Maomao, Xiaolan and Shisui Get an Afternoon Off
The new illustration at the center of this draw skips the court intrigue entirely. Maomao, Xiaolan and Shisui sit in a grassy field among blooming flowers, with no poisoning case anywhere in the frame.
The trio is the selling point here. Maomao is the apothecary's daughter working as a food taster in the imperial rear palace, and the series is built on her solving incidents nobody asked her to look into. Xiaolan is the fellow servant who became her first friend inside the palace walls. Shisui, the insect-obsessed lower-ranking maid, only joined at the start of Season 2, which makes her the newest of the three to get this kind of front-line merch billing. Natsu Hyuuga's series has passed 57 million copies in circulation.
What's in the Lineup
Maru-kuji is an online kuji, a paid digital draw where each ticket returns a physical prize. The tiers are named after the fortune ranks printed on Japanese shrine paper slips, running from cho-daikichi ("super great blessing") at the top down to sue-kichi at the bottom.
Per Japanese anime news site Anime Anime's rundown of the prize list, the tiers work out like this:
- Cho-daikichi: an A4 acrylic board (roughly 297 x 210mm) using the new illustration, with metal stand legs included.
- Daikichi: a selectable tote bag in two designs. The A4 cotton bags use new art plus newly drawn chibi versions of the characters, and winners pick their design from the results screen. That choice stays changeable until October 1, 2026 at 23:59:59.
- Chukichi: a selectable acrylic diorama in three designs, using the chibi art, on a board about 180 x 180mm.
- Shokichi: a letter and bromide set in three variations, each pairing notepaper and an envelope with a 127 x 89mm bromide card.
- Sue-kichi: can badges, 57mm across, with 12 designs total. Maomao, Xiaolan and Shisui each get four patterns, and the odds inside the tier are 1 in 12.
There is also a purchase bonus. Every 10 tickets earns a large-format bromide, and the count carries across separate transactions rather than resetting at each checkout.
Looking Ahead
Sales run until 23:59 on September 30 at 880 yen per ticket, with flat 550 yen shipping per order within Japan. Prizes ship roughly two and a half months after the sale window closes, so winners should expect their items around the middle of December.
That delivery window lands in the middle of a crowded few months for the franchise. Season 3 premieres October 2, with Yorushika handling the opening theme, and Crunchyroll is streaming the season as it airs. The first theatrical film, Gekijoban Kusuriya no Hitorigoto: Bohi no Hiho, opens in Japanese theaters on December 11. It has no official English title yet and no announced international release date, though Anime News Network renders the subtitle as "The Deceased Empress' Treasure."
For readers looking to get ahead of the anime, J-Novel Club publishes the light novels in English digitally, with Square Enix Manga & Books handling the print editions and the Nekokurage-illustrated manga. The kuji itself is a Japan-facing storefront, so overseas fans will need a forwarding service.