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.
