Moyashimon

Information of Anime

Tadayasu Sawaki has the ability to see microbes in their true form.  He is able to communicate with them & touch them without problems.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Tadayasu with his friend Kei Yuki attend an agriculture university in Tokyo under their grandfather's wishes.  They attend the school under Professor Keizo Itsuki's care, who is Tadayasu's grandfather's friend.  Itsuki wants to use Tadayasu' abilities for one of his projects.  However, Tadayasu's special abilities scares him a bit as he sees some bad microbes flowing around at times which makes him feel uncomfortable.  As the show progresses, more new characters appear under Professor Itsuki's team.  Once that settles down, the show starts to look into some of the characters in terms of where they want to go.

That final arc involves her future of some of characters, particularly Tadayasu.  When he temporary loses his ability to see microbes, he wonders what he should be doing for himself.  The reason why he's in university is to broaden his range of selection for his future.  The show ends with him studying more about microbes as he's starting to have some interest in them now.

As a side bonus, the show gives you some educational agriculture & microbe bits during the main show & the mircobe theatre.  Very detailed.

My Personal Review

Moyashimon is something that a friend of mine recommended me to pick up.  I decided to watch it because I was told it was funny even though I didn't know exactly what the show is.  I'm glad that I told his advice.

Animation

The character designs are quite nice & have the comical feel to them.  Not my type of design, but it's pretty good as a lot of the characters have different appearance that don't make them look the same as other characters.  However, the quality dips a bit when the show progresses.  This occurs mainly on the body proportions.  At times, the characters look short & stubby.  Plus, the legs look fat as well with weird looking faces that the show isn't calling for in the scenes.  The microbes are pretty plain, but okay.  It's hard to imagine how many of those things are drawn though the whole series as there are so many kinds of microbes out there.

The backgrounds are okay.  Has some detail, but not much.  It's pretty simple really.

The colours are mainly on the dull side with some bold colours.  The bold colours stand out the most when the 3D stuff kicks in.  But I did find most of the dark backgrounds to be quite visible in dark room conditions.  A good thing really since I use a 19" LCD monitor.

In terms of the animation movement, it's mainly a mixture of real & silly stuff.  The flow & movements isn't too bad, but there are some of the occasional unnatural walking cycles.

Sound

The sound effects are mainly on the realistic & silly side.  Played clear & on cue.

The seiyuus here are good.  They perform their characters well.  I don't have a favourite one as most of them are equal to me.

The music is on the pop & rock side.  Not too memorable for me since I don't remember what they were most of the times.

Story

Basically Tadayasu's everyday learning about microbes & agricultural stuff.  This show is mainly feels like an educational show with a lot of funny jokes.  I don't really see a plot in it even though we have Tadayasu's super eyesight.  When he loses his ability temporary, the story kicks in where he needs to think about what he wants to do for himself.  The area is very short though which makes the show lacking a storyline & it actually does.  It's mainly humour.  Because of this, the show ends openly with a continuation which I don't see it happening.

Overall Conclusion

Moyashimon is a funny to watch & I recommend it.  However, it comes with a cost in learning about agriculture.  It's not easy stuff as a lot of content is thrown at you & the Latin names are hard as it is.

Moyashimon gets a seven out of ten.  The funny show with some nice educational value.  However, you shouldn't expect a storyline here as the show is short & doesn't have any direction.  Although it focuses on Tadayasu at the end, it doesn't help.

Last updated on June 16, 2008