MaoMao’s Latin American Voice Is Back for The Apothecary Diaries Season 3. Three Weeks Ago, She Found It in an AI Ad

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MaoMao is speaking Latin American Spanish again. The first dubbed episode of The Apothecary Diaries season 3 is now on Crunchyroll, recorded at VSI Mexico, with Desireé González back as the apothecary and Diego Becerril as Jinshi. Less than a month ago, González found her famous voice in an AI-made ad she never recorded.

The Latin American dub of the season’s first episode arrived on Crunchyroll on Friday, October 23, according to Chirchi and Geekzilla, which both published the cast and crew that day. The Japanese broadcast started on October 2.

It’s one of the most anticipated returns of the autumn. The Apothecary Diaries follows MaoMao, a young woman who grew up with her apothecary father, is sold into service at the imperial palace and ends up solving its medical mysteries, to the growing interest of Jinshi, a handsome palace official.

Japanese key visual for The Apothecary Diaries season 3: MaoMao and Jinshi in a wheat field under a sunset sky, with the October 2, 2026 premiere date. Image: © Natsu Hyuga, Imagica Infos / The Apothecary Diaries Production Committee

Image: © Natsu Hyuga, Imagica Infos / The Apothecary Diaries Production Committee

The voices and the crew behind the Latin American dub

VSI Mexico produced the Spanish track. Andrés García directs, Cesia Estrada wrote the adaptation, Gerardo Torres produced, Fernanda Ortiz recorded, and Abraham Chacra and Raúl Martínez handled mixing and quality control.

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Alongside the two leads, the cast lists 29 more actors in secondary and additional roles. Here they all are, as published: Genaro Contreras, Mariana Ortiz, Kristoffer Romo, Luna Arjona, Axl Rodríguez, Christian Napoleón, Edwin Hernández, Ethien Desco, Luis Piza, Dave Ramos, Luis Navarro, Mafer Morales, Julieta Rivera, Lulú Arruti, Héctor Moreno, Miriam Aceves, Ireri Yunuen, Anette Ugalde, Agustín Lezama, Alfredo Leal, Arturo Acosta, Cuauhtémoc Miranda, Sandy Nava, Karen Fonseca, Karla Tovar, Odet Amor, Zoni Alvaréz, Isaíd Pelayo and Miguel Ángel Leal.

That list is worth a second look if you’re new to dubbing. A season of a hit anime isn’t two famous voices. It’s a director, a writer fitting Spanish lines to Japanese mouth movements, a producer, a recording engineer, two people on the mix and QC, and a room full of actors who might each have a scene or a single line. Most working dub actors build careers out of exactly those additional roles.

Graphic: a palace hanging scroll of The Apothecary Diaries season 3 release dates. October 2 Japanese broadcast on Nippon TV, subtitled on Crunchyroll; October 16 English dub weekly with Emi Lo and Kaiji Tang; October 23 Latin American Spanish dub episode 1 with Desireé González and Diego Becerril; Spain's Spanish dub announced September 15, no date yet; December 11 film The Late Lady's Treasure; April 2027 season 3 part two

Luffy, MaoMao, and a voice that turned up in an AI ad

González is one of the busiest voices in Mexican dubbing. She has been the Latin American voice of Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece since episode 326, and her credits include Retsuko in Aggretsuko and Zen’o in Dragon Ball Super. MaoMao was already one of her roles before this season.

Desireé González in a straw hat beside interviewer Samuelito at a table in front of a Straw Hat Pirates flag, December 2023. Image: SamuelitoKingdom

Desireé González in a 2023 interview. Image: SamuelitoKingdom

On September 30, someone tagged her in an ad that used an AI copy of her voice to promote an adult film. As Voice Over Herald reported at the time, she found the company behind it, asked for her royalties in the comments, and told her followers on TikTok. The ad was gone within hours.

Desireé González talking to camera in her TikTok video of September 30, 2026, about an AI ad that used her voice. Image: Desireé González on TikTok

Desireé González on TikTok, September 30, 2026. Image: Desireé González on TikTok

She laughed at first, then stopped. “It was all laughs until I started to analyze what the hell had happened,” she said in a follow-up video that day. She also explained why her character voices aren’t for hire outside the dub: “and even less with Luffy’s voice, because that is only done for the company.”

Her return as MaoMao, three weeks later, is a reminder of what the cloners were copying. A dub lead’s voice is a performance built over seasons, with a director and a crew, and that’s the version fans chose to wait for. We couldn’t find a public comment from González or Becerril on the new season by the time of publishing.

The dub

MaoMao, season 3

Recorded at VSI Mexico with a director, an adaptation writer, an engineer and a cast of 31. Back on Crunchyroll on October 23.

The AI ad

A copy nobody booked

Never recorded by González, used to sell an adult film, taken down within hours on September 30.

Four languages, four schedules

The season isn’t arriving everywhere at once. In Japan it airs on Nippon TV’s Friday Anime Night block from October 2, and Crunchyroll streams it subtitled as it airs. The English dub, with Emi Lo as Maomao and Kaiji Tang as Jinshi, has been out weekly since Friday, October 16, according to El Comercio.

Crunchyroll announced on September 15 that the season would also get a dub in Spain’s Spanish. We couldn’t find a release date for that one in Crunchyroll’s announcements or the press we checked.

There’s plenty more to dub. Season 3 runs in two parts, the first from October and the second in April 2027, and Crunchyroll streams both. The new season adapts volumes 5 and 6 of Natsu Hyuga’s light novels, El Comercio reports. A film, The Late Lady’s Treasure, is due on December 11, 2026.

Reina Ueda joins the Japanese cast this season as Bai Niangniang, and Akinori Fudesaka directs at studio OLM.

Graphic: an apothecary medicine cabinet with the Latin American dub crew on its drawers. MaoMao: Desireé González. Jinshi: Diego Becerril. Direction: Andrés García. Adaptation: Cesia Estrada. Production: Gerardo Torres. Recording: Fernanda Ortiz. Mix and quality control: Abraham Chacra and Raúl Martínez. Secondary and additional voices: 29 actors

Where to watch

The Latin American Spanish dub of The Apothecary Diaries season 3 is on Crunchyroll now, starting with episode 1. If you’re a dub actor, watch the credits too. Every name on that list is a working actor who was booked, turned up and delivered the scene a director trusted them with.

Sources: Chirchi and Geekzilla (Latin American cast and crew, October 23, 2026); El Comercio (English dub schedule and cast, light novel volumes); Spanish Wikipedia (September 15 Crunchyroll dub announcement, Japanese broadcast); Final Weapon (season format, Reina Ueda, staff); Wikipedia (film date); Voice Over Herald reporting of October 3, 2026, and Desireé González on TikTok (September 30, 2026). Quotations from Spanish sources are translated by Voice Over Herald. Images: © Natsu Hyuga, Imagica Infos / The Apothecary Diaries Production Committee, via Crunchyroll; SamuelitoKingdom; Desireé González on TikTok.

Lee este artículo en español: La voz latina de MaoMao vuelve en la temporada 3 de Los diarios de la boticaria. Hace tres semanas la encontró en un anuncio con IA

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