Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture Volume 2

Moyasimon is the tale of Tadayasu Sawaki, a new student at Agricultural University and a boy with a special talent. He can see microorganisms, interact with them, and get completely disgusted by how much bacteria people have on and around them.

In the first volume of Moyasimon we saw Tadayasu through his first days at the University, his growing friendship with Kaoru Misato and Takuma Kawahama, and the ongoing interest of Professor Itsuki in Tadayasu’s unique ability. 

Volume 2 sets the tone with Misato and Kawahama conducting another madcap experiment. This one has nothing to do with sake production, though. Instead they are monitoring how a slime mould will find the shortest route in a maze to food. Fascinating stuff!

The subject soon turns to alcohol again and an upcoming Spring Festival where Misato and Kawahama intend to sell a lot of it. Professor Itsuki even offers to pay for it. They then visit a liquor store where we get to learn a lot more about different types of sake, meet a man who seems to consist of just a cloud of microorganisms, and see the return of a girl called Muto.

Unfortunately Muto has returned with more than just a lot of fermented samples from her research trip. We discover she is carrying a number of Asian food poisoning agents. While this leads to a thorough disinfecting of the labs before everyone gets ill, it also allows the author to bring us a very memorable debate between lots of different bacteria hiding behind a bin and forming a colony. It’s an insight into their world you really don’t want to miss.

After that the main focus is on the unusual Spring Festival where students have to survive and trade the goods they have while being confined to university grounds. There’s tickets instead of cash, but also the threat of your tickets being confiscated if caught doing something against the rules. 

While Tadayasu finds this all a little bizarre, at the same time he is trying to help Misato and Kawahama get hold of an aphrodisiac from the professor. They also need to figure out how to get the festival to end by beating the masked students from the sports team, all while keeping a balloon on their heads.

Overall volume 2 of Moyasimon is a great continuation for the series. I really enjoyed volume 1, but didn’t know how it could progress much further. Volume 2 put that concern to rest and showed there is a lot of life in the series. My absolute favourite section is the one that focused entirely on the bacteria talking to each other, making plans, and acting just like us. I really hope that continues through the rest of the series.

As with any good story we are left on a cliffhanger making volume 3 an essential read for anyone enjoying Moyasimon so far.