Literature / Parallel World Pharmacy

Ever since his little sister died from an inoperable brain tumor, Kanji Yakutani devoted himself tirelessly to making medicine. His efforts have made him a world-renowned pharmacist for his successful treatment of illnesses previously thought incurable. But doing so much to promote public health takes a toll on his own well-being, and he ends up dying in his sleep from a heart attack brought on by severe overwork.

Instead of some great beyond, Yakutani finds himself in the body of one Farma de Medici, the son of the Royal Court Pharmacist of the kingdom of the San Fleuve Empire. Poor Farma had been struck by lightning and had lost his pulse for an hour before waking up, and his faithful maid Lotte is the first to congratulate him on his miraculous recovery. After gaining his bearings, "Farma" is dismayed to learn that this world is mired in superstition due to the presence of "Divine Arts", feats of magic granted by the world's guardian deities. Not only that, but he has been given the Mark of the Medicine God, granting him miraculous (and by his own admission, overpowered) abilities for the diagnosis and treatment of illness.

With these gifts in mind, the new Farma de Medicis makes it his mission to bring modern medicine to this fantasy world.

Parallel World Pharmacy (Isekai Yakkyoku) is a light novel written by Liz Takayama with illustrations by keepout. It has also received a manga adaptation with art by Sei Takano that is being published in Comicwalker and an anime adaptation from June 2022 to September 2022.

First PV.

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Isekai Yakkyoku provides examples of:

• Accidental Pervert: At one point, Farma accidentally ends up on the women's side of a hot springs.
• Adaptational Curves: Inverted, the anime has Elenore bust size significantly reduced from both her Light Novel and Manga counterparts.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Farma goes from a platinum blonde hair color in the light novel (as seen on the page image) to a yellow blonde for the manga and anime.
• Adaptation Expansion: The manga adaptation greatly expands on Farma's previous life. His former identity is given a name, Kanji Yakutani, and it's revealed that he's so motivated to help others because his little sister died of an inoperable brain tumor.
• Adapted Out: A scene where Farma has to administer acetaminophen through a rectal suppository is removed from the anime. Not surprising as the patient was a nine-year-old girl.
• All Myths Are True: Downplayed. Farma is surprised to know that astrology-based healing and other such rituals do in fact have function and can heal the sick. His medicine just ensures that their success rate increases even higher - because a lot of it is just bunk, and even when working, scientific medicine is just more efficient a lot of the time. He's especially shocked to learn that demons do exist and are not just signs of mental illness, with his first real encounter being responsible for The Empress's and his father's tuberculosis as well as the Plague outbreak that nearly decimated a neighboring nation.
• Ambiguously Human: Farma's body and soul are human, but because his connection to the God of Medicine he has magic beyond any human, lacks a shadow and is able to touch a staff that can't be touched by humans.
• As You Know: Most of the exposition regarding the world and the magical system is given in lectures by other characters to Farma. Makes sense considering that he is from another world and his family and acquaintances think he suffers from amnesia.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The San Fleuve Empire chooses its emperors based on the strength of their Magical Arts. The current Empress is an extremely powerful fire user from a partial holy crest on her body and she asked Farma to challenge her to a duel for the throne when he is older (he obviously refused).
• Better to Die than Be Killed: After suffering a serious leg fracture that could easily get infected, Salomon opts to kill himself immediately rather than suffer through an excruciating death by infection. Farma puts a stop to this and ends up operating on Salomon to save his life.
• Big Brother Instinct: In the manga and anime adaptation, Yasukani's little sister died of an inoperable brain tumor. Because of this Farma dotes on Blanche, who is confused by Farma's sudden change-of-heart when he used to never spend time with her. By erasing a huge amount of saltwater to save Blanche from drowning, he ends up drawing the attention of the Holy Inquisition, who believe him a demon in human form.
• The Black Death: The finale of the anime focuses around preventing The Black Death from proliferating throughout the kingdom and its capital.
• Blind Without 'Em: Ellen can't see anything without her glasses. It's made worse by her habit of dropping them when she gets caught off guard.
• Blood Knight: After she recovers, Empress Elizabeth II is eager to challenge Farma to a fight with the throne of the Empire on the line. Farma strongly refuses, thoroughly exasperated by her Majesty's Leeroy Jenkins tendencies.
• Brought Down to Normal: The Church does this either to noble newborns without a patron deity or to criminals who abuse their Magical Art.
• Casts No Shadow: Farma, as a side effect of being a divine vessel. Noticing this after experiencing his powers for the first time causes Elenore to have minor freakout and run away in panic. This also attracts the attention of the Holy Inquisition. After concluding that Farma is only using his powers benevolently, they give him a magical necklace that restores his shadow when worn.
• Celibate Hero: cares for nothing other than work resulting in No Romance whatsoever for Falma.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The fight between Farma and the seven inquisitors only lasted as much as it did because Farma was holding himself back while trying to talk things out with them the entire time.
• Church Police: The church sends priests out to capture and kill Farma for blasphemy before realizing that he basically is the incarnation of a god after all.
• Defiant to the End: Many of Farma's biggest detractors, who are pharmacist as well, downright refused to take his medicine for the pandemic plague. This stubbornness cost them their lives. Luckily, their stubborn pride to show that they could make medicine just as well as Farma allowed their families to take it, if only to use it as a control.
• Demonic Possession: There are demons who possess people in this world, though some of the cases, such as Lady Melody's, are actually regular mental illnesses.
• The Dreaded: Farma and his little sister Blanche are terrified of their older brother Palle, who tends to go overboard with his brand of "tough love", especially when training them.
• Dude Where Is My Respect: Subverted. Most of the time Farma doesn't care that people look down on him. He knows that even if he is a respected pharmacist from modern-day Japan he is physically a ten-year-old, so their skepticism is understandable.
• Elemental Powers: Magic users have affinity for a specific element. The said element can be in positive form (create it) or negative (negate it). Negative users are rare. There are also non-elementals, an affiliation believed to be restricted to deities. Farma is a positive and negative non-elemental.
• Experienced Protagonist: Yakutani was an expert doctor and pharmacologist in his previous life, and all of that knowledge is retained as Farma.
• Fantasy Pantheon: Every person has a patron deity alongside with their elemental affinity. The gods mentioned so far are the elemental ones, the god of blacksmiths and the god of medicine.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Farma is notorious for being a workaholic. His tendency to overwork himself means that in his previous life he was constantly skipping meals and sleep in order to keep working which eventually kills him when he's somewhere around in his 30s. Despite his resolve to take it easier in his new life, the need for a medical revolution means that he ends up falling right into this old habit.
  • Another literal example is pride for the Pharmacy Guild, merchants who ply their pharmacology skills using ancient herbal remedies that a former member considered their effectiveness coincidental at best. Due to Farma giving out affordable medicine that did it's work to the people as well as good customer service, the Otherworldly Pharmacy craters their business. Because of this, they refused to take the levofloxacin Farma had develop to combat the Y. Pestis epidemic, sure that their self-treatment would work despite worsening symptoms. They all died, with their families, who had taken the medicine given to them, living on to tell the tale.
• Freudian Excuse: The reason the baron of the Apothecary's Guild is dead set against the Parallel World Pharmacy is due to the fact that his child died of an illness that a noble could have cured, but didn't because they were commoners.
• Friendly Shopkeeper: Farma opens his pharmacy and offers free, clean drinking water to anyone who enters his shop. In addition to making his medicines affordable and effective, he also offers free emergency checkups for the ill and creates new products in response to consumer demand.
• Gratuitous French: The spells are all in French.
• Hellish Pupils: Farma's eyes become slitted when he's using his Divine Eye ability. Subverted, though, in that he's the protagonist using the ability to heal people.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Though Bruno's methods lack in some areas, he is a much better Apothecary than Farma gives him credit for initially. Farma himself ends acknowledging and coming to respect his father's talent and commitment.
  • Lotte is a really good artist despite not having any formal instruction. The quality of her work impresses the Empress, who names Lotte Court Painter.
• The High Queen: Empress Elizabeth II is a force to be reckoned with, both by her extremely powerful magic and her strength of character.
• Hospital Hottie: Farma's Divine Arts and pharmacology tutor, Elanor Bonnefoy is most definitely one as her introduction has Farma becoming flustered at the voluptuous curves of her body.
• Hot-Blooded: The Empress is this trope in spades, which is appropriate considering her magic. Palle, on the other hand, is this despite of his.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: After literally killing himself by working too much, Farma just wants to take it slow and live as an ordinary doctor. Unfortunately for him, his grandiose powers and noble status lead to him stumbling into the spotlight time and again, and his inability to leave a patient untreated means that he ends up using his powers more than he'd like to.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Lampshaded by Farma with an injured priest requiring surgery, since, as a pharmacist, Farma is not a qualified surgeon and only having rudimentary knowledge of the process.
• Incurable Cough of Death: The "White Death" a.k.a Tuberculosis. The Empress and Bruno suffered from this before Farma creates the cure.
• I Owe You My Life: Elizabeth II is thankful to Farma for saving her life when all the other doctors of her court had given up. Because of this, she throws her full royal support behind Farma in all his endeavors, granting him the title of Royal Court Pharmacist, granting him land and a new pharmacy to his specifications, and putting her seal in front of the door to make a name for him. She also launches an investigation into the vandals who tried to trash his store out of outrage for attacking someone under her protection.
• King Incognito: Old man Jean, the elderly man who hangs around the pharmacy only for water and cough drops is actually a powerful Admiral of the Empire.
• Littlest Cancer Patient: The Japanese pharmacologist's late sister dies to an inoperable brain tumor resilient to drug treatment.
• Locked Out of the Loop: While Palle sees how truly skilled Farma is when he needs treatment for his leukemia, he remains ignorant of his brother's biggest accomplishments and status as a god.
• Martial Pacifist: Farma is a doctor first and a magician second. He never starts fights, only finishes them, and despite the strength of his magic he always makes sure the pacification is non-lethal, even going as far as treating wounds he himself inflicted. Only once has he ever violated this rule, and in that edge case, it was against a man who had become a literal embodiment of the bubonic plague.
• Meaningful Name: Farma de Medici. Named after Pharmacy and Medicine.
• Mundane Utility: While nobles are expected to use their Divine Arts to defend their countries when necessary, most of the time their Divine Arts get used to hone their craft and make a living. Water Divine Arts users create clean water for themselves and others to drink while Fire Divine Arts users can use it to make incredibly break-resistant glass for tools like graduated cylinders.
• Named After Somebody Famous:
  • The Empress of the San Fleuve Empire is Elizabeth II, who shares her name with the real-life Queen of the United Kingdom.
  • Farma and the rest of his family are named after the de Medici family, who ruled Florence in the 16th Century.
• New Life in Another World Bonus: Farma is granted the Mark of the Medicine God upon his reincarnation. As a result, he has a nearly-inexhaustible supply of Divine Power that is normally limited in one's lifespan, the ability to create anything he knows the chemical composition of or destroy it, as well as "Divine Sight" that allows him to quickly diagnose any illness, substituting for complicated machinery like X-rays, CT and MRI scans. Farma himself lampshades how incredibly overpowered these abilities are, especially in a society that completely lacks any of these things.
• Nice Guy: Farma is nothing but kind, humble, and polite, and his only notable flaw is his tendency to not care for himself.
• Noodle Incident: Ellen got caught at some point insulting the Empress.
• Older Than They Look: Farma is a 31-year-old man in a 10-year-old's body. While his soul was apparently fused with the real Farma's, the latter only ever manifests as flash of memories of his previous skills, it's not clear if he is even around anymore.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: In his previous life, Farma was a genius pharmacist responsible for curing numerous illnesses thought completely untreatable. He's also able to apply his knowledge of organic and biochemistry to create candy and cosmetics, as well as having enough knowledge of engineering and manufacturing processes to construct a primitive telescope as well as mass produce personal-protection equipment like surgical masks and hazmat suits. He can even perform simple surgeries, albeit he doesn't feel qualified for it and only performed it as a last resort to save Salomon's life from a potentially lethal fracture.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: The staff that Farma is given after the scuffle with the inquisitors seems like an ordinary silver staff that Farma fears could easily be stolen, but the gifter disproves this since, even if Farma were separated from it, no normal person could ever hold it, literally, as it passes through their hands as if it were a ghost. Farma is the only exception as he is able to wield it without issue.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Bruno, Ellen and Palle are legitimately talented magic users and pharmacists, Farma is just in a different league.
• The Plague: Farma and co has to deal with an outbreak of the literal black plague in one arc, along with the political complications and the person behind its spread.
• The Power of Creation: Farma can create any element he knows the composition of with his left hand and erase it with his right hand. He primarily uses this to create reagents for mixing medicine, though it has obvious combat applications as well.
• Power Tattoo: Having a holy crest is proof the person has been touched by a god and blessed with their power. If the crest is complete the person becomes the god's vessel. Farma has two complete ones on his upper arms and the Empress has an incomplete one on her leg.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Empress Elizabeth II is a hammy, Blood Knight of a queen who is eager to test her mettle against Farma despite the latter's refusal. But she understands the debt she owes to him for saving her life from tuberculosis and lavishes him with titles, land for a pharmacy, and her full royal backing. She's also outraged when Farma's pharmacy is vandalized by the Apothecary's Guild and orders an investigation immediately.
  • High Priest Salomon comes across as an unreasonable Knight Templar at first, but after discovering that Farma is the Medicine God incarnate, he eagerly helps Farma with anything he asks, up to and including erasing troublesome records, offering Farma a staff to replace his old, broken one, and organizine a massive quarantining effort to contain the bubonic plague.
• Reincarnation: The Japanese pharmacist reincarnates in Farma after both of them die. According to the first novel prologue, their souls have been fused, although the original Farma's soul has been dormant so far. Farma's father even notices this and asks the boy if he truly is his son after the boy spectacularly counters his father's attempt at stopping what he thinks is Farma brewing poison for the Empress when in reality it's the cure for her illness. The boy can only answer that he believes that he is, hinting to his father that the Farma he knew before the lightning incident isn't the Farma he sees now.
• Religious Bruiser:
  • High Priest Salomon is a member of the Holy Inquisition, rooting out demonic entities and slaying those who blaspheme against the guardian gods.
  • Palle is a musclehead who takes great pride in his strength and also a very devout man who goes to the temple every day. His imminent death may have something to do with it.
• Required Secondary Powers: Farma can only use Creation and Destruction if he knows the composition of whatever material he is trying to create/erase. The Diagnostic Eye would also be useless if he didn't know the many illnesses and treatments, as he has to list every possibility for the eye to show him the correct ones.
• Running Gag: Farma inventing something new and forgetting to tell the Empress, made more hilarious because it's a Berserk Button for her.
• Secretly Dying:
  • A downplayed example but Bruno got tuberculosis from the Empress. It was the earliest stage so it was easily fixed.
  • Palle is revealed to be dying from leukemia.
• Secret-Keeper: While nobody knows about Farma's reincarnation, Bruno, Ellen, Salomon and the Empress know about his Medicine God powers.
• Shown Their Work: The writers tried hard to make sure the medicines and medical procedures are correct. The author has a PhD in pharmacology, and the anime writers have an MD, a PhD in biology, and a pharmacologist listed as science supervisors.
• Slow Life Fantasy: The protagonist Kanji was a world-renowned pharmacist who died from overwork but finds himself reborn in another world where medicine is still heavily steeped in superstition. Using his Past-Life Memories and medical knowledge, he sets out to open his own pharmacy in this world and teach people the benefits of modern medical knowledge.
• Smug Super: Palle is proud of his talents as both an apothecary and a user of Divine Arts and never stops rubbing it in people's faces. Farma is able to manipulate him simply by flattering him, calling it "Too easy."
• Spell My Name With An S: Crunchyroll uses the more on-the-nose name of Farma rather than Falma, giving our hero a Punny Name.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • When Ellen discovers that Farma, upon recovering from being struck by lightning, has far more powerful magic than he used to have, and has lost his shadow, isn't impressed. She's terrified, fleeing for her life immediately, and wearing a full set of armour for their next meeting, suspecting him to be possessed, or some sort of impostor masquerading as Farma. Most people would be, if the 10 year old they were tutoring lost their shadow, and suddenly started behaving completely differently, with different abilities compared to what they had before.
  • Farma opening a pharmacy in the middle of town gets the attention of many people, in particular, the church inquisitors. Especially when combined with his lack of shadow, and using a powerful, never-before-seen Divine Art to save his sister, causing a Pillar of Light that could be seen far off. These anomalies cause them to suspect that he is a demon or nefarious being of that nature. Lampshaded by one of the inquisitors, who asks Farma what he expected from being around a popular place in the middle of town, and not even attempting to hide his lack of shadow by going out in broad daylight.
  • Parents Know Their Children. Farma's father Bruno is quick to notice Farma's odd behavior since he was struck by lightning, and the more bizarre and absurd things Farma does, the more concerned Bruno becomes. It reaches a head when Farma is tasked with curing the Empress' illness, the father confronting the son fearing he's making a poison instead. It was not a pleasant conversation, and there's no Contrived Coincidence to interrupt it; Bruno finds out Farma has been marked by the Medicine God and is no longer fully the son he knew. Fortunately what could've been a messy family affair was smoothed over when the Empress and Bruno himself were cured by Farma's medicine, and they mend fences.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The Apothecary Guild's stubborn denial of Farma's skills takes a lethal turn when they catch the Black Plague after it spreads all over the empire. They refuse to be treated with his medicine with predictable results. Thankfully, their families were smarter and accepted Farma's treatment.
  • Farma himself. Not only does he not attempt to hide his lack of shadow, despite being specifically told not to attract the attention of the church by being abnormal, but when a stranger asks his assistance to be taken elsewhere far off, he follows, without taking so much as a guard, or a friend along. This, despite having made many powerful enemies, such as the Apothecary Guild, as well as being a member of the Royal Court, and being the child of a high-ranking nobleman. Unsurprisingly, this causes him to run right into a trap laid for him by the Inquisitors. He could easily have been killed, or kidnapped.
• Vitriolic Best Friends: Ellen and Palle bicker all the time but they've been friends for years and Ellen is devastated when she learns Palle is dying of leukemia.
• Warrior Monk: The inquisitors fight demons as part of their duty so they are this out of need.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Who names their kids Palle (pill) and Farma (pharma)? Blanche was the only lucky enough to get a more normal name.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Subverted. As a 10-year-old, Farma is considered a Child Prodigy by the rest of the world for bringing miraculous advances in medicine. In truth, Farma has the mindset of a 31-year-old man.
• Workaholic: Farma acknowledges this as his Fatal Flaw, especially because it killed him in his past life. He is now trying to break the habit but it's not being easy for him.