It makes you want a beer and a microbiology textbook at the same time. Sawaki's eyes still turn floating clouds of A. oryzae into round little chanting blobs, and Itsuki's fermentation cellar finally opens for business, which means soy sauce and sake get treated with the seriousness other shows reserve for sword fights. The saturated palette and the fact that every single face in Itsuki's lab is instantly distinguishable, Hasegawa in leather, Misato and Kawahama plotting their next cash grab, keeps a show about invisible organisms weirdly gorgeous to look at. Season two drifts off Sawaki and hands big chunks of screen time to Hasegawa and Kei instead, which is the honest knock against it, and yeah, it doesn't hit like the first run. It's still the only anime that will make you check the label on your miso. Slept on by everyone who never gave the first season a chance.

Picking up right where the first season ended, this comedy with a supernatural touch returns to Professor Itsuki's fermentation cellar and laboratory, which is now ready to run. Sawaki Tadayasu has the rare ability to see microbes and talk with them, and he lends that gift to the professor's mismatched band of students as they start producing fermented goods such as soy sauce and sake.