Microbes Go Manga MasayukiIshikawaMoyasimon: Tales of Agriculture2009Ballantine BooksNew York, NY, USA240 pp. $10.99

In the West, comics are traditionally seen by the " literati " as a rather low-brow medium pandering to sweaty-palmed, superhero-obsessed teenagers. Although this perception may contain a grain of truth, the genre as a whole has long since outgrown this well-worn stereotype. This will come as no surprise to the Japanese, who have considered manga (Japanese comics) part of the established literature since its inception. Certainly, heroes, monsters, super-powered battles, and all manner of less salubrious topics abound within the pages of manga. There exists, however, a distinct subgenre of educational manga that not only set out to tell a cracking story but also aim to teach the reader something useful along the way and thus sublimate the whole reading experience. This need not be done in a jarring or didactic manner; often the educational aspects are simply a seamless and integral component of the unfolding drama. Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture (pronounced Moyashimon) by Masayuki Ishikawa is a splendid example of educational manga and is now available in Eng-lish translation. The book, the first in a multipart story, follows the lives of a couple of gawkish yet endearing first-year students at an unspecified Tokyo agricultural college. As childhood friends growing up in the inaka—for that, read countryside and hence slightly backward—Tadayasu and Kei long for the excitement promised by university life in the big city. This initial and perhaps banal premise is given a bizarre twist when Tadayasu is shown to have the ability to see all manner of microbes with the naked eye. No explanation is given for this unusual power; instead readers are expected to just " roll with it. " Granted, as superpowers go, it's not up there with teleportation or optic blasts, but it can still make for some dramatic set pieces as, for example, when Tadayasu's ability is first properly revealed in the form of miasma gathered above a seal carcass (incidentally used as a neat segue to introduce " kiviak, " a traditional Inuit fermentation technique). Thankfully, Tadayasu seems able to turn this ability on and off at will, or life would be spent endlessly groping around in a microbial cloud. Scientific purists may, however, part company with the story when we see the microbes close-up with their distinctive cutesy faces. However, the author cleverly side-steps this potential niggle when Tadayasu is unable to identify a scanning electron micrograph of the mold Aspergillus …