Tuesday, March 7, 2017

The Little Things in Life Make It All Worthwhile!


Every so often, a series comes around that begs to be released in English, but for whatever reason, never really materialized, at least not in its entirety. A series will lie abandoned for years, with fans of the series just waiting around for someone to pick it up, hoping beyond all hope that it will get an English release someday, and Moyashimon by Masayuki Ishikawa was just one of those series. Despite it having an official release by Del Rey Manga years ago which only saw the first two volumes released, and even a scanlation that also saw the release of the first two volumes, the series has been neglected for years...until now.

Yes, we have decided to pick up Masayuki Ishikawa's masterpiece Moyashimon with the very real intention to complete all 13 volumes. This decision is by no means lightly taken, as this will amount to a vast amount of time and money to finally bring about a completed English version of Moyashimon. But we are absolutely dedicated to that end, and as a show of it, we are very pleased to present the first five chapters for your reading pleasure. And although perhaps this is a series that requires no introduction, having already had two anime adaptations and a live-action drama series adaptation, here's a short summary:

Tadayasu Sawaki has just enrolled into an agricultural university in Tokyo with his long-time friend Kei Yuuki. Although not widely known outside of his friends and family, Tadayasu has the unique ability to see and communicate with microbes, which appear larger and look different to him than normal. This catches the attention of Keizou Itsuki, a professor at the university and an old friend of Tadayasu's grandfather who specializes in microbiology and fermentation. Thus begins Tadayasu's tutelage under Professor Itsuki, aided by his graduate student Haruka Hasegawa, as he attempts to adjust to his new life at the university.

There are a few things that make this manga unlike really anything we've done before. The most obvious is that the chapters in the volumes have retained all of the extra content as when they were originally published in Evening (and later Morning two). This means all of the character bios are in the margins, including the bios for the microbes which identify the various species shown in every chapter. But this also includes all of the editorial comments, recap summaries, advertisements, author comments, and also the fact that every chapter title page has retained the series' title. This means that a huge amount of extra work goes into each chapter, which is one of the things that make this series so challenging to work on.

Speaking of challenging, there was an extremely labor-intensive double page spread in chapter 1 that shows a large portion of the university in the story. This shows a before and after image with all of the overtext, and this shows a before and after image with all of the overtext removed. Suffice it to say, it was insane, but we're pleased with the end result. So pleased that we have also included the version without the overtext in the release of chapter 1 so that you can actually see the school and appreciate all the work that went into it, as well as appreciate Ishikawa's amazing attention to detail, which is one of the things that make this series so amazing.

And there was also one other odd thing about this series. It was originally titled Noudai Monogatari (Tales of an Agricultural University), which is the title that can be seen on the title page of chapter 1. This was changed in chapter 2 to Noudai Monogatari Moyashimon, and then changed again to just simply Moyashimon in chapter 3. Then finally the Moyashimon logo was redesigned in chapter 5, and this is the design which is used for the rest of the series.

So without further ado, we hope you enjoy this truly one of a kind series.

Moyashimon ch. 1: Mediafire, Dropbox
Moyashimon ch. 2: Mediafire, Dropbox
Moyashimon ch. 3: Mediafire, Dropbox
Moyashimon ch. 4: Mediafire, Dropbox
Moyashimon ch. 5: Mediafire, Dropbox

25 comments:

  1. Thank you very much for doing this.
    Kind of wish you'd started from volume three then returned to the first two after completion (Or waited till you'd completed the entirety of the first two volumes before mentioning the project). But non-the less thank you, looking forward to the rest.

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  2. Whoa!!!! I never thought I'd see another group actually picking up Moyashimon manga again! Thanks so much!!!

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  3. I love you bastards. I first got into Moyashimon in 2012 on a whim, bought both available volumes from Amazon only to find out Del Rey dropped it. It always hurt me to see those two volumes on my shelf, knowing it would probably never been finished. I love you bastards. If I had money, I would shower you in it.

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  4. Yes, yes YES!!! Thank you! I actually have all the books, now I'll finally have some idea of what's going on (after the anime stops).

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  5. Thank you very much for the chapters and the hard work!!

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  6. Never thought I'd see the day. You guys are heroes.

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  7. You guys are great! Thanks very much for picking this up!

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  8. Thank you so much!

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  9. Hell yeah!
    I'd love to see Sawaki x Kei once more in English.
    Oh wait this is original manga not doujin...

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  10. So glad that this is back, I read it years and years ago and really enjoyed what was available. Such a shame it was never finished then. Really hope you guys succeed in finishing it, and thanks for picking this up, really.

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  11. Oh dear lord - I'd given up hope. THANK YOU SO MUCH for picking this up.
    Gonna Enjoy it :)
    TeaMax

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  12. Thank you! Seriously.

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  13. I'm so happy to see this. Thank you so much!

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  14. Holy crap, I thought I would never be able to read this in its entirety. Thank you!

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  15. You will be filling a gap in my shelves and in my heart. Thank you.

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  16. thanks for picking it up! looking forward to reading it.

    Honestly you guys are the best scanlation group around and I can't thank you enough for the work all of you do. (you guys are like the only scanlation group that does crossdressing manga and I really can't thank you enough).

    strange though to see a work being picked up that isn't based on crossdressing.

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    1. It does include crossdressing though, not sure how relevant that actually becomes after volume 2 though.

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  17. Wow! As a scanlator, I know just how much work a series like Moyashimon would take, and I salute you! I mean, I think you guys are crazy, but rock on!

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  18. I had been holding out hope for years another publisher or scanlation group would pick this up, so thankful you folks were willing to take on the job

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  19. oh my goth!!! oh my goth!!! oh my goth!!! THANK YOU!!!!

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  20. Saw the images you posted. As someone who used to be involved in cleaning, I've just gotta say, great job cleaning, and redrawing. Super labor intensive. That one page no doubt took hours. Thank you for your hard work.

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  21. You guys have made this old soul happy oO(: D)K

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  22. Thank you! Moyashimon deserves to be translated. Such a good series. You guys are awesome.

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  23. One word for you guys...

    ThankYouVeryVeryMuch

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