Moyashimon
| Genre: Comedy | ||
| Format: 11 Episodes | ||
| Allegiance: Shirogumi and Telecom Animation Film | ||
| Director: Yuichiro Yano | ||
| Vintage: 2007 | ||
| Intelligence Agency Report by: Drake | ||
| Sawaki Tadayasu and his childhood friend Yuuki Kei have just entered Tokyo’s College of Agriculture. At the surface, both friends appear to be like the countless other college students, but on the inside there lies a secret: Sawaki can see microbes with the naked eye, and interact with them! Immediately, the two are swept up by Professor Itsuki, an old family friend, to conduct research on microbes using Sawaki’s gift. What will come of the two as they join forces with the Professor, his cruel graduate student, two bumbling upperclassmen with an ambition to get rich brewing sake, and a neat freak classmate? | ||
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| Field Agent Report by: Drake | ||
| Plot Characters Impact Visual Audio |
3.50 2.00 1.25 8.00 7.00 |
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| Overall | 4.50 | |
| (not an average) | ||
I honestly tried to like Moyashimon, I really did, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was back in high school biology. Between the naming of different microbes, and how to brew sake, it isn’t hard to figure out why. The story at best was dull and extremely pointless, had a lack of direction, and the jokes were rarely funny.
The characters for the most part are underdeveloped and one dimensional, making them quite boring after the first three episodes or so. I must admit that there were some actual attempts at development, but the selective development given was very minute or extremely random and lacking in explanation, even by anime standards. On top of that, by half time, we’ve lost focus of the most important part of the anime, the microbes, as attention shifts to try to give the characters some life.
The biggest saving grace of Moyashimon lies in the art. The animation is very neat and has beautifully done, easy-on-the-eyes character designs. One item of particular interest, and the major focal point of the anime, is the microbes. While very children’s book-esque and just plain cute, they were a plesant addition, and better than the alternative – using realistic photos of actual textbook microbes (which wouldn’t have surprised me, given the story set up).
In the end, Moyashimon was not my cup of tea. This doesn’t mean certain audiences, such as scientists or those who love cute floating creatures, wouldn’t enjoy it. It just wasn’t something I could enjoy given its tremendous lack of plot and characterization.
