Moyashimon – 08

It’s the third day of the Spring Festival and the university campus is still in a state of lockdown. The Big Brother-like announcements indicate that the university is handing out free clothing, so Sawaki gingerly tries on the earth-friendly-but-horribly-designed outfits – he has worn the same thing for the past two days. Misato and Kawahama, unlike Sawaki, live on in-campus housing so they resist the urge to grab the freebies and simply return to their dorms to change. The girls aren’t as fortunate; Hazuki and Aoi are forced to wear Haruka’s tight leather vests and skirts.

The announcements also reveal that the Agricultural Committee plans to end the festival this day by flattening the balloons of all the students who remained “alive” in this survival game – if the Committee does end up winning, the remaining students are asked to participate in 100 days’ worth of volunteer work. 😉 This revelation is of course not welcomed by the students; the remaining participants in the survival contest plan to make a collective attack on the Committee at 4 PM, when the front gates of the school are covered by the least amount of shadow. (note: remember that the Committee members are only allowed to move inside areas covered with shadows; the Committee “loses” if their leader’s balloon is flattened.)

Sure enough, by 4 PM, a respectable number of the surviving students make their way to the front gates. The Agricultural Committee members have also gathered (a snitch probably leaked information to them) in response and chaos begins. Misato, Kawahama, and a blue duffel bag speeds through the fray – exaggerated action scenes continue, and both Misato and Kawahama’s balloons are flattened by the paper fans of the Committee members. The duffel bag makes it to the leader of the Committee though, and Sawaki’s head pops out from inside.

The gigantic Committee leader stands up and begins to strike Sawaki with his metal fan. Frightened of getting smashed to pieces, Sawaki makes a run for it although the giant temporarily stops moving. He also notices that the leader doesn’t have any microorganisms on its skin – he turns to his right and sees a nerdy-looking bunch of individuals rushing to fix the electric signals to the Committee leader robot. Wasting no time, Sawaki leaps into the air, whacks the robot’s paper balloon, and grabs the keys to the front gates of the university. The festival has come to an end, and the Agricultural Committee is defeated.

Sawaki and the sophomores receive their 100,000 nou as promised, and Professor Itsuki immediately shows up to exchange the cash for the aphrodisiacs. They return to the lab and showcase the items on one of the tables – they place a sign written “Please try this set of items for beautiful white skin, from Itsuki.” They hide themselves as Haruka enters the lab and notices that the table has “Professor Itsuki’s aphrodisiacs.” Hazuki and Aoi are back in the lab at this point, but neither is willing to try the stimulants so Haruka goes ahead and consumes, drinks, and sprinkles all the products on herself. The aphrodisiacs turn out to be a hoax, to no one’s surprise but the boys.

With that over with, Professor Itsuki takes out Aoi and Hazuki for dinner. Sawaki is coerced into accompanying Kawahama for the rest of the night, while Haruka shows up in Misato’s room with a pair of sake bottles from the professor. The two bottles of sake turn out to be vintage products (one of the bottles hold 200 year old awamori), and the pair commences to enjoy the alcoholic beverages. Haruka becomes hopelessly drunk though, and she becomes both uncontrollable and sadistic – she whispers questionable phrases such as “can I bite your ear off” and scratches Misato’s face until it bleeds. Hazuki and Aoi, meanwhile, tests another set of aphrodisiacs in the restaurant with Itsuki, although neither seem to be particularly affected. Or so it appeared, until the taxi ride back home where both girls are highly aroused, and highly interested in each other…

Kawahama and Sawaki enters Misato’s dorm the next morning to see a badly bruised Misato with Haruka deep in sleep on his lap. The three presume that Haruka will wake up misunderstanding the situation (since she will wake up on Misato’s lap after all) – they therefore recreate a hypothetical scene of getting abused by her. When Haruka finally wakes up, she sees Sawaki naked, hanging from the ceiling and the word baka (stupid) written on his back. Next to him, also naked, is Kawahama while Misato is propped up against the window with dark gray stockings covering his head. This acted out scene works, and Haruka speedily leaves the dorms not wanting to take responsibility for what happened to the three male students. Hazuki, meanwhile, also wakes up in a different room, only to find herself wearing nothing and an undressed Aoi next to her as well.

Microbe Theater: A pair of bacillus subtilis introduces us to their subspecies, bacillus subtilis natto, which is responsible in the production of the infamous Japanese delicacy that is fermented soybeans, or nattou. They also give us tips on making nattou in the solace and comfort of your own home.

Gather some leftover prepackaged nattou

Boil a batch of fresh soybeans until they become soft

Mix the leftover nattou and boiled soybeans in a container

Cover the container with cloth, and leave it in a warm area to allow fermentation to take place

Your homemade nattou is ready after one day!

(as with the homemade sake tutorial, Moyashimon will not take responsibility for any cases of food poisoning that may occur as a result of preparing nattou in this fashion)
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This episode was great fun – there really aren’t a lot of things to say besides that. The exaggerated action sequences add to the overall comedic value and the fanservice shots actually helped instead of detracting from the experience. Whether the aphrodisiacs actually worked is anyone’s guess, but we get some yuri situations as a result, which will more likely than not please a certain demographic of anime fans. ^^;

Next time: An episode centered on everyone’s favorite leather-fetish girl, Haruka. Surströmming, which left quite an impression on my mind when I first tasted (and smelled) it a few years ago, is also involved in the story.