Parallel World Pharmacy

Episode 7

Farma needs to slow his roll, man. Yes, we know that the kid's modesty is earnest, and that he truly doesn't want to be treated like some sort of god, but instead a simple pharmaceutist that wants to bring life and happiness to the world. He just can't seem to help from being the divine force of seismic change that groups such as the Temple Inquisitors suspect him to be, though, which I suppose is only a natural consequence of possessing such degrees of abominable magic power that no mortal could even begin to comprehend. Still, even if his inherently good nature means that Farma ends up currying the favor of world's most powerful religious institution rather than being marked as their enemy, somebody is bound to notice that this ten-year-old rich kid is just gobbling up truly earth-shaking levels of political power and prestige. Truly, those immortal bards Miguel and Tulio had it right when they blessed us with that most relevant of gospel classics: “It's Tough to Be a God”.

It isn't tough for us, though, especially when we get to witness the show's first real action sequence when Farma has to face off against Salomon and his gang of Inquisitors. Naturally, Farma doesn't end up hurting anyone-he's Farma for crying out loud-but you can tell that he damn well could whoop those inquisitive asses if he felt like there was no other choice. There's truly nothing quite as cool as an all-powerful being casually brandishing is otherworldly capabilities while very calmly and sincerely requesting that everyone just chill the hell out for a minute. The Inquisitors all agree, at least when Solomon recognizes Farma as the Panactheos, and Farma instantly earns 100 Devotion Points when he forgoes allowing Salomon to kill himself as recompence for the Temple's heresy and instead saves him from the almost surely fatal open fracture that he suffered during the “battle”.

I appreciate the show acknowledging that Farma's pharmaceutical background doesn't exactly make him a candidate for performing complicated and completely anachronistic surgery on a man, which is almost enough to get me to ignore the fact that the episode just kind of goes ahead and has Farma do the surgery successfully anyways. I get the point of the scene in establishing Farma's relationship with the church and all, and besides, Farma gets a terrifyingly loyal and almost certainly down-to-clown(-and-by-“clown”-I-mean-murder) Temple Bishop out of the ordeal! Lotte and Ellen also get a giant box of swanky chocolates, which makes it a double-win for the Pharmacy crew.

Or, rather, a quadruple win, since the reformed Salomon also brings our boy a sick-as-hell magic wand that can literally only be touched by divine hands, as well as a very convenient stone that will suppress Farma's Divine Power and keep people from asking any pesky questions about missing shadows and the like. All in all, this was a most successful quest for our hero, and I am glad to report that Parallel World Pharmacy continues to be one of the season's best shows on account of its ability to consistently deliver such fun adventures. Now, if only there was a brand new guild that would allow the commoners to join in on Farma's revolutionary business ventures and completely reshape the social, political, and economic landscape of the entire empire…wait, what's that? Farma's going to shake that out like it's no big deal next week, probably? Of course he is. What else could we expect, at this point?

Rating:

Parallel World Pharmacy is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.