This year at Anime Boston 2026 during a press conference we were able to meet with Hyuuganatsu, the author of the imperial palace drama series The Apothecary Diaries. Initially posted as Shosetsuka ni Narou submissions back in 2011, The Apothecary Diaries has grown and exploded into a powerful force in the anime community. Its medical mysteries mixed with its intriguing characters storytelling and setting have made its leading character Maomao become a notable icon.
The writer’s one-name psuedonym was chosen based on her favorite citrus fruit, the hyuuganatsu, and during public appearances she can only be seen wearing a costume for her boar mascot named Uririn. Along with The Apothecary Diaries, she also writes the supernatural romance manga The Failure at God School.
Hyuuganatsu talked a lot about the ideas behind The Apothecary Diaries and her process writing the series. Check out what she has to say in this interview!
Dead Rhetoric: What are your challenges of keeping the mysteries in The Apothecary Diaries grounded but coming up still with creative and believable solutions?
Hyuuganatsu: Firstly, the story itself is very historical. We want to try not using any modern things in the story. Having said that though we do still want to make sure it’s realistic so we do use modern techniques to help. For example if we’re cleaning a cut we would use alcohol because that was something we learned to use back in the second century, so it becomes realistic to use in this story.
Anime Herald: Can you share some of your knowledge of Empress Wu Zetian?
Hyuuganatsu: She was an actual person who existed. The version of her that’s in the story is obviously a little bit different from the real one but we did sort of use her as a base. In real historical records she’s actually sort of seen as not a good empress. She was also the one and only female emperor that they had in China, so some of that is probably just due to the fact that historical recordkeeping might not have been very accurate. Or there might’ve been some misogyny or sexism going on in the records kept about her. Because she did in fact do a lot of good for the people of her country in that time period, but looking back with the way the records were kept they might’ve changed or fudged the story a little bit. However we still thought she was a compelling and interesting character so that’s why we wanted to use her.
A-to-J Connections: What inspired you to write a series of medical mystery novels in an imperial China inspired setting?
Hyuuganatsu: I do want to make one sort of correction: I know it’s written on the publishing that it’s an ancient China story but it’s not actually ancient China. What we wanted to create was this beautiful story in this beautiful giant imperial palace with a bunch of gorgeous women walking around and have it be a love story. That was the basis of the actual story. The thought then was: what kind of setting can we choose for that kind of a story and what kind of characters can we fill it with? That’s when the idea of creating both a mystery and a love story in a beautiful and gorgeous imperial palace came to be. Because that combination is interesting and unique. In reality it’s not really based on Chinese imperial castles but more of Japanese imperial castles, which were were a bit different. You’ve got the rear palace with maybe just a few hundred highest ranking people, and the outer palace and the city around it which could have tens of thousands of people. Now that becomes a setting that’s very easy to have interesting characters. We’ve got good guys and we’ve got bad guys so creating a story that’s a mystery within that setting becomes very easy.
Jotaku Network: What is your process for creating the mysteries that Maomao solves?
Hyuuganatsu: It started with just searching for puzzles and mysteries and things like that but the important point was to make it something that even a child could solve. I would look for inspiration in things that kids were doing and then that would become the source of the mystery. For example I would take a look at their summer homework and maybe some of the questions that they got and then use that as the basis or the inspiration for some of these questions. I was really looking at things out in the real world that children have access to and then used that as the base for the mysteries that Maomao has to solve.
Dead Rhetoric: So with the darker time and setting for The Apothecary Diaries what do you use to kind of guide you when you’re bringing in some lighter elements to the story?
Hyuuganatsu: One thing that I think about is that even in the darkest of times people always get hungry. I might just have a character eat something. That’s something that never changes no matter what’s happening to the person. People have different points of views and perspectives. Some people are more forward-looking and positive, some are more negative and looking backwards. Even if they’re living in the same world, their point of view or their view of the world is gonna be very different. So if you have a character like Maomao who sees everything from above then that allows her to have a very different perspective than maybe what other people can see. That allows for some interesting points of view as well.
Anime Herald: You had said that you once thought about becoming a policewoman. Who is your favorite fictional police or detective character?
Hyuuganatsu: I think I mentioned this yesterday but I’m a big fan of Poirot. Apologies to all the Sherlock Holmes fans but I’m a Poirot fan. (laughs)
A-to-J Connections: How do you go about researching the kinds of medicines that Maomao makes and uses throughout the series?
Hyuuganatsu: We sort of work backwards. So we start by choosing the disease or the ailment that we want to include and then we look at “well what’s the cure for that disease?” Typically we do that online but you know nowadays the internet has become…not very useful sometimes. There’s a lot of inaccurate information out there so we have to do some really deep research. Look at things that are actually real and try to separate out anything that might be untrue. But that’s how we start: we go backwards by choosing the disease, then finding the cure, and then doing the research for that cure.
Jotaku Network: Considering The Apothecary Diaries is your only series so far to receive an anime adaptation, are there any of your other works you’d be specifically excited to see adapted in the future?
Hyuuganatsu: I cannot say a word… Please look forward to it. (laughs)
Anime Herald: Congratulations!
Hyuuganatsu: We must now enter into a pact of secrecy. (laughs)
Dead Rhetoric: When writing The Failure At God School does that allow you to flex some different creative writing muscles? What do you enjoy about being able to bring in more supernatural elements to the story?
Hyuuganatsu: You know, writing this one is actually a little difficult for me. But the good thing about it is that I’m not doing this one by myself. As you know I’m working very closely with Akagawara-sensei but there’s also the rest of the team. You got the illustrators, you got the editor, you got the manager. There’s all these different people that are involved in this process so the good thing about that is whenever I get lost I can just go: “Akagawara-sensei, help me! What do you think?!”
Another important point that I really consider is that when you think about it a fantasy story still needs rules in order to actually function. So I also make sure when I’m doing this that it doesn’t become too unrealistic or out there. It sort of stays grounded, and that also has a big impact on the story.
Anime Herald: Uririn is adorable. Is this the Uririn from Uriurikoron that grew up to do public relations?
Hyuuganatsu: Noooo. I would love to have this from Sanrio but no. Sanrio has their Uririn and you can go see that Uririn at Puroland anytime you like. (laughs) Sanrio please hire me, I will do my best as Uririn! (laughs)
A-to-J Connections: Have any storylines or characters become more important than you originally thought they would be?
Hyuuganatsu: I always say Jinshi but actually originally Jinshi was supposed to die. But we figured if I killed him off everyone would get really mad so we decided to let him live. (laughs) And as a matter of fact the original plan was to have Gaoshun kill him. So it’s a very different story. But no, it would be bad and people would get upset.
Jotaku Network: What are the overall feelings or messages you’re hoping to impart onto readers of The Apothecary Diaries?
Hyuuganatsu: I wasn’t actually looking to impart any kind of particular message. The way that I thought of it was I was writing a story that was like a wonderful fantasy that people could escape into when things in the real world get too difficult or too hard. So I was sort of creating that escape for people just for when real life kind of sucks.
Anime Herald: Do you have any questions for us?
Hyuuganatsu: In order to become popular here in America, what kind of question should I be asking? What kind of information do you guys want to hear? What kind of stories to you want to hear?
Anime Herald: Have you seen the movie The Princess Bride?
Hyuuganatsu: I haven’t seen it but I think I’ve heard of it before.
Anime Herald: The reason I bring it up is that the guy who wrote it is Willam Goldman and one of his most famous quotes about Hollywood is “Nobody knows anything.” And that’s true about anime as well: nobody knows what’s going to be the next big thing. Like nobody saw Yuri!!! On Ice! being the biggest show of it’s season. And so I wish we could help you but we can’t. (laughs)
Anime-Zing Radio: I would actually agree with that. The Apothecary Diaries is very much one of my favorite shows of all time. Like I wouldn’t even begin to know where to go with that question. It’s more like a media culture thing.
Hyuuganatsu: So basically what you’re saying is I should just try a lot of things? Okay! Then I will do my best to put out a more interesting story than The Apothecary Diaries.
Location: Anime Boston 2026
Interview Date: 4/4/2026
Guests: Natsu Hyuuga
Note: Interview edited for length and clarity.
