Well, this is going to be a rare one for me: usually when reading media from an anime I enjoyed, I still find a lot to like, enhance my experience or find outright better. However, while this is overall a pretty solid start, I was strangely disappointed after completing Volume 1 of Parallel World Pharmacy. The good news is much better arcs and more entertainment will be had as we explore this world full of inadequate medical care or exclusionist practices. But in revisiting the series in manga form, its inconsistancies really stand out, and in some cases, the art doesn’t really assist as it should. So combine that with a story that requires careful and specific explanations, and you have a combo that doesn’t really work from the start.
So with the glut of isekai on the market, what exactly does Parallel World Pharmacy do despite it being another person going to another world? Well this one focuses on medicine, which Professor Kanji Yakutani was involved in at 31. Driven desperately after losing his sister to an incurable illness, he overworked himself to an extent that his body could no longer handle. Hoping to take an hour nap, he instead wakes up in a new world, is immediately attended to by a young maid named Charlotte (Lotte), he was struck by lightning (well, the original host of his body was struck by lightning), and he’s named Farma de Médicis, the son of a family of pharmaceutics with a father who’s an archduke and the Chief Royal Pharmaceutist of the Empire. Needless to say, Farma’s got a lot to learn and much to accept, since he soon realizes he’ll be using his 21st century knowledge on top of his newly gained otherworld skills to raise the health standards in his new world, for nobles and commoners alike.
Parallel World Pharmacy will stand out due to its subject matter, and while it has some of the usual isekai traits — some I’ll get to later — it does make its presence felt by going heavy on medical knowledge, for better or worse. As this is based on a light novel it can’t keep everything, but conversely, compared to the anime, it can maintain a good portion of the source material while putting its own spin on things. It was noticeable reading this volume and remarking at points, “Don’t think this was in the anime!” For other series this would be an issue but here, this is very much what we should be getting from someone who dedicated his life to this field, so dropping all sorts of medicinal formulas, drug combinations, etc, that’s what this series needs to do.
The blending of that and fantasy does come about though. When Farma learns about his divine arts from Eléonore (Elen) and through her teachings, he begins to discover that in reincarnating he’s gained more power than a normal person — so much so he even frightens Elen when she brings up his abnormal actions and having no shadow or reflection. So if she’s terrified, how will others who discover this respond? It’s not all fun and roses for Farma, who’s got to get used to his new fantasy environment and do so in an understated manner.
But as you can figure, he can’t help himself. The first volume shows him caring for a number of people within his household, him declaring he wants to cure his sister of chicken pox, and him aspiring to make sure everyone gets the proper amount of care no matter who they are. And despite being in the presence of accredited pharmacists (and even his father), he offers to the Emperor — currently experiencing tuberculous and no known treatment available — that he can create a medicine that would let her live. Needless to say, that’ll be some of the conflicts Farma will go through the more he uses his know-how and his family’s power as he progresses in his new world.
I will be looking forward to seeing this play out in manga form, but maybe it’s because I’m reliving this all over again that the conveniences seem more egregious than I remember. From the lightning strike to how the people respond to Farma is pretty typical power fantasy moments that just happen and it’s just accepted. I can’t remember the mom being as excited as she was shown in this first volume when Farma resolved her back issue, so that caught me off guard. And largely, the art seems unimpressive? It overall doesn’t really stand out when turning the pages, and we had Farma’s divine art go haywire and a battle between father and son. So all in all, returning to this series wasn’t exactly what I hoped, but there’s still enough here, more arcs to come, and a good cliffhanger that makes it worth your time — even moreso if you’re looking for something with a twist on the standard isekai tropes.