fixed by focusing more on the realism and less on the anime shit.
