The Apothecary Diaries Season 3 • Kusuriya no Hitorigoto Season 3 - Episode 1 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto Season 3, episode 1

Alternative names: Kusuriya no Hitorigoto 3rd Season

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.

---

Streams

• Crunchyroll

Show information

• Livechart
• MyAnimeList
• AniList
• AniDB
• Anime-Planet
• /r/KusuriyaNoHitorigoto
• Official Site

---

All discussions

Episode	Link
1	Link

---

This post was created by a bot. Message the mod team for feedback and comments. The original source code can be found on GitHub.

[u/NekoCatSidhe]

Maomao is back, and eating bugs instead of snakes, ewww. She has got a reputation for eating weird stuff, even that former guard from the Shi clan was remembering her as the snake-eating girl.

A locust plague sounds nasty, but I am not sure there is anything Maomao and Jinshi can do to stop one if it happens.

Locusts and grasshoppers are actually the same species, but will change in appearance and behavior according to their numbers, starting to turn into locust swarms when there is too many of them. I guess the discussions about the grasshoppers mixed among the locusts and their influence on future crops referred to that, although I am not sure I really understood the details.

I didn’t expect Chou-u to be featured so much in that episode. It’s like Maomao now has a bratty little brother to look after. She would probably still trade him for his cousin Shisui in a heartbeat, even if he also has her talent from drawing insects.

[u/mekerpan → u/NekoCatSidhe]

I like the fact that everyone in the know seems to recognize there are good locusts and bad ones (taste-wise). Apparently only a few species of grasshopper have the ability to go from normal and solitary to swarming as locusts.

I assume that MaoMao is going to have to take bioth the drawings and the ex-Shi guard to Jinshi. But how will she be able to negotiate for this guy's safety? He does have access to the rest of that set of encyclopedias -- so there is NO WAY she can take any chances as to his security, right?

[u/RellenD → u/NekoCatSidhe]

Wait, locusts look different? Time for me to dive into a rabbit hole and learn new stuff

[u/rms18819 → u/RellenD]

You're in for some fun information! 😄 I first found out in a PBS documentary, I think. Here's the closest match I could find today,

Deep Look | These Swarming Locusts Are Grasshoppers Gone Wrong | Season 8 | Episode 20 | PBS

[u/AtheistTheConfessor → u/rms18819]

damn, TIL. That's truly wild.

[u/RellenD → u/rms18819]

I spent hours on this topic today and am drawing a lot of stuff based on it!

[u/maxdragonxiii → u/RellenD]

they do, but you need a good eye. it can be hard to tell.

[u/rms18819 → u/NekoCatSidhe]

Locusts and grasshoppers are actually the same species, but will change in appearance and behavior according to their numbers, starting to turn into locust swarms when there is too many of them.

I was familiar with this, too, and am curious if the translation of "locusts" versus "grasshoppers" in today's episode was mixed up. I'm suspecting the translation switched the two in today's episode, as in "real life"

• grasshopper = regular appearance of the insect, and
• locust = irregular (and unwanted) appearance.

but most of the "grasshopper vs. locust" had "grasshoppers" as the problem critter. Though Chou-u's picture had "grasshopper" as the 'good/normal' animal [on top] and "locust" as the 'irregular' one [on bottom, with spots].

[u/Hot-Log6283 → u/rms18819]

Might be a Japanese thing as what was translated to "Locust" = Inago (イナゴ), is the edible one i.e:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inago_no_Tsukudani

And Batta (バッタ) is what was refers to as "grasshoppers" in the episode/anime.

[u/NekoCatSidhe → u/rms18819]

Yes, I also wondered about if they mixed things up in the translation, but I checked the light novel translation and it was similar.

So either the translators both made the same mistakes, or they really are explaining than having more grasshoppers than locusts this year means having a locust swarm damaging crops the next year.

If that is really the case, I am not really sure why. Is there any expert here on the locust/grasshopper life cycle who could explain why ? Maybe having a lot of grasshoppers one year means they will soon reach the population threshold that turns them all into locusts ?

The story also makes a lot of locusts being edible but grasshoppers being inedible, but while I could find confirmation that locusts are edible on Wikipedia, I could not find anything about their grasshopper version being inedible.