Lakan
Lakan is a high-ranking military strategist in The Apothecary Diaries who sees the world as a Go board, and most people as pieces, because of his face blindness. He is voiced by Takuya Kirimoto in Japanese and Ricco Fajardo in English.
About Lakan
Lakan is a high-ranking military strategist famous for treating the world as a Go board, and infamous for his face blindness: to him, almost everyone looks like a game piece, with a rare few appearing as real people. One of those few is Maomao, and his obsessive interest in her unsettles everyone around them. Brilliant and unpredictable, he is dangerous even when he helps.
Appearance
Lakan is a lean, sharp-featured man in middle age, usually seen in a military official's robes with a monocle-like air of appraisal about him. His smile is thin and unsettling, and his eyes move over people the way a player's hands move over a board, weighing, placing, discarding. Only rarely does his expression soften into something genuinely human.
Personality
Lakan is brilliant, eccentric and quietly frightening. His prosopagnosia, an inability to recognise faces, means almost everyone appears to him as Go or shogi pieces; only a handful of people in his life have ever appeared as real faces. He treats strategy as play and people as moves, which makes him invaluable to the throne and unbearable to work with. His fixation on Maomao is the one place where the player's mask cracks.
Background & Story
Lakan is the head of the La clan and one of the empire's most feared strategists, a man whose campaigns are studied and whose whims can move armies. Years before the story, his path crossed with the Verdigris House in the pleasure district, an encounter that left consequences he has never stopped circling back to. When Maomao's name reaches him, his interest becomes an obsession that unsettles the whole court: the great strategist has found one of the only real faces in his world, and he intends to claim his place in her life.
Key Relationships
- Maomao: One of the only people whose face Lakan can truly see, his obsessive interest in her is rooted in her mother's history with him.
- Jinshi: A fellow player in the court's great game; the two men circle each other with mutual respect and mutual suspicion.
- Lahan: A younger clansman of the La family, whose genius with numbers makes him Lakan's useful, and exasperating, subordinate.
Quick Answers
Why does Lakan see people as Go pieces?
Lakan has face blindness (prosopagnosia): he cannot recognise faces, so his mind replaces people with Go and shogi pieces. Only a very few people, including Maomao, appear to him as real faces.
Who voices Lakan?
Lakan is voiced by Takuya Kirimoto in Japanese and by Ricco Fajardo in the English dub.
Is Lakan Maomao's enemy?
Not exactly. Lakan's interest in Maomao is personal rather than hostile, rooted in her mother's history. But his obsession unsettles her and everyone around her, and his help always comes with the feeling of a move in a larger game.
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