The Apothecary Diaries Doubles Down: Season 3 and Surprise Movie Hit Next Year After Chainsaw Man and Demon Slayer’s Box Office Surge
Mark your calendars: The Apothecary Diaries returns in October 2026, poised to deliver another hit of palace intrigue.
Good news for Apothecary Diaries fans: the show is coming back, and it is doing it in a slightly unusual order. Season 3 is split across two TV blocks with a theatrical detour right in the middle.
The release plan
- Season 3, Part 1 (first cour): October 2026
- Theatrical movie: December 2026, featuring an original story written by series author Natsu Hyuga
- Season 3, Part 2 (second cour): April 2027 as part of the spring season
The whole thing was announced during a Second Anniversary livestream, which explains why we heard nothing for a while. Normally, anime likes to tease the next season the second the current one wraps. Season 2 ended back in July, then we got months of silence, and fans started to wonder if Maomao was going to be left in the infirmary indefinitely. Not the case. We now have a very specific roadmap, complete with a movie pit stop.
If you are new here: The Apothecary Diaries follows Maomao, a sharp, poison-savvy apothecary navigating the medical mysteries of a Tang-era imperial palace. The show has only gotten hotter over the past year, climbing into MyAnimeList’s top 30 of all time with an 8.86 average from more than 400,000 user ratings. That is a serious crowd-pleaser number.
The movie being slotted between the two TV halves is interesting, but it fits the current playbook. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle just tore up the box office, and Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc is about to hit theaters. In other words, cinemas are where a lot of big anime chapters are landing right now. Also worth noting: while Vinland Saga fans are still waiting for a season 3 announcement after two critically loved seasons, Apothecary Diaries already has its next steps inked in.
One quick term check if you do not wade through anime schedules every season: a cour is basically a three-month TV block. So think of Season 3 as two separate runs, with an original-author-penned movie squeezed between them to keep the momentum going.