Licensed!

Written by AuriCa

I’m sure most of you would have already heard the news by now, but the Kusuriya LN has been licensed!

You can find it here: https://j-novel.club/s/the-apothecary-diaries

So what does that mean for the fanTL? Nothing much. We’ve essentially caught up with the raws (after I release the last chapter on Monday) so we’re at a nice stopping point with no danger of cliff hangers and sudden drop offs. It just means I won’t be picking up the next arc once it resumes some time next year. Thank you for reading my translation of the web novel; it was nice sharing it with you all 🙂

Will I be taking down the translations? Not sure yet, but I’ll definitely be taking down the LN snippets later today.

39 thoughts on “Licensed!”

    1. Woooa that good news… Already hope the LN get licensed in English, so I can support the Author. Thank you so much Aurica. Really appreciate your efforts and time for translate WN ver. Kusuriya is one of my favorite novel because you translate it till now. Hope we will meet again in the future.

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  2. Great to see it got licensed finally and I will definitely be buying it but damn it is rather depressing the web novel gonna be dropped since it differs from the LN and will probably be years till the LN even catches up. It has been something I really looked forward to each week. Not to mention it tends to take 6 months to a year for first volumes to be released when licensed.

    Thank you for all the work you done on translating this series over the years and keeping at it for so long. It was fun being part of the little community in the comments section and great how much you interacted with the readers who commented.

    Will you be leaving up the um character listings page that identify who is who?

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    1. I had so much fun translating Kusuriya over these years, so ngl, I am feeling a bit sad right now. I’m also over the moon since my dream of getting the novel noticed and officially published in English has been reached. The comments were certainly the best part of translating. I’m glad you enjoyed my work. Thank you for sticking around for such a long time, even I’m surprised that I was at it for this long hahaha (knowing how the community works, someone is probably gonna pick up the novel later)

      JNC has the prepub thing, and they’re super fast, so it shouldn’t take too long. The LN release in Japan is quite sporadic, so I can see the English translation catching up in no time.

      That character page will stay up. I’m going to keep updating it too so it will be a secret little treasure trove of spoilers.

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      1. Not real sure how JNC works. I just buy my ebooks on kindle. Let alone the prepub thing. I think I heard they had a problem with amazon canceling no game no life pre orders on them so I’m hoping it even makes it to kindle.

        Thinking about it didn’t you say a good while back when talking about if the LN got licensed if you decided to stop/take down the chapters of the web novel about making a pdf available of them? I might be mixing things up honestly.

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  6. Thank you so much for your translations! I looked forward to your updates every week and I will certainly miss your WN updates when the next arc comes around. But I’m super happy J-Novel licensed the LN! I look forward to comparing the differences between the LN and WN 😆.

    If you have any future translation projects I’ll look forward to it💕

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    1. If I do translate stuff, it probably won’t be a full-length novel series like kusuriya. I might just post teasers of novels that pique my interest on this blog every once in a while, but I haven’t decided on anything yet. Right now I’m just gonna bask in all this free time I now have too much of 😆

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  7. I’m so excited! But man.. I’ll miss the comments section, and your TL/thoughts section. It felt like the commenters were a team of junior detectives, but now they’re breaking up lol. I’m so grateful that you kept translating for this long, I’ve had so much fun reading and rereading and going over juicy scenes in my brain and rereading again haha. Thank you for your hard work AuriCa!

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    1. Yeah, I’m going to miss the comment section so so much. They were the highlight of my day. Now let’s hope all that juicy speculating gets carried over to a larger audience. It’s going to be great fun reading them all!

      Thank you for reading! It was my pleasure ❤

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  9. Thanks so much for the work you’ve done! This might get sappy so bear with me.

    Early this year my grandmother died and my mother had a hard time dealing with it because we’re in a different country and she couldn’t be there for her mother’s passing or the moments leading up to it because of the whole covid issue. It also didn’t help that it happened quite near to mum’s birthday.

    So to help take her mind off of it, I would read her your translations. She enjoyed it a lot, even though she never remembers anyone’s name. She even has her own headcanon and fanfic ideas.

    So you can rest easy knowing that you’ve made a fan out of a woman in her fifties who went through a painful time. And we’re definitely buying the English release in February. Maybe I’ll read it to her again.

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  10. Thanks for all the translations! I’m kinda said that the WN is getting dropped, because I actually prefer it over the LN, but I’m excited to see this story reach more people. It’s bittersweet.

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  11. So in the j novel prepub they are calling it the rear palace instead of inner palace and Jinshi looking like a nymph instead of celestial maiden. What do you think of these changes? My experience it is always called the inner palace in these setting. Plus celestial maiden seems more fitting.

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    1. Rear court, Rear palace, Inner court, Inner palace. I’ve heard of different variations of the same term (後宮). It’s my first time hearing ‘rear palace’, but I’ve encountered ‘rear court’ in some Chinese novel translations. Note the literal translation of 後 is ‘rear, back, behind’.

      Inner court is actually the term I’ve seen used officially for actual ancient Chinese palaces, the Forbidden City, and the Grand Palace in Thailand too. (Also makes more sense since it’s the imperial court, not the imperial palace). Inner Palace is used for the women’s chambers in the Heian Palace in Japan; it’s also the most popular translation used in the novel translation community–the main reason why I picked this term.
      —
      I’ve always associated nymphs with Grecian nature spirits, so it’s not the term I would choose for a novel with an Imperial Chinese setting. But they are quite similar in terms of attributes–beautiful young women, ethereal, akin to spirits, etc, so it’s not a wrong term per se.

      Celestial maiden sounds more fitting to me too. Only because that was the term that was hammered into me as a kid, after hearing so much folklores about these ladies from my maternal grandmother all the time hahaha… (and Ayashi no Ceres helped with my picking of this term). Also, it lacks the extra connotations that nymph that comes with. Works as a beautiful direct literal translation of the original term too. Anyway, I see this term used more for the East Asian version of apsaras.

      I’ve also heard of people translating it as fairy but that comes with unfortunate implications for Jinshi lmao

      Make that as you will. In my opinion, there isn’t a correct answer.

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  12. Aurica-san. Thank u for your hard works translating it. But please dont remove the translated WN 😭😭😭. I love both LN n WN. Anyway, just for confirmation. Are they gonna release the physical release one? Or it just e-book? Im not familiar yet with light novel stuff.

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    1. Whether the WN stays up depends on the publishers. I think, with the JNC model, whether the novels get a physical release or not depends on its popularity. The only thing I know is that there will definitely be an ebook release.

      Thank you for reading!

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  13. Ngl actually started tearing a bit…then I realized I now have to go digging through novel updates to find something this good with as excellent translation (both coherent and accurate) with regular updates with a committed party who won’t just dissolved into the internet ether for my regular weekly read and you know that’s impossible…😭😭😭😭

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    1. Awww, you give me too much credit. I started out really badly and only got the improve thanks to all the feedback and constructive criticism I got from you guys. I stayed for so long because of the fun little discussions that happen in the comment section. I’m sure you’ll find a great novel with a committed translator, and given time and lots of encouragement, they’ll become excellent translators too, since good translation is more a matter of experience than anything else, so don’t lose hope 😀

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      1. A question to this. Do you have any plans for things in the future or gonna just try and relax for a while and bask in the feeling of a job well done so to speak?

        This is now two series that you brought attention to that now have had the LN licensed. It has to feel pretty good.

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        1. I’m going to sleep on this question.

          Well, I still have Koukyuu no Karasu so I do have something to go back to if I pick up translating again 😌 More LNs with Chinese settings would be nice. It’s quite a popular genre in Japan too.

          but for now, I shall rest.

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          1. Chinese setting is good though seems like finding something like this series style and quality could be harder. Also some the chinese ones are carbon copies of each other. I’ve seen couple series that literally was the same setup and the exact same things happen in the exact same places in the exact same ways.

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  14. Hi, I had commented on creative novels under the name Ker, I’ll repeat again thanks for all of your hard work. I don’t know if you noticed on the J-novel forum there is a thread about names and whatnot about this franchise, they are changing the name of Gyokuyou and Rifa too? not sure since I don’t have a subscriber I prefer to buy a book when it’s completed on kindle, they are asking for suggestion and all that jazz since you translated the WN did the author left comments at the end of chapters?

    https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3872/the-apothecary-diaries-corrections-topic/6

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    1. Interesting thread. I can only offer the official translator my sympathies.

      The author didn’t leave any comments in the webnovel, but she might’ve brought it up on her twitter account. I vaguely remember something like that. If she did, it was a while ago, so there’ll be a lot of scrolling to do to find it again xD

      The names (which are the same for both wn and ln) are indeed a bit of a headache to translate since the author uses three different reading styles (Japanese on’yomi, Japanese kun’yomi and Mandarin) interchangeably. I speak three Chinese dialects myself, so it’s not that I didn’t entertain the idea of using other Chinese varieties. The naming choice doesn’t have anything to do the character’s background either; it’s quite random, so probably, the author decided whatever sounded best to her at the moment. But this being a Japanese novel, I translated the names as is to avoid opening this can of worms hahaha. (I’ve seen this done for other Japanese works with Chinese settings too.) Honestly, the best way out of this is to pick one reading style, but seeing how the publisher wants to follow the ruby text, there’s nothing much they can do…

      I’ve seen other Chinese-style novels do that too, so maybe the mixed naming styles is a genre thing?

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      1. I see, I was wondering would changing the name of Lady Gyokuyou mess things up in the long run? I mean with Gyoku’ou and Gyokuy’en, how would that end up? If they change one they’ll have to change the others right? Also with the kebab thing, not sure I approve, meat skewer sounds way better, kebab is localization a bit too far if you ask me hehe. Anyhow thanks much for replying to my questions and hats off for knowing that much languages, I know only 2, French which is my mother tongue, and English that I learned through the years even if I had learned a bit in school as second language which I was not that great for a while (still not perfect though) good thing internet exists or I would not be able to practice English since 99% of the people around where I’m at only speaks French hehe

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        1. Changing Gyokuyou’s name would also mean changing Jinshi’s name for consistency xD

          Meat skewers is nice and neutral, whereas kebab assumes a middle eastern dish. Although, the Chinese skewers did originate from the middle eastern version, so… eh. They could’ve called it chuan if they wanted to maintain the Chineseness. Now I wonder how will they translate the obviously Chinese dishes in the novel.

          I just got lucky with my languages. All the languages I know now are something I picked up as a kid. I don’t know if I can pick up a new language at my age now, but I would love to learn French (among a whole lot of other languages haha)

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          1. I just remembered something, the manga got licensed too right? I wonder how it will end up, I mean name wise, ohh I just watched the trailer of the manga released by Square Enix, and they say Jinshi and Gyokuyou’s name, it will turn out weird if one translation says the names right and one with a translator’s “liberties” here’s the link for the trailer don’t know if you have seen it or not, first time seeing it for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdjQ_dkXr4s&feature=emb_logo

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  15. Thank you so much for your hard work all these years!! I have read the Taiwanese version of LN and it’s so different from the WN, but still very interesting of course. I’m so sad that I won’t be able to see the WN translated by you anymore, as reading has been my reward after a long day of studying. I’m learning Japanese now so hopefully I’ll be able to read it myself >< Nonetheless, thank you again for your dedication and I hope you’ll enjoy the English version of LN as much as I do!!

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    1. Thank you for reading! Good luck with your studies! I’ve seen the Taiwanese version at my local Kinokuniya, and I must say, they’re huge–at least compared to the Japanese bunko books. They also cost so much more than the Japanese version here so I’m a bit hesitant in getting them hahahaha They’re quite ahead though. On second thought, it’ll be nice to collect different versions of Kusuriya just to compare them all actually.

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