Moyashimon

Dec 1, 2011

marusamarento

Recommended

Preliminary (1/159 chp)

Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture (or Moyasimon as Del Ray chooses to spell it for the North American release) is a slice-of-life manga with a strong informative slant and comedic character-based interactions. The highlight, of course, being the super cute happy microbes who just want to ~brew.

Moyashimon is ongoing, with 11 volumes at present, though only 2 have been translated and released officially and only the first one is floating around the Internet. The first two volumes coincide with the anime.

Despite the "super power" nature of Tadayasu's ability to see and interact with microbes, the manga doesn't dwell on that point and simply follow Sawaki Tadayasu's ... life with his friends and colleagues at agricultural university. If you're looking for a sci-fi backstory or angsty protagonist, you should probably turn back now.

As usual for slice of life, the characters are key. The cast are unique in both personality and outward appearance, including Hasegawa, who would probably fit in with a genderswitched Detroit Metal City, to Tadayasu's senpai Takuma, who is obsessed with bugs and almost looks like a bobblehead doll. Our protagonist, Tadayasu, is relatable without sacrificing his personality, and seeing his obvious reluctance to go to university after being ostracised for his "gift" melt away as he interacts with the cast has all my d'awws forever. Enjoyably, the microbes are not devoid of character, whether it be all that the Japanese L. yoghurti have a chonmage or that L. fructivorans (the microbe that turns sake bad) look super drunk.

The set-up of every chapter makes it easy for anyone to jump right in, with notes in the margin informing the reader of key facts about the situation or characters in question, though, notably, the author uses these to surreptiously add tidbits of humour - such as the rumour that Misato has a liquids fetish - to otherwise dull summaries and introductions of the microbes in question. Each volume also has omake material, which is mostly just of the microbes being cute, which is fine by me (why isn't there a microbe-only K-On, is what the world should be asking).

The art is consistently pretty, with big almond shaped eyes and expressive faces for most of the cast (except Takuma), that don't go the easy way out with chibi effects. Most of the cuteness is saved for the microbes, especially A. oryzae's huge grin.

The setting of university is pretty familiar but a surprisingly nice change from high-school fare, and the backgrounds are adequate but not really notable.

Though set in a relatively specialist area, the manga never makes you feel stupid or throws information in your face, and instead you learn along with Tadayasu and the other first-year students. The goings-on at an agricultural university are surprisingly compelling, whether focused on bizarre fermented foods from around the world or being forced to shove your arm up a cow's butt.

To conclude, Moyashimon is one of the rare manga that simultaneously made me laugh and feel a little smarter than I did before I picked it up. The cast and antics are hard not to like and harder not to recommend; I can only hope Del Ray release further volumes and for this series to gain the popularity it deserves.

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Mar 7, 2018

somaisbatman

Mixed Feelings

Moyashimon is a manga about fermentation. Sounds weird, right? It’s hard to concisely pitch this manga, which is why I’m going the alternate route and just writing an epic. Moyashimon is a character-driven college slice of life about some students and their professor brewing sake and learning a LOT. Seriously, by finishing this manga, I feel like I’ve absorbed a whole semester’s worth of knowledge on microbes, alcohol, and the sake industry. I wonder if that was the intent and rationale behind the college setting? Anyways, the educational slant of this manga is really cool. The author, Masayuki Ishikawa, clearly knows his stuff and is ...

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Mar 20, 2022

typewritermonkey

Recommended

Moyashimon is a one of kind work. It’s extremely dense, more like a fun college seminar than any other easy-going comedy in its genre. When a page of the manga is as a text-dense as any textbook, ranting about some fermentation process or reviewing the industry, one cannot help but appreciate how informative it is, and respect the passion of Ishikawa through the lengths he must have gone through researching everything necessary to break things down for us. Brilliantly, he uses cute anthropomorphized bacteria as a Greek Chorus, seamlessly transitioning from lesson to commentary to segue into the actual story. To ... tie in so much dry contextual information in an approachable way, and balance it with the large cast of characters and the overall narrative of Sawaki and his ability to see microbes, is a Herculean feat and so utterly original that Moyashimon defies categorization and should be seen as its own, new genre.

That said, Moyashimon should not be read by everyone. I tried Moyashimon once, years ago, but could not fully appreciate it then, grew bored midway, and ended up with a middling impression of it. It’s not a manga you’d want to read annually. It shouldn’t be read casually, as a comedy manga, or even near the end of the day. Moyashimon should be read when you have a relatively free week, with full attention, at the start of the day, and preferably with an open screen and google open nearby to encourage falling into rabbit holes and detours about various fermented food-making.
****
The theme of its characters is monotone, centered on the struggle of young adults to find their niche against the expectations of their family circumstance. Frankly, the character quality of Moyashimon is a mixed bag. Although they can be refreshingly original and realistically self-conscious of their own flaws, Ishikawa compromises their status as living, breathing characters by frequently assuming direct control of characters as analogues for him to rant. An organic group of people don’t take turns info-dumping every other conversation, at least, I don’t know of any group like that. The other major inelegance was its formulaic use of characters, who are introduced and included when convenient or financially expedient, and explicitly excluded from the action when not. Some characters are foil-clones of each other (exacerbated by Ishikawa’s tendency to draw all girls same-faced) just to bludgeon the point about the similarities between their situation. It’s so overt, the background characters and annotations by the author constantly lampshade about their irrelevance and joke about the “clones” themselves. Even when character development is done perfectly, like for Hasegawa “once shy, twice bitten” Haruka, the revolving door structure of the story, throws a damper on the momentum and keeps the readers at arms-length away from even the best of the cast. One can’t help but feel wishful for more opportunities to become invested in the lives of our colorful cast.
****
At its best, Moyashimon is a fascinating mix of information, comedy, wholesomeness, and awe. It’s got plenty of quotable pages and tidbits of trivia, plus some prescient takes regarding viruses, vaccines, and bio-fuels, for a late 2000s manga. At its worst, though, it is simply uninteresting, with pointless activities and soapboxing every dozen pages. For me, that low point was volumes 10 and 11, whose premises were based on flimsy motivations and misunderstandings, making it a chore to process. Attempts at romance were more often clumsy than graceful, and conspicuously infantilized older characters like Hasegawa, highlighting instances of disappeared characters making a comeback only to act out bits more suitable for shounen manga.

Moyashimon attempts to escape these flaws by not taking itself too seriously, and consistently reminding its readers that it is a fiction. However, this is not great remedy for when the manga becomes nauseatingly indulgent. Ishikawa lets his characters peddle the soy sauce/miso miracle-superfood-nippon-banzai narratives before Isekai novels drove it into the ground, and also doesn’t hesitate to mock other countries here and there, or reference imperialist Japan imagery. It’s refreshingly candid, but all these peculiarities of the characters and eccentric walls of texts erase the line between the author’s own opinions and his characters.

All that said, the lack of development with its main character Sawaki, reflected by his lack of presence even in this review, can be somewhat forgiven by the solid wrap-up in volume 13. When considering the dozens of parallel developments, and that Sawaki was still only a first-year in world this entire time, the horizon looks bright for the Itsuki Seminar, even in the romance department.
****
Like its title suggests, Moyashimon is a work that gets better with age, and eight years down the line, it has aged into a class of its own. What other manga will prompt one to spend Friday evening researching how to ferment soybeans and brew liquor? Not only is it educational and anthropologically valuable, it breaks down complex microbiology processes in a fairly approachable and entertaining manner, something way beyond the scope of a comedy manga, or any manga, really. I would have never been interested in such things had it not been for Ishikawa’s creative approach, which cannot be praised enough. The series has definitely earned its place on my shelves, and I suspect it will be a long time before we see another auteur exert themselves as much as Ishikawa did in producing Moyashimon.

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Nov 5, 2019

bot_dmitri

Recommended

CONCISE REVIEW

This is an informative and fun manga. If you like good characters and story, go read it.

Story & Characters

The college setting is very rare to see in a market full of high school dramas; Which means all characters are old and mature. If you think there's too much info on the page, just skim through it. I didn't read it for in-depth knowledge on brewing alcohol, I just wanted to have a good read. You will find yourself skipping a lot of pages which are mostly educational which is completely understandable. In fact there is an inside joke where all the characters completely ignore ...

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Oct 7, 2019

valtiel01

Recommended

Moyashimon is a story about agricultural university in Tokyo and its students. The story starts with Tadayasu Sawaki, freshman who has just enrolled and has gift to see the microbes. The story develops around him and a lab of professor Itsuki, where other students gather and do experiments. 159 chapters cover just one year, which is very eventful and full of various situations. Basically, it shows daily life of students and their struggles, with high note on comedy. The author manages to keep the manga very interesting all the chapters long, though some of them don't keep high standards, but are still decent, which is ... a big plus. The story is special because it blends slice-of-life comedy with biology/chemistry lectures on various topics such as fermentation, all sorts of alcoholic drinks (also their history, preparation), bacteria etc. While having fun with characters getting into awkward situations, you can also learn lots of interesting facts.
Even though some of the most noticeable traits of main characters can look generic like Aoi's desire to get drunk all the time or Tadayasu's passiveness to let others to drag him around, the characters develop with time and chemistry works very well. They get into misunderstandings, fights, feuds, but they learn more about each other and change their behaviour. Good thing is that even though Tadayasu was presented as the protagonist with great ability, it doesn't give him much advantage at all (it doesn't affect the plot much as well) and the focus wasn't on him large part of the time, so all other characters got their time to shine and a chance that we get to known them better. Characters have an extreme trait (ability to see the microbes, greediness, being a clean-freak, being a drunk) and they are often put into unpleasant situation because they make a reaction which causes others to react as well and situation gets more complicated and silly, or each one of them is trying to take advantage of others and it gets interesting when they become rivals, but that doesn't get overused because the author was creative with jokes and they feel new and refreshing.
The manga really stands out from others with such approach to blend the story and lectures, supported by very good characters and various situations which refer to certain chemical processes or bacteria. It deserves praise and high place.

In the end, I would like to refer to Kei Yuuki that newcomers don't get misinformed from some websites, so here will be minor spoilers. I've seen at some places that certain people push Kei Yuuki as "trans" and refer to him as a "she". Kei is Tadayasu's childhood friend and even though they have very close relations, anything alluring to love was used as a gag which led to a comedy of situation (Kei would do X thing, Tadayasu would be shocked, third person would be shocked as well and get wrong impression, Tadayasu would feel embarrassed and make the situation worse by trying to explain what actually happened). Everyone has a characteristic trait, just like Aoi adores alcohol, Kaoru uses every chance to use the situation to make profit or Haruka always wearing leather, Kei is crossdressing and cares about his childhood friend. The author plays with the bound between Kei and Tadayasu, but romantic outcome never happens, because that's the joke. Sawaki even told him in chapter 155 that they will always be inseparable friends, not alluring to anything more or less. Nevertheless, Kei has always identified as male and all the character details in margins state that he's a guy - "he's without a doubt a man among men", "I think all of you are aware of this, but he's a guy. Just in case.", "Even if he wears gothic lolita fashion, he identifies as a man. He's the best fried of Sawaki, the main character." If that's not enough, chapter 118 and 133-134 cover that subject well. I wrote this because I dislike seeing Kei's image tainted with misinformation to satisfy someone's fetish.

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Moyashimon
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