As one of the leftovers from the previous fall season, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto‘s second consecutive cour is now airing, adapting the second volume of the source Light Novel.

As a big fan of the series, both through Nekokurage‘s manga adaptation and the LN itself, I’m very pleased with how Lakan was subtly introduced in the past few episodes. The aura of mystery and uneasiness that surrounds his character has been portrayed in the best possible way in the B Part of Episode #15, last week’s episode.

Low camera angles, gloomy lighting and well designed and expressive framing (Maomao being figuratively “caged” in the Palace, between the lamp on the left and the pillars on the right, and Jinshi, being oppressed by Lakan‘s presence as he’s positioned at the edge of the frame, drawn at such an angle that Lakan purposefully covers Gaoshun in the background leaving just the two of them in the shot) really helped driving the point home, making this one of my favorite sequences this season so far.

Talking about visually interesting sequences, alongside with this one from Episode #15, the one at the beginning of Episode #14 definitely stands out, solemnly showcasing the entrance of the new consort in the Inner Palace, highlighting just the red color on (and around) her figure, and desaturating the other tones to accentuate her pretentious attitude. A brilliant way to achieve visually-expressive storytelling with rather simple means.

Moving on to this week’s Episode #16, much like its predecessors, it covered another self-contained story. The solution to this week’s mystery revolved, above all, around “light”. This show has been really effective in meticulously depicting lighting and shadows since its very first few episodes, showing great care and attention to detail; this time as well, when such detail had actually played a role in solving the mystery, the lighting of the room was indeed a major visual element throughout the whole episode, in the form of thoroughly drawn shadows and digital effects.

Another key element of this week’s episode was the relationship between father and son (or daughter), a theme this story has been carefully building up to throughout its run.

---

So far, a modest yet surprising and creative production, crafting week by week a solid and valuable adaptation with (a rather methodical but surely effective) vision and soul. Arguably, one of the most interesting currently airing shows, and possibly one I’m going to cover more on this blog over the next few weeks.