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Old 08-01-2013, 07:02 PM   #1
kaisap112
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Gin no Saji, a.k.a. Silver Spoon



"Yugo Hachiken dreams of life separated from his family, so he takes the initiative by enrolling in an agriculture school. He thinks, with his talent in studying, no problems will arise no matter what kind of school he attends. He is proven wrong very quickly. Raised as a city boy, he is forced to uncover the inconvenient truth about agricultural life. Enjoy the story of Hachiken, as he tries to keep up with his new friends, farmers' heirs, who are already accustomed to the harsh world of farming. With no clear goals or understanding of farming life, how will Hachiken survive this new, cruel reality? The story of a sweat, tear, and mud-stained youth begins!"

(Source: MAL)



Let's get to discussing life on the farm! :3

Oh, and this thing is created by the same person who made some little thing called Full Metal Alchemist, whatever that is.

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Old 08-03-2013, 06:36 PM   #2
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Read this manga since the 1st chapter came out, love it.

I'll write more later on the phone.
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Old 08-04-2013, 03:43 PM   #3
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Talon's thoughts on Episode 01
Talon's thoughts on Episode 02

I just watched Episodes 03 and 04. Both were good. Both were improvements on their predecessors. If the series keeps this pattern up, it could become really, really great in little time.

Episode 03 was the one about Hachiken, his crush, and his crush's childhood friend going on a three-person "date" to the horse racetrack.

Spoiler: show
We got some insight into Hachiken's backstory and also saw our first "dark side" of Nakajima-sensei, suggesting he's more Liu Bei than Buddha. The highlight for the future though was Hachiken falling for a runty piglet, nicknamed Pork Bowl, who he finds himself rooting for to become a strong, healthy pig.

Episode 04 was the one about Hachiken making pizza for the campus. This was a fun episode.

Spoiler: show
I liked the bit with the cheese cellar. But man, Nakajima-sensei sure is turning out to be less and less Buddhic with each passing episode! First gambling, now this!?

Loved the brief part where they asked Hachiken how many tons of flour he needed.

Aww @ Pork Bowl being confirmed for the slaughterhouse in about three months' in-universe time.

Wow @ eating raw bacon. But I guess it just goes to show that the school believes their pigs are free of any and all parasites. I've always wanted to try raw bacon it looks so good ...

I was worried that this episode was going to be about how Hachiken's grades suffered while he was distracted with this pizza thing. Glad that that wasn't the case.

This anime sure does love to show close-ups of people's mouths while they eat, doesn't it!?

I'm not really seeing a reason to root for Hachiken x his crush over Hachi's crush x her childhood friend. Kind of hoping that she pairs with her childhood friend and Hachi gets someone new. (Incoming freshman next year, maybe?) Then again, I really hated Winry Rockbell too and never much cared for Ed pairing off with her. Maybe this author just writes romances that frustrate the crap out of me.
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Old 08-04-2013, 09:36 PM   #4
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Has anyone in this thread tried any of the foods shown in this show? Such as
Spoiler: show
rice with raw egg and soy sauce, Gouda pizza and so on?


I'm curious as to how these foods taste...but I'm also a chicken and a picky eater so I don't dare try them myself without at least some confirmation this stuff's edible.
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Old 08-06-2013, 08:05 PM   #5
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Saw episode 04. One theory I was sorta entertaining/expecting that got shot down was...

Spoiler: show
The idea that Hachiken's old teacher accidentally sent him to the wrong school. At some point I thought he'd look at the name on the leaflet and go "oh shit". o.o; XP Figured that's what he was calling the headmaster about. ^^;
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Old 08-13-2013, 12:04 PM   #6
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Coulda sworn I responded to this post last week. Guess not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaisap112 View Post
Has anyone in this thread tried any of the foods shown in this show? Such as
Spoiler: show
rice with raw egg and soy sauce, Gouda pizza and so on?


I'm curious as to how these foods taste...but I'm also a chicken and a picky eater so I don't dare try them myself without at least some confirmation this stuff's edible.
I haven't. In the case of the egg + rice, too worried about Salmonella poisoning. (It's pretty bad in the eggs we have in town here. Even when I cook eggs to the point of dryness, I'd say I get acute food poisoning from them maybe one out of every three cases. Sometimes even hard boiling the egg doesn't protect you!) In the case of a pizza made with Gouda, I don't make homemade pizzas nor do I know whether I like Gouda or not. All that stated, like you, I find myself curious about these foods and interested to maybe try them out. But no, haven't done so yet.

Episode 05:

Spoiler: show
This week's episode was okay. As Great Escape-style episodes go, it was kinda weak, but people always enjoy a Great Escape-style episode, and this one was indeed enjoyable, even if not supremely so.

I think I enjoy this show best when it highlights how farmers see things differently from the rest of us. One of my favorite scenes in the episode was when Hachiken is telling the others about the crop circle he saw, expecting them to be positively excited and discussing aliens and Roswell and whatnot, when to his surprise they all start getting rather negative and saying how much they don't like crop circles. ("Ruins the crop", "makes it harder to harvest", etc.) It's scenes like these that really make Gin no Saji fun for me to watch. I wish the show had more of them, and sadly this week's episode was otherwise pretty damn sparse on such things. (Yes, the entire focus was on their fascination with high-end tractors, but we've already seen that joke. Recently too. )

It's not really explained what they did with the poor teacher who was going to the bathroom. ^_^; I'm surprised they only got one day of bathroom cleaning duty for that, catching a strawberry thief or no.
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Old 08-13-2013, 01:16 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Coulda sworn I responded to this post last week. Guess not.

I haven't. In the case of the egg + rice, too worried about Salmonella poisoning. (It's pretty bad in the eggs we have in town here. Even when I cook eggs to the point of dryness, I'd say I get acute food poisoning from them maybe one out of every three cases. Sometimes even hard boiling the egg doesn't protect you!) In the case of a pizza made with Gouda, I don't make homemade pizzas nor do I know whether I like Gouda or not. All that stated, like you, I find myself curious about these foods and interested to maybe try them out. But no, haven't done so yet.
...shouldn't that qualify for a case for some government agency that deals with food production/health? I think I heard it mentioned in some cooking show that the USA has pasteurized eggs (we only have pasteurized milk and by extension stuff that's made with dairy here), or are those eggs just way more expensive than other eggs?

Guess I should start getting used to the idea that I'm a cooking/baking nut and everyone else who don't do that daily are actually the normal ones. I've only eaten Gouda as slices on bread and in sandwiches and it's perfectly fine that way, but with pizza I always thought mozzarella was The Way to go.

Personally found Episode 5 boring
Spoiler: show
exactly because A) "let's break rules by sneaking out!" episode, I think those have been done to death with every media related to boarding schools and B) that damn alien-thing. I just...absolutely wouldn't rewatch the episode unless there was a reason (like showing it to a friend) and I wouldn't feel bad about skipping it in the case of a season marathon. I'm just hoping they'll bring back the food stuff again next week.
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Old 08-14-2013, 07:17 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Coulda sworn I responded to this post last week. Guess not.

I haven't. In the case of the egg + rice, too worried about Salmonella poisoning. (It's pretty bad in the eggs we have in town here. Even when I cook eggs to the point of dryness, I'd say I get acute food poisoning from them maybe one out of every three cases. Sometimes even hard boiling the egg doesn't protect you!)
That sounds really bad, like something that should be reported to what ever handles health code violations for food over in America. And the eggs actually wouldn't be raw. It uses the same principle behind making pasta carbonara, the egg is cooked using the ambient temperature from the rice.

Also this looks really interesting, especially considering how rare it is for me to find something that actually sort of relates to the profession I am heading towards. I'll definitely pick this up once I have finished watching the couple of shows I have to finish.
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Old 08-15-2013, 07:16 PM   #9
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Episode 6 is here, guys! And what an episode it is.

Spoiler: show
I quite liked the butchering of the deer as a scene, for the character development. And...salary men are rich? What? Those ladies acted like Hatchiken's a millionaire!

But the crowning moment of the episode for me was that damn bear. "Great catch!"


Also, I'll be testing the egg+rice+soy combo soonish, I'll let you know if I got awful food poisoning or not.

PS. So that dish actually has a name!
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Old 08-19-2013, 12:53 AM   #10
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Episode 06:

Spoiler: show
This was a nice return to form for the series, showing fun and/or informative differences between farmers and other people. The consumption of roadkill makes some good sense ("waste not, want not" + deer are classic hunted animals anyway), but the thing is that we tend not to advise consumption of roadkill since the animals could be diseased ("why take unnecessary risks?"). Anyway, it was neat that Hachiken learned how to clean a deer, and that he then got to eat the fruits of his labor. But man oh man, if it's not going to be sad when Pork Bowl ends up being sent to the slaughterhouse.

Interesting to learn that Komaba's father worked himself to death and that his family farm is a pretty small affair of mother, teenage son, little daughters, and thirty cows. I always pictured Komaba and Mikage being like neighboring rival families of similar scale. Didn't think Komaba's would be such a small operation compared to the larger one the Mikages have got going on.

In America, we tend to associate our centenarians with things like remembering the Great Depression. It was pretty neat to see how the Japanese associate theirs with people who remember a time when Hokkaido was still an uncivilized territory (from the Japanese POV; not sure the Ainu would agree with that ... ^^; ).

The bit at the end with the bear was indeed funny.

I think I may have espoused similar views in an earlier post, but I guess it's worth mentioning that I once again find myself rooting moreso for Komaba x Mikage than I do Hachiken x Mikage. From a literary perspective, I think it'd make more sense for Hachiken and Mikage to just be friends, for Komaba and Mikage to pair off, and for Hachiken to pair off with a new freshman next year or the year after that. From a real world perspective, I can well appreciate Doppel's point about how "once a childhood friend, always a childhood friend" and thus Komaba and Mikage are in one another's mutual friend zones. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what the author has in store for us.
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Old 08-30-2013, 02:15 PM   #11
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Episode 07:

Watched this one last week but apparently forgot to post about it. I guess I don't have too much to say other than:

Spoiler: show
I appreciate how the author explores the different approaches modern farmers take to their various enterprises (dairy, poultry, horses, etc). She doesn't come and declare "the Komabas are saints, the Mikages are normal folk, and the Inadas are villains" the way you might expect a city slicker to. She shows that even the Inadas are nice people with their own sense of morals. It's just that they represent the least merciful / the least animal-friendly side of the equation. It's not to say that they are, in absolute terms, animal-unfriendly. Just that they're the least friendly. On the other side you have the Komabas, who hold onto cattle even when they're past their prime. Is either side "right"? Is either side "wrong"? The author of Gin no Saji, Arakawa Hiromu, does an excellent job of not being too preachy on this point. She represents all the different sides honestly and with as little bias as possible and allows the readers/viewers at home to decide for themselves whose philosophy they think is best.

Episode 08:

The plot moved a bit more forward in this episode than in the previous week's.

Spoiler: show
We got to meet Hachiken's older brother, Yuugo, who we learned is something of an academic genius who can get good grades without even really trying too hard. He's also a bit of a free spirit who, much like his younger brother, seems to be lost in life right now. While Hachiken can't seem to find a goal to work towards, Yuugo has found one -- becoming a master ramen chef -- but it's a goal that seems to be beyond his reach, at least for now.

We also learn through Yuugo's phone call to the boys' parents that while Hachiken's mother is concerned for her boys yet permissive of their self-discovery, Hachiken's father is not only concerned for their futures but feels like they're both dicking around wasting their lives and amounting to good-for-nothings. A conflict between Hachiken and his father is all but imminent now.

As for Hachiken himself, we discover that he's really started to enjoy working on the Mikages' farm and enjoys seeing (and tasting!) the fruits of his labor. But when he accidentally forgets to connect a hose before turning on the dairy machine, he ends up costing the Mikages some $400+ in lost goods. He feels terrible about this and feels that the least he can do to make it up to the Mikages is to turn down the payment they were planning to give him, but the Mikages insist that he take it, saying that not only was the error not entirely (or even primarily!) Hachiken's fault but that they also feel his labor, mistakes included, was worth what they're about to gift him. We don't get to find out how much is in there but if you assume ~15 days of labor times ~6 dollars an hour times ~12 hours of labor a working day, that'd be roughly $1080. I have no idea if that's how much they actually paid him or not, but regardless, it seems clear that he got a nice little chunk of change from his work on the farm this summer.

And now we head back to school!
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Old 08-30-2013, 04:06 PM   #12
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Episode 8

Spoiler: show
Daaaaamn is Mother Mikage insistent on getting Hachiken married into the family. And Pa Mikage's having none of it! Not even the perfect man would be good enough for his daughter, I suppose. It's slightly adorable to me though.

Great-grandma(????) Mikage spouted words of wisdom in the end, and I'm curious myself what Hachiken will do with his hard-earned money. Honestly, I totally thought the Mikages were actually giving him a calf/cow. Maybe he'll buy himself a cow! That'd be a twist. OR MAYBE HE'LL BUY PORK BOWL AND SAVE HIM FROM SLAUGHTER?! HAVE I FIGURED OUT THIS STORYLINE?!

I'm also more and more convinced with every anime I watch that Tokyo University is the one and only university in Japan ever. Heck, even the US has Yale, Harvard etc. but Japan doesn't seem to flaunt anything but the big bad Tokyo U and how people literally kill themselves trying to get into it. The Japanese education system really has it out against anyone who doesn't know what to do with their lives from the moment they exit the uterus.
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Old 08-30-2013, 05:48 PM   #13
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So ... apparently Gin no Saji only has three more episodes before it takes a break for a season. This is pretty strange to me since it feels like the story is still in introduction territory. But hey, at least fans don't need to fear that it's been canceled. It hasn't been. Just taking a break for a season, with plans to return in January 2014.
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Old 09-06-2013, 10:06 AM   #14
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Episode 9

Spoiler: show
TAMAKO! WHAT THE HELL! THIN TAMAKO! OH MY LORD! THIN TAMAKO!

...I'm actually sad we lost Thin!Tamako at the end of the episode.

We got more and more food this episode! Who else isn't surprised?

Pork Bowl is big enough to pass as medium quality bacon...I'm still convinced Hachiken will buy Pork Bowl at the end.
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Old 09-06-2013, 01:34 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by kaisap112 View Post
Episode 9

Spoiler: show
Pork Bowl is big enough to pass as medium quality bacon...I'm still convinced Hachiken will buy Pork Bowl at the end.
Spoiler: show
Probably how he'll spend his earnings from working at the Mikage farm.
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Old 09-06-2013, 08:48 PM   #16
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Does anyone else keep up with the manga here? I would watch the anime if it wasn't for time constraints, and I've been keeping up with the manga consistently since the beginning.

Might like to have a convo about that :'(
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Old 09-06-2013, 09:36 PM   #17
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*raises hand up high* Oh, pick me, pick me! I've read all the manga chapters so far ^^
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Old 09-08-2013, 01:32 AM   #18
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*raises hand up high* Oh, pick me, pick me! I've read all the manga chapters so far ^^
Yay, I probably would take it to Private Message though to not spam this thread completely haha. When I have more time
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Old 09-19-2013, 10:39 PM   #19
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Episode 09:

Spoiler: show
This was a really solid episode. My favorite bit was when the teacher in charge of the pigs said:
Quote:
By having a foreign body like Hachiken thrown into a lot full of indoctrinated sheep, atypical discussions are taking place. The flock evolves when they are joined by someone with different values. The dairy science first-years are turning into an interesting lot.
I also liked what Tamako's older brother said moments before that:
Quote:
[Hachiken] could just pretend to deal with it, to get himself through school. But instead, he takes it seriously and is honest about it with the people around him. I noticed it during the pizza thing too, but when someone's serious about what they do, people just naturally flock to them.
One fairly obvious highlight of the episode was getting to see Tamako thin. Just as Hachiken had prophesied several episodes back, Tamako is quite attractive when she's lost all of that weight. Such a shame that she put it all right back on. T_T

I enjoyed the various ag lessons we got this week. The bit near the beginning about how pigs' bodies are only 15% fat (compared with 10-20% male humans and 20-30% female humans) was funny. I also liked the interesting tidbit about how farmers will try and fatten pigs up by feeding them liquid slop in the week before they go to slaughter. I would've liked an explanation as to why this growth would only be temporary, but it was still neat to see the results all the same.

The end of this episode made me really want pork curry. T_T I haven't cooked any in about 3-4 months. Have been waiting for a sale on pork -- sometimes it's as low here as $1/lb -- but the market's been stubborn and pork's been $3/lb this entire time. I could really go for some pork curry ... T_T
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Old 09-24-2013, 04:00 PM   #20
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Episode 10:

Spoiler: show
Wow, did not expect that. ^^; I expected Hachiken to purchase Pork Bowl and then send him to either the Mikages or the Komabas or someone else, to keep alive as a pet pig or something. I'm impressed that the author decided to have Hachiken purchase Pork Bowl but as meat for consumption. And I enjoyed watching how the episode played out from there. Very interesting episode.

I thought the scene with Hachiken, the freckle-faced girl with pigtails, and Tokiwa was hysterical. It was even better in the original Japanese, though the fansubs I watched it with did a good enough job to get the point across.

Episode 11:

Spoiler: show
This episode was kind of schizoid. 50% of it felt like a season finale, but 50% of it didn't. The entire bit with Komaba felt really oddly out of place for a season finale, but the parts with Hachiken talking to the principal, us seeing his parents getting some of Pork Bowl's meat, or the students meeting the new batch of piglets felt like better fits for the episode that should be wrapping things up for a season.

I did think it was pretty funny when that one cutie from another class comes to confess to Hachiken ... only for us to discover that she hasn't come to confess but rather to ask him if she can buy some bacon too.

And just like that, the first installment of the Silver Spoon television anime is over. Granted, the hiatus is likely to be short -- with us returning to Ezo Ag this January, no? -- but it is what it is, the end of a season. It kind of doesn't feel like we've seen an entire season yet though. I feel like right now we're in the middle of a 26-episode "season" rather than being at the end of a 13-episode regular season. I definitely can't imagine many people in future generations opting to watch these first eleven episodes but then skipping out on the next eleven to thirteen. A couple of people, sure, but I think most people are going to want to watch this plus whatever begins airing in January if they want to feel like they're getting a complete package.

While I've definitely tried to enjoy the series as best I can -- and while I've indeed found lots of little things to enjoy in most of the episodes -- I can't deny that this series doesn't excite me anywhere near the level of the author's previous work, Fullmetal Alchemist. I guess in that sense Arakawa Hiromu is walking down the same path perilously laden with landmines as Kobayashi Jin (School Rumble, Natsu no Arashi, Ichiro Heian) did before her. In a lot of ways, I feel like we can tell that Gin no Saji is a story that Hiromu wants to tell, but the problem for her is getting fans of her earlier work like me to quit making comparisons between this one and FMA.
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Old 09-24-2013, 10:36 PM   #21
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In a lot of ways, I feel like we can tell that Gin no Saji is a story that Hiromu wants to tell, but the problem for her is getting fans of her earlier work like me to quit making comparisons between this one and FMA.
Given that she is the author of FMA, I'm actually not all that surprised...

Spoiler: show
...She killed Pork Bowl off. Though I've not read the FMA manga, I would certainly give her that much credit as a storywriter.
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Old 05-17-2016, 06:09 PM   #22
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I put S1E01 on in the background while trying to get my ideal Rayquaza in ORAS, and now I'm through Episode 02 as well. I enjoyed both episodes a lot more than I remember giving this series credit for. I'm contemplating rewatching all of S1 and then bursting on to S2 (which I still haven't seen).
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Old 05-18-2016, 05:22 PM   #23
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I finished re-watching Silver Spoon. Thoughts:

This anime was much better than I remembered it being. My memories from 2013 were of an anime that was only so-so at being a way to pass the time and that didn't hold up as an anime you should give your full attention to. But in 2016, I was only able to watch Silver Spoon in the background for the first two or three episodes. By Episode 04, I would routinely put the 2DS down to give the show my full attention. And by Episode 08, this was no longer a show I even attempted to multi-task with the 2DS. Silver Spoon is a lot of nice things. It's cute. It's thoughtful. It's thought-provoking. And it's fun.

Looking back over my posts from 2013, I'm a little embarrassed by how much I brought up Fullmetal Alchemist, Arakawa Hiromu's other work. While it's true that Silver Spoon isn't as exciting or even as generally good as FMA was, that doesn't mean that Silver Spoon is bad. Far from it. I think 2013 me was just a little disappointed that Silver Spoon wasn't "FMA-grade material." And it's not like I hold FMA on a high pedestal either. I dunno. That's all I really want to say right now about my past posts on this show. Like I said, I'm rather embarrassed by how I refused to let that comparison go.

One of the things my 2016 re-watch of Silver Spoon had going for it was nostalgia. That's obviously something you can't give a show when it's your first time watching it, but without a doubt this time 'round benefited from my anticipation of certain events like:

Spoiler: show
  • Thin Tamako (Episode 09)
  • the Great Escape-style episode with the "UFO" that turns out to be a thresher/tractor (Episode 05)
  • Hachiken gutting a deer (Episode 07)
  • Hachiken spilling all that milk (Episode 08)
  • Pork Bowl (various episodes)
  • making the pizza (Episode 04)

Many times, I'd anticipate an event far sooner than it aired. Other times, the event would catch me from behind unawares and then I'd smile on turning around as I recognized its face. But in general, there was a lot of nostalgia driving this show's re-enjoyment. I think it's a similar phenomenon that was/is at work with Maria-sama ga Miteru, where every time I re-watch that series I seem to enjoy it more than the last time.

Another benefit Silver Spoon had on the re-view was the fact that I wasn't antsy or negative about plot progression. Because I already knew roughly where Season 1 would wrap up / how far we would get, I was never upset with any episodes for "wasting my time" or "not living up to their full potential." On the re-view, not a single episode was bad. Not a single episode felt like a waste of my time. I feel like that probably wasn't the case in 2013. Looking over my 2013 post for Episode 05, for example, I see myself saying that the episode is a subpar entry for its genre. Not only did I not feel it was subpar this time around, but I didn't think any negative thoughts like that towards it period. I enjoyed the episode. I enjoyed that it was a part of the Silver Spoon family. But when you're watching in 2013 without any idea of how far the season will take you and the wait between episodes is weekly, I can well appreciate how frustrating it must have been for me to receive episodes that didn't advance the plot whatsoever.

The animation was pleasant and effective. So too was the music. The voice acting was good too -- nothing too remarkable, but nothing worthy of criticism either.

Is the series somewhat guilty of the "Careers: Anime Edition" trend that was popular in the early 2010s? Well sure it is. This and Nourin are the two series I can think of that are the E/I stories for farming. Is there an ulterior motive on Arakawa Hiromu's part? Is she trying to romanticize farming such that if even 0.001% of her readers decide to grow up to become farmers then it means she'll have helped to revitalize Japan's farming industry? Maybe. I can't say for certain. But with the re-viewing of Silver Spoon, I also have to ask: who cares? Not to be so carefree about subliminal messaging and the like, but seriously: so long as the story provides a mostly-honest presentation of what farming life is like, what's the sin in one city slicker entertaining millions of other city slickers with this tale? If it grants us a window into the life of a farmer, then what's the harm? Most of us would never be fortunate enough to get the windows into farm life that Hachiken gets, and Hachiken gets them thanks to Arakawa's research efforts when penning this tale. We owe her a minor debt of gratitude: her hard work has let us all be farmers for a day without having to leave our living rooms. Personally, I enjoy the career-glance animes. I just don't like, like I'm sure many people didn't like, the glut of them that we got in the early 2010s.

Overall, I'd like to give Silver Spoon S1 an 8/10 this time around. Last night my thinking was "7/10 objectively but 8/10 personal enjoyment-wise," but today I can confidently upgrade that objective score to match my personal enjoyment of the series. Silver Spoon is in a few words very good if not great. I'm glad I happened to load up Episode 01 on a whim last night, and I now look forward to pressing on to the fresh turf for me that is Season 2.
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Old 05-23-2016, 09:12 PM   #24
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I just finished the first episode of Season 2. I was delighted to see that it was 96% a "Season 1 Episode 12" and not a typical "Season 2 Episode 01" where they either recap constantly or else the episode has completely different-feeling pacing and direction than the ones from the previous season. Sure, Episode 01 of S2 has recap, but it's all identical to what you get in any other mid-season episode that calls back to earlier episodes. It wasn't "recap" so much as "topical flashbacks."

S2 Episode 01:

Spoiler: show
Arakawa continues to troll me so, so successfully well and this episode was no exception. Like Hachiken, I 100% thought that Mikage was talking about her own bra. And then they reveal it's a bra for Holsteins ...

Hachiken as Vice President of the Equestrian Club would have felt only too convenient for this story if I hadn't known anything prior nor had the justifications explained to me by the episode. But you put those two things I did in fact have together and you get a satisfying development. Hachiken's high school life sure is shaping up to be something memorable, ain't it?

Not really sure what's going on with Komaba and Mikage but it's an obvious red herring that it has anything to do with romance. Komaba at one point says he's sorry for inconveniencing Aki's family. At another point something is said which suggests that someone in Mikage's family might have been hospitalized or even died. But because the two keep saying that the mystery has nothing to do with Hachiken and that he should butt out, it seems unlikely to have been a death in Mikage's family. And besides, how could Komaba possibly be inconveniencing them if it were something like that? So yeah ... not really sure what it is, but we'll have to see. Something that Mikage would cry about and that Komaba would feel like he's inconveniencing her over ...

That was indeed pretty darn passive aggressive when Hachiken got in line behind Komaba in the men's room even though there were four other open urinals. ^^;;

Tokiwa is totally not going to get to participate in the sports fest if it hinges on his passing his finals. ^^;; We'll just have to wait and see though ... Perhaps that's why Arakawa introduces the lucky pencil ... perhaps she feels bad for Tokiwa but has to find a way to justify how someone so bad at math like him would be able to pass his finals in time for the sports fest ...

Aki reminds us that horses get put down for broken legs, and during that scene I started to daydream about how I hope we soon live in a world where horses are genetically re-engineered to have super strong bones and/or bones that heal remarkably quickly and easily. It's such a shame that horses have to be put down just because of a broken leg that for most other animals -- cats, dogs, humans -- you can set it properly, put a splint on it, and it heals fine.

Last but not least: credits! The new OP and ED are both okay, but I prefer the first season's OP and ED more. Perhaps the new two will grow on me, but even if they do I feel like they will still be below S1's offerings.
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Old 05-24-2016, 10:50 PM   #25
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S2 Episode 02:

Spoiler: show
What is it with Arakawa Hiromu and her ability to make such adorable dogs? >.<

Watched this last night. Held off on posting 'cause I just had to include the picture of Vice President. What an adorable puppy.

Silver Spoon continues to be good and worth the reinvestment. I liked Episode 02, for lots of little moments. I watched it in full last night, but I also re-watched it today with it on in the background while I played Pokémon. So many little moments in this episode that were just plain good in one way or another.

In a surprising turn, I'm not too crazy about the increasing attention being paid to the romance between Hachiken and Mikage. Maybe that's because there mostly is no romance: all I see is a one-sided crush from Hachiken. We'll see. Normally I'm a sucker for romance so this could just be a mood swing this particular episode, who knows.

Speaking of changed opinions, though, I wanted to clarify something about the new OP and ED. Last night when I weighed in on them, I had seen and heard OP2 but I had only heard ED2, not seen it. I saw it for the first time when finishing Episode 02, and ... I really, really like ED2's visuals. Still not crazy about the song ^^; , but I really love the visuals.
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