I got this softcover manga at Barnes and Noble, after enjoying Volume One. The series mixes humor with science - indeed, there are segments from "the encyclopedia of real animals" which include photos of the creatures "developed" in the stories. The design team consists of characters with quirks of their own - the guy who designed the horse and now tries to give every new creature a horse-esque style (sometimes this works: seahorses, for example; more often it does not, for reasons which the engineer who builds the prototypes is happy to point out); the tiny girl who loves cute things (but for whom "cute" means "poisonous and/or cannibalistic"); the big bearded guy who really does go for things that most of us would see as cute and cuddly - and more.

This volume opens with the team having to deal with a huge, horrifying monster - the accidental creation of Mr. Saturn's little grandson Kenta. They attempt to create another creature that can battle the monster, with their efforts wandering from a gorilla-with-spikes through a series of logical-if-unexpected transitions, ending up with an elephant - only to find that the "monster" was only supposed to be 3 centimeters long, not 30 meters. [At least that's the solution they're going with.]

Another chapter opens with what looks like a demon-summoning ritual, complete with chants and a five-pointed star on the ground; turns out someone wanted to peek at the rejected pattern for a dragon, thought the ritual sounded fun, and accidentally stepped on Mr. Jupiter's doodle of a starfish. This... is pretty typical for the way these folks work!

As ever, there are pages showing the real-world creatures in among the manga pages; the paradise tree snake that "flies" from tree to tree by flattening its ribs to widen its body into a sail, for example. (The dragon elicits some pop-culture nods to other fictional dragons, including the delightfully weird ones from Drifting Dragons.)

Later experiments feature attempts to create an invisible watcher of some kind, with sidelines into transparent fish or squid, and a very hunky shirtless Mr. Neptune.

Farther on, the gang gets a free vacation trip to the Galapagos, where a nice variety of "beach episode" hijincks ensue; first, Jupiter creates a new creature to join them in the steam room - it's clearly inspired by the huge monster in the "Alien" films, and scares the other guys badly before Jupiter dishes it up in a delicious hot-pot. [He's dedicated to creating the most tasty creatures possible, but this one seemed like quite a stretch!] Little Miss Pluto comes up with a delightful variety of sharks, inspired by Mars' tools, Mercury seems to have been the victim of a homicide (which turns out to be a bad hangover plus some flamingos and their blood-red "milk"), and more chaos ensues, though eventually they do get a bit of a vacation.

The last chapter deals with black-and-white coloration on animals and what it might be good for, with some interesting discussions as to the things it does NOT really help with. And the story ends on a cliffhanger: our team's supervising angel Ueda gets summoned... to HELL!

[There's a TV Tropes page on the series, with some entertaining tidbits. And the anime adaptation is quite charming!]

See also:

Volume 3
Volume 4

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in the Little Free Library in Thornton Park, while checking up on the conditions of some of the town LFLs. Hope someone enjoys the book!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2021 TV Series challenge. ***