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Old 05-28-2016, 10:40 AM   #26
lilboocorsola
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Lil' Bluey

I like Gin no Saji's 2nd ED. It kinda reminds me of the ED from WataMote's festival ep. The full MV is great since the singers look like they're having so much fun.

Last edited by lilboocorsola; 06-01-2016 at 07:29 PM.
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Old 06-01-2016, 05:50 PM   #27
Talon87
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Through Episode 07 of Season 2. I'm still enjoying it.

Spoiler: show
Although ... the series sure took some turns for the depressing and serious, didn't it? ^^; First Hachiken and the run-in he had with his disapproving father. Then Komaba and the baseball team getting knocked out of the running for a Koushien showing on his pitch ....

I kinda like how the show is handling Aki's side of the Hachiken x Aki romance, except I'm still not sold on her liking him or ever liking him as more than a friend. I still suspect she harbors feelings either for Komaba or else for some other guy and that she just wants to be friends with Hachiken. I dunno. It's weird and hard to tell still at this stage. Sometimes she'll blush around Hachiken in an "I like you " kind of way, and other times it comes off as more of a social embarrassment on her part.

Sad that Hachiken had to miss the school festival he worked so hard on, but the author handles it well as a good opportunity for character growth.

Felt a little contrived that none of his friends could visit him at the hospital -- because these are the same friends who have dropped what they are doing to go help him out on so many other occasions. Like, we know they're good people and we know that they're his true friends. It's hard to imagine that absolutely none of them could pull away from festival obligations. I honestly would've expected Mr. Nakajima to lend his car, or for the principal to lend his car, and for the kids to accompany Sensei on the trip to see Hachiken. Not only was the only teacher to visit him his homeroom teacher, but like ... none of the kids were offered rides? None of the kids could take him up on such an offer? Weird. Or, like I said before, contrived.

Finally met Minamikujou Ayame a few episodes back. Before she showed up I figured she'd lightly be an "Ohoho" type and more heavily be a rival for Hachiken's affections and his primary rival in horseback riding. While it seems the latter might be where they decide to take this, we're sure as hell not getting Ayame in love with Hachiken nor Hachiken in love with her. She's clearly a comic relief character who is much too haughty and full of herself for Hachiken to fall in love with. She doesn't even have the charm that similar "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOHOHO" characters have in other anime, like Luvia in Kinoko Nasu's extended Nasuverse and Etou Fujiko in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. (She's not voiced by them either. Luvia and Fujiko are voiced by the delightful Itou Shizuka , whereas Ayame is voiced by Yahagi Sayuri.)

I like Maron, but I am starting to get a sinking feeling in my gut that the Big Sad of this franchise is going to be when, in Hachiken's final year of school, Maron breaks a leg and Hachiken requests that he "get" to be the one to put Maron down. And it's going to be ridiculously sad.

Honestly can't say where Hachiken will be in four years. I have no clue if he's on the path towards becoming a farmer, an ag scientist, or something else entirely. Season 1 made it seem like he might become an unlikely farmer, but Season 2 is re-investigating his "love of studying," and so I feel like it might be setting him up for an AgE (agricultural engineering) degree at university instead of for a farming-based high school diploma.

Was kinda hoping we would've seen some more cheese making by now. I know Yoshino's not a major character, but her presence in Season 2 is like half of what it was in Season 1. Would really like to see her making cheese and to learn something new about cheese making from Arakawa.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lilbluecorsola View Post
I like Gin no Saji's 2nd ED. It kinda reminds me of the ED from WataMote's festival ep. The full MV is great since the singers look like they're having so much fun.
OP2 and ED2 continue to grow on me. Each is below both OP1 and ED1, but both I like more than when I started. ED2 is starting to warm my heart now. I really adore the visuals, and your reminder about Goose House looking like they're having so much fun when they perform the song makes me feel even warmer and fuzzier each time I watch the ending credits.
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Old 06-06-2016, 10:41 AM   #28
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Watched Episode 08. Feel like I got kicked in the gut.

Spoiler: show
The episode starts with the very thing I asked for last time -- cheese! We're shown how to make cheese in a general sense -- no details on how you make specific flavors of cheese, but the basics on how you add or drain fluids, stir, strain, etc, to get the milk to transform into cheese. It was a nice little primer and I was very glad to see Yoshino's story arc brought back into the spotlight.

Then we shift gears to Komaba's absence from school. And the episode gets so depressing that I feel a little nauseated even as I'm typing this. ^^; Komaba, Hachiken discovers, is dropping out of school. It's not grades or dreams -- it's money. It turns out that the Komabas are in a lot of debt, their farm is dying, and worst of all they got the Mikages roped into their debt nightmare too. So Komaba feels he has to exit school immediately in order to get a job, start making money, and work towards paying down the debt before his or Aki's family get into even worse waters.

I honestly wonder how Arakawa plans to have this problem resolved. I feel like if she were genuinely writing Komaba out of the story that she wouldn't have Hachiken get involved beyond this point. She'd have him learn the tough lesson that all the other kids seem to have already accepted. But when the episode ends, Hachiken has only reaffirmed his personal beliefs that you don't abandon family/friends and that he's not out of line to involve himself in Icchan's affairs. Hachiken is willing to suffer if it means saving a friend's future. That's the chapter Arakawa has written for us. So like ... it seems clear to me that she intends for Hachiken to succeed, and for Komaba to somehow make it back to Ezo Ag. But that's the question: just how is Hachiken going to raise the money to pay off the Komaba family's debts? A summer of manual labor only netted him $500. I get the impression that the Komabas are in debt to the tune of several tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Keeping in mind that theirs is a really small farm, and that any renovations his dad would've paid for we already got to see when Hachiken visited.) This is the sort of thing that can only be paid off in one of three ways I can think of:
  1. someone wins the lottery ~_~
  2. Hachiken & Co. produce something of value that is worth tens of thousands to millions (e.g. a special cheese that Japanese Bill Gates is willing to spend top dollar for)
  3. Hachiken crowdfunds Komaba's debt repayment, soliciting donations from everyone at Ezo Ag. For example, if the school has 1,000 students and faculty and everyone chips in $100, that'd be $100,000.
1 is unrealistic. 2 is also plagued with problems. And so's 3. None of these solutions seem practical to me.

One of the biggest problems with 2 is that I can't think of anything Ezo Ag manufactures that would carry that much value. Even the most amazing dairy cow in the history of dairy cows would only be worth several tens of thousands of dollars tops, I'd think. Perhaps enough to pay off a tinier debt? And like ... custom cheese, custom bacon, or other processed goods, those aren't going to carry that much value at market. It's not like Hachiken is about to tap into the Internet and convince 2channel to purchase Ezo Ag t-shirts, mugs, and cheese.

A huge problem with 3 is that most of the school disagrees with Hachiken's philosophy (i.e. they disagree with him that he is right to butt in here and make Komaba's problems his own), so he has to overcome that hurdle first; and then even if he manages to do that, we've already heard a number of students complain that their own families are in danger of shutting down the family farm too. I can't imagine such students will be able to magically come up with $100 to sponsor at best a friend and at worst a kid in the same school that they hardly even know.

So yeah. The point is, I have no idea where we're going to go from here. The episode could've easily set up for Komaba's permanent exit from Ezo Ag and Hachiken having to swallow the bitter pill about how survival-of-the-fittest the world can be. But it didn't. And now we're here, with me having to wonder just how Arakawa plans to save the day.

While I'm glad that this story might have a happy ending for Komaba, part of me feels like this could've been Silver Spoon's _______ ________ moment. (Fullmetal Alchemist spoilers.)

Spoiler: show
... Part of me feels like this could've been Silver Spoon's Maes Hughes moment. Sure, Silver Spoon isn't the sort of story where people are expected to die. But Komaba's exit from Ezo Ag is essentially that: a "character death" for a high school story. Him dropping out of school under sad circumstances is basically Maes Hughes being killed. Maes living on in Mustang's heart and Mustang being really angry about his best friend's death, that'd be Icchan living on in Hachiken's heart and Hachiken never forgetting about what happened here.

And maybe it still is. Maybe I'm mistaken to think that Arakawa is going to undo this and is going to have Komaba be right back at school by season's end. I don't know.
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Old 06-08-2016, 09:03 PM   #29
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Episode 09:

Spoiler: show
The serious keeps on getting more serious!

First off: this episode reveals that I was under some pretty wrong impressions with the way Episode 08 ended. Despite all the tells that I thought we were being handed about Hachiken hatching a plan to save the day for Komaba, that ended up totally not happening. In the end, the Komabas sell every last cow that they own and their ranch officially shuts down. The Mikages even hold a private business meeting to discuss whether the Komabas' land will have to be sold off in order to pay down some of the debt. (Jesus!) So make no mistake -- there's no Hero Hachiken here here to save the day. If you took the first half or so of Episode 08 alone, Episode 09 wouldn't surprise you in the slightest.

Second: Hachiken's "hero role" is explored this episode as being more to do with Aki's emotional support. All that talk about wanting to be dragged into Icchan's debt woes, it looks like it was more along the lines of being dragged into Aki's worries about that, her family's farm, her future, and other things. The episode ends with the Mikages deciding to sell every last horse they own since, after all, they're a dairy farm first and a horse ranch second, and Aki being egged on by Hachiken to confess to her parents that a) she doesn't want to inherit the family farm because b) she really wants to pursue a career with horses.

The episode takes a serious look at farm closures and other farm bankruptcy concerns. While it didn't make me nauseous the way that the previous episode did, I'm still sitting here anxious and uneasy. The episode is not what can be called a fun one.

Episode 10:

Spoiler: show
With the end of this episode, it becomes clearer where Silver Spoon the anime is going to end and just how much material is left unanimated.
What we're going to see: Hachiken visits home, where undoubtedly there'll be a confrontation between him and his father; Hachiken returns to school; the rest, no idea

What the manga surely explores: by conveniently introducing the notion of "Ezo Ag University" , something I had specifically looked out for when watching S1 and had noted we didn't have, it's now clear that Arakawa intends to carry the story onward from high school on into the kids' college years. Hachiken will go there because he likes Mikage and has fond memories of Ezo Ag; Mikage will go there because it's the only school she can get into; Hachiken's vet friend will go there because apparently it's a vet school first and foremost; and finally I imagine Arakawa will wiggle Tamako into going there, even though she should be going to be a bigger-name school, because something something Ezo Ag U is the best school for her pursuits. Unless the story is to go into ridiculous territory, we should lose Tokiwa (who's not only too stupid to get into college but who also has never entertained any desire to go) as well as several of our lesser characters (like Hachiken's roommates or some of the Equestrian Club members).
Then again, I was pretty convinced by how Episode 08 ended that Hachiken would magically solve the Komabas' problem, and look how that turned out ... So maybe I'm wrong here too about Silver Spoon going down the Itazura na Kiss or the Boy Meets World route and transplanting our high schoolers into a college setting.

This episode had a few fun moments for me. First, I really liked the Minamoto no Yoshitsune reference. I love Yoshitsune, and his famous cliffside feat at Ichi-no-Tani is one of the most renowned and celebrated military events of Japanese history. Second, the part where Hachiken sees Pork Bowl after the upperclassman makes him smell his stinky sock, and Pork Bowl talks to Hachiken in a human voice ... that was pretty cute , disgusting stinky sock aside. Third, the part at the Mikages' where Hachiken says "I'll take responsibility!" and everyone takes that to mean he's offering to take Aki's hand in marriage ... that was pretty great. Even Great Granny had to get in on that one.

Not really sure why they're pushing for Aki to be a stable hand at the Ban'ei racetrack. I thought for sure she'd pursue a career either as a professional horseback rider (maybe not a racing jockey, but the kind that jump over hurdles at equestrian events) or else as a breeder. At the risk of sounding sexist, I'm going to have to agree with her uncle here: a stable with huge, plow-dragging workhorses is no place for a slender woman.

Oh, almost forgot ... Tokiwa and the bath-made yogurt ... >_< I get what he's saying about it being sealed, but I 100% agree with the other boys. Could not bring myself to eat/drink it knowing that it had been in the men's bathtub.
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Old 06-08-2016, 09:52 PM   #30
Talon87
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Season 2 Episode 11:

Spoiler: show
The "less than livestock" conversation between Hachiken and his father was brief but pretty good. Tense though!

Oh no his mom and dad ate the bathtub yogurt. >.< ^^;;

Aww that ending, they knew it was over. :') Not just the montage, but the very deliberate "おしまい" there at the end in the snow. Shucks. Guess that means that the lackluster sales of S1 had already gotten back to them and they'd already made the decision to call it quits with the series after S2's scheduled broadcast block was all used up.

It's a shame that the anime ends where it does. It's always heartbreaking when you like an anime but it ends before the source material does and they never circle back around to finish it. Sakurasou, Uchuu Kyoudai, and now Silver Spoon ... actually, I feel like this has been happening a lot more recently, even if I lose track of which shows it's happening to because I haven't been watching as much anime as I have previously. Seems like a lot more shows are vehicles for their respective manga or light novel sources and that once the TV show does its job of advertising that the source material exists, that's it -- the plug is pulled, no more TV show episodes, why spend money animating a costly anime when you could just reap the pure profits that come from fans desperately buying the source material to learn what happens next? I suppose we were lucky that the relatively recent Boku dake ga Inai Machi followed the pattern of yesteryear, giving us a television series that had an ending which mirrored the source material's (while not identical to it) and still brought us right up to the very end of the tale. Seems like that classic approach to anime started to peter off in the early-mid 2010s, and Silver Spoon appears to have been one of the shows that fit the new pattern.

I'm glad I picked Silver Spoon back up again. While it's no masterpiece, it is an adorable little program that deserves a lot less flak than I originally gave it. I enjoy the peek into the world of farming students, and I think Arakawa is too criticized for romanticizing this livelihood. I don't think the show shies away from exploring how difficult it is to be a farmer, and Season 2 definitely doesn't pull any punches. The anime has pleasant music, pleasant animation, pleasant voice acting ... none of it stands out as groundbreaking, but it doesn't need to be. It's a fine little series and anyone who's remotely interested in the story of a city slicker who goes to farm school should at least try out the first episode.

Overall I give Silver Spoon an 8/10.
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