A Wednesday Puzzle for a Friday Episode
The riddle campaign, titled "#猫猫謎謎", runs on the broadcast schedule. A new riddle goes up every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. JST on the series' official X account, its official website, and its official account on the Japanese messaging app LINE. Solve it and you get a keyword tied to the episode airing that Friday at 11:00 p.m. JST on Nippon TV's late-night anime block. The answer is then posted the following Saturday at noon, once the episode has already aired.
The schedule leaves a gap. For two days, solvers are holding a keyword from an episode that has not aired yet, with no confirmation that they read the puzzle correctly. According to an Oricon News report, the puzzles were built specifically so they do not spoil or flatten the mystery the show is telling. They are also designed to be solvable without having watched the series, so the campaign is open to puzzle fans who have never met Maomao.
Nina Serizawa Designs the Riddles
The puzzles come from Nina Serizawa (芹沢仁菜), a Japanese puzzle creator with a sizeable social media following and the author of books including Damasare Kaikan Puzzle: Serizawa Nazo and Nazotoki no Kuni no Tabi. Oricon describes the brief as meaty, genuinely solve-worthy puzzles drawn from the world of the series, not quick character trivia.
That framing matters for a show whose appeal is procedural. The Apothecary Diaries does not usually hand its audience a reveal; it lays out symptoms, timelines and who stood where, and lets Maomao talk her way to the answer a beat before the viewer gets there. A puzzle campaign that resolved in ten seconds would be a mismatch.
What Maomao Actually Does
Readers arriving from the puzzle side may want the premise first. The series is set in the rear palace of a fictional empire, where Maomao, an apothecary raised in the pleasure district, is pressed into service at court. She uses her pharmacology background and an unusually sharp eye to pick apart the poisonings, suspicious deaths and political schemes moving through the palace.
Aoi Yuki returns as Maomao, with Takeo Ōtsuka as Jinshi. OLM animates Season 3. Norihiro Naganuma is chief director and handles series composition, Akinori Fudesaka directs, and Yukiko Nakatani designs the characters. Yorushika performs the opening theme "Kumo o Nuke Kazashimo e Watashi Dake" and Eve wrote the ending theme "AIYOU". The franchise is built on Natsu Hyuuga's light novels, published in Japan by Imagica Infos, and the series has topped 57 million copies worldwide.
Looking Ahead
Season 3 is a split cour. The first half is running now, and the second half is scheduled for April 2027. Crunchyroll holds the season exclusively across North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, the CIS and the Indian subcontinent, with episodes posting Fridays at 8:00 a.m. PT. Netflix carries it in select Asian territories.
One caveat for international fans: the riddles are posted on the Japanese-language official channels, and no English-language version of the campaign has been announced. Reading Japanese is part of the entry fee for now.
More is already lined up behind the broadcast. The theatrical film The Apothecary Diaries: The Deceased Empress' Treasure opens in Japan on December 11, 2026, with an original story by Hyuuga, and no international release date has been announced. A live-action drama starring Mana Ashida is set for 2028. English readers can run ahead of the anime: Square Enix Manga & Books publishes the light novels in print, J-Novel Club handles the digital editions, and Nekokurage's manga adaptation is also available in English from Square Enix Manga & Books.