Manga Guide to Molecular Biology

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Next up on the “Manga Guide” series is the Manga Guide to Molecular Biology. As you might expect, we get a manga story designed to make scary sounding or complex sounding subjects come down to Earth where the reader can be both entertained and educated. It is my belief that this manga education guide succeeds in making molecular biology more accessible to the average Joe and more.

The story centers around Ami and Rin, who’ve been skipping out on Dr. Moro’s molecular biology class. Rin has been skipping due to working a lot of hours at her part-time job but Ami is skipping because she’s watching late-night TV and thus sleeps in. As such, the good doctor summons them to his lab where they are met by his assistant, Marcus. Dr. Moro invites them to his island for make up classes so that they will pass, but the island is nothing like the tropical island Moro depicted.

Dr. Moro communicates with them via a monitor and has Marcus do the majority of the instruction. Subjects covered are cells, the basics of proteins and DNA, DNA replication and cell division, how protein is made, and finally genetic technology and research. The girls do some time in virtual reality to experience cells and molecules in a close and personal manner. At the end of the manga, Dr. Moro reveals a secret about himself that encourages these two girls, now educated in molecular biology, to get their acts together. There’s a single, afterward image on the very last page after the index, so make sure to check that out. ^_^

I’ve never taken molecular biology in my life, so I think that what surprised me most is how the manga doesn’t just focus on the molecular aspects, but goes to the root of things. For example, before one learns how a cell obtains and uses energy, one must learn where that energy comes from. As such, the book covers how a human consuming food is eventually turned into energy and how the body deals with that before going down to the cellular level. This allows for the reader to get the big picture and in doing so, makes things easier to understand.

While there are only five chapters in the book, each chapter has several subsections. These subsections start with the manga story which takes a high-level look at the material covered and concludes with a more low-level recap of the materials to give the reader additional depth of knowledge for that topic. The stories have their bits of fun while remaining true to topic, which is a good thing.

There are a lot of interesting things covered in this manga book and as I read about DNA, I couldn’t help but remember the scene in the movie Jurassic Park where the characters were shown a film about DNA to explain how dinosaurs were cloned. *lol* Obviously, this book goes into a lot more details than that scene in the movie, but I think I could rewatch that scene in Jurassic Park and come in actually knowing something. ^_~

The art for this book isn’t as good in my opinion. That’s not to say it is bad, but it isn’t very clean much of the time. It looks like the artist was in a hurry to draw the images much of the time, so instead of crisp art, we get what looks more like a quick sketch without the guide lines. Don’t get me wrong, the art does what it is supposed to do and the diagrams of cells, DNA, etc. are crisp and clear. However, I would have liked this more visually if the art were crisp as well.

No honorifics anywhere to be found this time but not knowing whether they were in the original or not, I can’t really comment further on that. Well, I suppose one doesn’t read these books for the honorifics, eh? ^_~

In the final analysis, I believe The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology will be a good introduction to the subject of molecular biology to get people over any fears they have about the subject. I also believe that this book can assist with helping people “get it” with its entertaining and educational presentation style. So if you have an interest in molecular biology for any reason, I highly recommend this manga book.