Moyashimon Returns - Episode 1

Although I didn't actually 'blog about it and only managed to catch it after it had finished airing, I had a lot of fun watching the original series of Moyashimon, and thus its return is perhaps the most welcome addition to the summer 2012 anime line-up.

After racing through a quick round-up of its characters in double-quick time, we soon get down to business for the opener of this second season - business in this case meaning fermenting stuff.  Sure, there's some ranting from Haruka Hasegawa towards her quite literal whipping boys as rumours about her behaviour spring up around the campus, but this soon dies down in favour of fermenting beans and rice with a view to creating some actual awesome sauce in the former case, and sake in the latter.

This grants us plenty of room to be educated a little further about the processes required to make sake, more specifically how "polishing" the rice changes the properties of the finished drink, as well as some insights into how soy sauce is made.  While all of this is going on, Tadayusa continues to fret with regards to his decision not to tell Hazuki about his special "talent", while Kei (returning from his time out to assist with the current fermentation project) seems to continue to have some secrets of his own above and beyond his cross-dressing proclivities.

Although Moyashimon is something of a difficult series to talk about in critical terms simply on account of its unique blend of elements, this first episode of Moyashimon Returns reminds me of exactly why I love it so - I reached the end of this episode feeling greatly entertained, but also educated in things that I never would have considered learning about otherwise.  Couple that to a roster of lovable characters who bounce off one another wonderfully, throw in some slightly more polished animation, and you have enough to leave me one happy bunny over the coming weeks.  In a way, this is a poster child for what anime is all about - finding fun ways to deal with and deliver with otherwise complicated topics, be they personal, political or educational; Moyashimon manages to tackle all three of these elements to a greater or lesser extent.