Title: Parallel World Pharmacy Vol. 3
Author: Sei Takano (manga), Liz Takayama (original story), keepout (characters)
Publisher: One Peace Books
Language: English
Format: Digital
Pages: 168
Genre: Isekai, Fantasy
Publication Date: December 19. 2023
The Story
We start with Farma taking a tour of Marsierre where he has been granted land for growing the materials that he needs to create medicines for his pharmacy. While his father conducts his business, Farma, Blanche, Lotte, and Elen go check out the beach. Despite being told to stay out of the water, they head in anyway to “dip their toes.” By that, they mean to go have a splash fest. As one would expect, a riptide occurs and Blanche gets pulled under. Farma goes in after her and remembers his sister from the real world. He is determined to not lose a sister in both worlds and that’s when his divine arts activated… removing all of the water around them. The only problem is… someone witnessed this act and reported it to the church!
Back in town, a carriage crashed into the pharmacy and sludge filled the entire first floor. The emperor gets word of it and wants punishment to be handed out immediately. Thankfully, the pharmacy is highly popular and Farma gets a lot of assistance in cleaning up the mess. While the clean-up is underway, a woman states there is an emergency… her father had collapsed from heatstroke. Farma is dispatched but learns that it’s a trap.
The church appears to “eliminate the shadowless boy.” Not wanting to listen to Farma, they attack him. Farma must now defend himself over a giant misunderstanding!
Characters
Farma received a little bit of development as he began to learn about his right hand’s powers. While the left hand creates, the right-hand takes away. He learns what he can and can’t subtract from substances; however, despite this knowledge, he still doesn’t understand why his hand turns transparent whenever he uses his divine arts. He decides to leave that mystery for another time. Outside of that, he does show a new side of himself when he’s faced with the Inquisition. It was quite humorous how he handled the aftermath of their encounter. This is the new side of him that I am referring to. I’m not expecting to see this side every single chapter from here on out but it shows that Farma can hold his ground AND be quite intimidating when he needs to be!
The other point of development comes from the captain of the Inquisition. At first, he is very stubborn and will not listen to Farma’s attempts to explain himself. I mean… it’s the church…. When do they ever listen in stories such as this? Then, he becomes very humbled, and in the last chapter, we learn that the captain’s name is Salomon and… well… his character did a complete 180! It’s amazing what a little intimidation can do for someone! I don’t know if we will be seeing Salomon again in the future but, at least, Farma has a new unexpected ally!
Final Thoughts
Things slowed down a bit here in the third volume but rightfully so. We had so much thrown at us in the first two volumes that we needed a little bit of time to digest things. While things happened, it focused on the new land that Farma would own to create the herbs and medicines he needed, learning about his right hand’s powers, and then overcoming a little bit of trouble. For a cooldown volume, it hit all the right notes to be entertaining while letting events from the first two volumes play out and settle. Even with the conflict between Farma and the Inquisition, it ended in just two chapters and provided a nice little side story that could bear fruit later on down the line.
What was really interesting was the cliffhanger. It appears that we are getting a new character that, like Farma, is most likely mistaken to be a heretic or some sort of vessel for an evil being. The thing is, the church isn’t trying to judge her as such but rather, this new character, herself, requested the exorcism and to be restrained. Now, they are asking Farma to investigate. I am not sure where this is going to lead but this smells like the beginning of a new major story arc.
Honestly, if this gets us into a more fantasy-like scenario, I’m perfectly fine with that. While this series is about having a pharmacy in another world, there is only so much you can do with that before it gets stale. Adding in something like this and tying it together creates a bit of diversity and, therefore, adds more layers to the story rather than keeping it one-dimensional. That’s why I’m looking forward to this because it shows that this series can take classic fantasy elements and somehow incorporate them into the premise of owning a drugstore and curing people in another world.
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This item was purchased for review.
