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Old 03-11-2014, 10:17 PM   #1
kaisap112
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No-Rin!



"The sudden retirement of the famous idol Yuka Kusakabe from the entertainment business shocks the world and devastates her biggest fan, teenager Kosaku Hata. His classmates at the Tamo Agriculture School manages to get him out of his depression and bring him out of his room to attend his classes. But to everyone's surprise, Yuka Kusakabe--her stage name--comes into their class under the name Ringo Kinoshita as a transfer student. Kosaku realizes he has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to personally know his dream girl and, together with his group of friends, try to find out why she came to the agricultural school and become more than just classmates."

Will add more description later, but all the Baka Test fans I've told about this are already loving the hell out of this show.
AND SO AM I!
NOW, DISCUSS!

Last edited by kaisap112; 03-11-2014 at 10:26 PM.
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Old 03-11-2014, 10:27 PM   #2
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I was interested until you said Baka + Test.

Say it ain't so!
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Old 03-12-2014, 12:29 AM   #3
Talon87
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On puns: The title is likely a pun. 農林 nourin refers to agriculture and forestry. (And 農民 noumin is a similar-sounding word for farmers.) The rin in Ringo's name is spelled 林, the same as the rin in 農林. In other words, Ringo's name makes up the second half of the title. What the nou in the title is supposed to be beats me. Could be a variety of things but without context I'd be blindly guessing.

Here's a much more obvious pun: Ringo's name, Kinoshita Ringo, means "the apple under the tree." Kinoshita 木下 "under the tree" Ringo 林檎 "apple".

On beauties: "Who is that beauty in the back row?" I asked myself. I went to MyAnimeList's article for Nourin to find out.

"Yoshida Kochou, huh? Let's search for her on Google Images ..."

Spoiler: show
18+ only, please! NSFW.

Spoiler: show



I think I am going to be very grateful to Nourin come the May and August comic conventions.
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Old 03-29-2014, 07:24 PM   #4
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I saw some fanart just now that said to make sure to tune in "1/10" for the debut of Nourin. I was confused. " '1/10' surely means 'January 10'," I said, "but ... January 10 was months ago. Maybe it means April 1st and April 10th? But that'd be weird ... why would the broadcasts for Episode 01 be spaced out by nine days instead of just seven? " So I looked into this and WHAT THE FUUUUUUUH? This series is already airing!?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaisap112 View Post
all the Baka Test fans I've told about this are already loving the hell out of this show.
AND SO AM I!
How did I not understand this the first time I read it. I totally thought Nourin was a Spring 2014 series. Man. Man. Now I gotta check this out immediately and see if it's any good.

Silver Spoon S2: But I--
Talon: Step aside, chump! MUST SEE YOSHIDA IN ACTION!
Silver Spoon S2: Awwww.
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Old 03-29-2014, 10:10 PM   #5
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Episode 01: From what I saw here, Nourin seems to be a pretty typical romantic comedy anime of the "two girls, one guy" variety. On the one hand, it's got some charm and nostalgia going for it; on the other hand, it doesn't look like it's going to offer anything really stellar. If you're new to anime, under the age of 18, and attracted to women, I would probably go ahead and say (just on Episode 01 alone), "Yes, you may like this anime. Check out Episode 01 at the very least to find out." It does enough right that if you're inexperienced with teenage romcoms and with anime in general then you won't begrudge the series its faults. But if you're not a teenager ... or if you've seen dozens of romantic comedies before ... or if you're not attracted to women ... then ehh, I don't see much here in the first episode that would suggest you'll be begging for more. Granted, Kaisa doesn't fit any of those descriptions and she said she loved this series. So what do I know!?

The story opens centered around three friends: Hata Kousaku, Nakazawa Minori, and Kamatori Kei. Kousaku is a junior at an agricultural high school that balances an academic education with hands-on experience in farming. Students enroll in one of two career tracks -- livestock or produce -- their field work corresponding. Kousaku and his friends are all enrolled in the produce track.

Characters: (Spoiler Lite; some small spoilers, but tagging mostly because of size)

Spoiler: show

Kousaku is an enormous fan of the J-pop idol Kusakabe Yuka. His dorm room is plastered with posters of her. He owns all her CDs. He sleeps with a dakimakura of her. He's a hardcore fan through and through. Even Kousaku's dreams for the future center around Yuka. Kousaku plans to enroll in a high school in Tokyo (presumably Yuka's) and start a farm within the city limits. His expectations are unrealistic (cows in Roppongi? Seriously?) but no matter how much his friends try to talk him out of it, Kousaku is determined to created a "trendy farm" in Tokyo. He's accompanied by his pet wallaby, Wakadanna (Young Master), who he even brings with him to class.


Minori is Kousaku's childhood friend. The only girl from Kousaku's hometown his own age, if Kousaku were to settle down with a girl from home like any normal young farmer would then Minori would be the only same-age candidate. Viewers quickly discern that Minori has feelings for Kousaku, but Kousaku seems to be completely unaware of this. The career survey of Class 2-A reveals that Minori's goals for the future are to get married and become a housewife. While Kousaku doesn't have much of an accent, Minori's country accent is quite thick, indicating their farmland roots.


Kei is Kousaku's best friend. They don't seem to be very alike but they get along well. Kei is quieter than Kousaku. He also seems to be more refined and of above average intelligence. But he doesn't seem to be arrogant or snobby.


Yoshida Kochou is the first student we meet from the livestock track. Her ample bust leads Kousaku and Minori to refer to her by the nickname Oppai (Boobs), to her obvious chagrin. Yoshida has a gruff, no-nonsense exterior. Her voice and demeanor show that she means business! But she melts like butter when it comes to Kei, indicating her obvious crush on him. From what little we get to see of Yoshida in the first episode, she seems to be a stereotypical ojou-sama type character. Haughty, authoritative, you know the type.


Becky is Class 2-A's homeroom teacher. Nearing 40 years in age, she oscillates between an inappropriately youthful demeanor and a depressed, bitter one. She's looking for love but still hasn't found it. When she shares one of her depressing stories with the class, it kills the mood so completely that even the rowdiest bunch are brought to complete order in little time, inwardly begging for Becky to begin the lecture.


Last but not least, transfer student Kinoshita Ringo ... better known to Kousaku as Kusakabe Yuka, the J-pop idol he is such a huge fan of. While Ringo wears glasses and has a quiet, sullen voice that sounds nothing like the lively Yuka, Kousaku recognizes her instantly.

It turns out that Kousaku had been sending Ringo all manner of homegrown vegetables -- eggplants, cucumbers, etc. -- and now here Ringo is, having retired from the world of J-pop and enrolling at a small ag high school in the middle of nowhere. Did she come here, inspired by Kousaku's vegetables, to become a farmer? Or did she come here in search of the fan who gifted her the vegetables? Maybe even both? Who can say.

Thoughts:

Spoiler: show
The animation isn't the greatest. The studio clearly lacks the resources of the bigger names in the business. But it's okay: in a way, the simple looks lend Nourin some charm.

Yuka/Ringo's side of the story seems kind of ridiculous, too ridiculous to believed. "Quit life as a J-pop star to go find the guy who was mailing me eggplants so I can become his classmate in ag school." Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... But if you appreciate the ridiculousness of the plot premise for what it is, it can become sort of fun in its own way.

This series is setting me up for major heartbreak with Kousaku: because I ship Kousaku x Minori so, so hard after this first episode yet I know that the show intends to pair him with his waifu idol Ringo. Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhh why are the osananajimis shafted so frickin' often in anime!? >_<

But the author seems to want to make up for the previous heartbreak by offering me Kochou x {any guy, and it just so happens to be Kei} on a silver platter. That's nice. Usually a series like this would just have Kochou remain single 'til the very end and/or would have her have a crush on the protagonist. It's nice to see that Nourin is doing neither, giving Kochou a guy to cleanly pair up with and one who she visibly likes right from the get-go -- a guy who isn't the main character.

Kochou is ridiculously pretty. However, I'm not really one for female drill sergeant types. They're fun characters, sure, but not really mai waifu material. Famous last words? We'll see. But I think I'm beginning to understand why, despite her beauty, Kochou doesn't have that much fanart online.

For foreign viewers, it was kind of the plot to explain the joke behind the eggplants and cucumbers. I recognized the joke immediately myself but worried that it would go over Kaisa's and other viewers' heads. Nice of the episode to explain, "THE JOKE IS THAT EGGPLANTS AND CUCUMBERS ARE STEREOTYPICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH FEMALE MASTURBATION IN JAPANESE PORN, HAR HAR." But for native viewers, I thought that the explanation was laughably unnecessary.

Not that exact situation (and no photographs either!), but I could relate to Becky's second story in the episode. Very, very depressing when you go from that high to that low, let me tell you. ^^;
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Old 03-30-2014, 12:40 AM   #6
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Episode 02:

Spoiler: show
Ringo's pretty cute, not gonna lie. She reminds me of Inuchiyo from Oda Nobuna no Yabou. In fact, I had to look up their respective voice actresses just to make sure it wasn't the same person. (Inuchiyo's voice actress was Fukuen Misato, it seems, while Ringo's is Tamura Yukari.) Likewise, Kousaku's behavior and voice remind me a little bit of Yoshiharu "Saru" from Oda Nobuna, so I had to look up to see if they were the same. They're not. (Yoshiharu's voice actor was Eguchi Takuya. Kousaku's is Asanuma Shintarou.) Even though their voice actors aren't the same, I almost feel like the Kousaku x Ringo pairing allows Oda Nobuna fans to enjoy "the Inuchiyo path" without it feeling like the loli path. Although Ringo is still pretty much the loli of the group. ^^;

Indeed, the other thing that strikes me about Ringo in this episode is how much of a little sister-type character she feels like. I got some OniAi's Akiko vibes here or there from Ringo, particularly with scenes like the one where Kousaku, in between awake and asleep, could swear that a smiling Ringo was watching him from above while he slept. Another good example is Ringo's behavior during the King Game. Definite jealous-imouto-in-love vibes from that scene.


The plot of the episode was fine. I was kind of hoping for more advancement on various fronts, like a) Kousaku getting Ringo to confirm she's Yuka or b) Ringo finding out that Kousaku is the fan who mailed her all of those eggplants. Instead, it seems like the author is taking things a little bit slowly. That's fine. It just indicates that the climax of the series will probably revolve around such things as Scene A and Scene B described above rather than some even further down-the-line development for these two. We'll see.

I've never understood the panties fetish. Underwear is just a garment and "panties" in particular are gross to me, what with their stupid little frills and lace and such. Blegh. Definitely don't understand the fetish taken to its next step where dudes specifically want used/soiled panties. Just ... ugh, no. >_< But whatever, I can acknowledge that the fetish is real, that it exists, and I can roll with the episode. It's not like Nourin is "Panty Fetish - the Anime" or something. It was just for one episode. Hell, not even the entire episode: only half of it.

Still rooting hard for Minori. Ringo may be cute but Minori is definitely the girl I'd rather see Kousaku end up with. Too bad it's not going to happen. >_< *sigh* Given my allegiance to Team Minori, though, you can bet that I enjoyed the King Game scene, what with Kousaku continually pairing up with Minori even though he was trying to pair up with Ringo. I thought the later scene where Minori removes her underwear and gifts it to Kousaku was the most unbelievable i.e. cannot be believed thing we've seen yet in this series, but damn if that wouldn't send a loud and clear message to any man that the woman in question likes him. Unfortunately for Minori, Kousaku is too stupid and too busy crushing on Ringo to notice or understand. *sigh* I felt bad for Minori, too, when Kousaku chucked her panties into the trash bin like that. Jeez, dude. What a way to treat your best friend since childhood.

I am intrigued by how Ringo's personality is so very different from Yuka's. It'll be interesting to see what extent her true personality matches the Ringo persona's or the Yuka persona's. I imagine that the Ringo persona is "the real Ringo" while the Yuka persona is just a facade she puts on for the idols, but I dunno ... she seemed so genuine as an idol in Kousaku's dreams that I just can't help but to wonder if maybe the real Ringo is actually a hybrid of the two personas and that right now she's kind of playing up the quiet sullen character type in order to throw people off the scent or something.

P.S. Loving the anime pop culture references. "KEIKAKU DOORI" indeed.

P.P.S. Kochou is best Nourin girl.
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Old 03-30-2014, 01:47 PM   #7
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Episode 03:

Spoiler: show
This was a cute enough episode. The sort of thing that I imagine would turn off a lot of viewers who don't much care for romantic comedies that are heavy on the fan service. This episode had tons of it. But there were some cute bits of character development here or there and even the occasional pop culture nod.

The show couldn't make it clearer if it tried that Kousaku has no eyes for Minori. I should just accept this and move on. I do like Ringo. I just ... man, poor Minori.

This show seems to love pop culture references. One of the pop culture references that jumped out at me in this episode was that Ringo's costume was the armor worn by the lady warrior from DQ3. I didn't recognize Minori's but I wouldn't be surprised if it was another pop culture reference. (Closest thing I can think of is Soul Caliber's Ivy but I don't think it was supposed to be that.)

Another pop culture reference, although this one's a bit debatable, was a scene during the rice planting contest that looked inspired by a scene from the first episode of Studio David's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, in turn lifted from Araki's manga. It was a scene with two nameless male students getting really excited. The faces they made looked just like the faces that the bullies in JJBA Episode 01 made whenever they exclaimed to one another about Jonathan's or Dio's actions.

A third pop culture reference that pops up earlier in the episode is Dragon Ball Z. Kousaku makes a face in one scene in which he looks like the spitting image of Vegeta or some other DBZ character.

I thought it was a cute gender role reversal to have the two girls bond after duking it out. This is stereotypically attributed to men but I don't really understand why it should have to be gender-restricted and the writer seems to feel the same way.


Episode 04:

Spoiler: show
Before I discuss the actual episode, I'll mention some of the pop culture references that came up in this episode. They don't fit into the discussion below so I'll just get them out of the way here. One was A Dog of Flanders where we see Nello calling out to Patrasche in a re-enactment of one of the final scenes. Another that closely followed was Grave of the Fireflies as Setsuko's name was mentioned in a list of characters in famous Japanese animated tragedies. One of 2channel's mascots shows up in one scene, briefly. In that same scene, Yoshida mimics Phoenix Wright's "Objection!" pose and her objections are accompanied by replicas of the red text from the video game. And, finally, the same scene also sees a reference to Dangan Ronpa, mimicking the distinctive character art and the expressions the DR characters make in courtroom scenes.

With the pop culture references out of the way, let's discuss the actual episode.

This is where Nourin takes a surprising turn for the dramatic. It's not a sharp turn, but the turn is noticeable. I also appreciate it: it lends the series some added depth that allows fans to enjoy it for more than its superficial treats.

A wild monkey is invading the school's gardens and laying waste to their crops. The main group of five brainstorms plans for dealing with the problem, and after rejecting one plan after another (some are too expensive, others too dangerous, others too ineffectual), Kei ends up proposing that they hire a hunter. This visibly upsets Ringo who squeaks out a half-whimper and looks sad. Kousaku notices this and tries to discourage Kei from pursuing the hunting plan, but Kei insists that, sad as the situation may be, this is their best option.

The hunter Kei hires ends up using non-lethal means of capturing the monkey. He blows a tranquilizer dart from a makeshift dart gun and down the monkey goes. As the group approaches the monkey to deal with him, they discover that he has an injured arm. This suggests that either a) he was driven out of the group by the healthier monkeys or else b) he got separated from the healthier monkeys and is now desperately fending for himself while he hopes for his wound to heal. Ringo sees this and once again becomes visibly saddened by the situation. Yoshida then reveals that she's phoned a friend who works at a zoo: they've agreed to take the monkey in, giving him a second chance at life. The students won't have to kill it. Kousaku hopes that this news will make Ringo happy, but while it does seem to help some she still seems to be sad. She stays by the tranquilized monkey's side watching him, her mind somewhere far away.

Kousaku begins to wonder why he's never seen Ringo smile once since she transferred here. (Note: she actually does smile at least once in Episode 03 when Kousaku compliments her but this might be an error the studio made.) He goes back to his dorm and looks at old video footage of Ringo back when she was Kusakabe Yuka. The next day, he shares his concerns with Minori and Kei. The friends agree that at the very least one would have expected Ringo to smile when she learned the good news from Yoshida that the monkey would get to live a luxurious life at the zoo. They decide to try to get Ringo to smile the next day.


The friends' attempts to get Ringo to smile fail but not without Ringo discerning what they're trying to do. She shares with them that she has lost the ability to smile. At first she and her manager thought it was simply stress, but after it failed to go away, Ringo's inability to smile forced her into early retirement. This is why Ringo was so affected by the monkey. She could relate to his situation. He became injured and as a result he was forced out of the group and had to try to make a new life for himself. Ringo likewise was forced out of the J-pop industry and has now wound up here, in the boonies of Japan, hoping to make a new life for herself even though she never asked to leave her old one.

The trio discusses amongst themselves in private what the cause of Ringo's condition could be. Kei believes the cause of Ringo's malady is psychological. This gives Kousaku hope that Ringo will be able to smile again some day. But what can the friends do to try to make that day come sooner?

Kousaku has a strange dream that night. As he tries to make sense of it, he suddenly has an idea. He, Minori, and Kei take Ringo on a field trip. They introduce her to a student project begun by some of the students at their school seven years ago. It has to do with repairing land that has been bled dry of nutrients by a toxic combination of factors which are common in modern agriculture, including overfarming the land and using harsh chemicals to try to promote growth or kill insects. This is where Nourin gets its hands a little dirty, unafraid to take a political stance on farming. While Silver Spoon is content to mostly stick to issues of animal rights and the ethics of eating meat, Nourin decides to take a stance against staples of modern farming that are poisonous to the land. But no matter which side of this political debate you're on, I think you'll appreciate the scene for how it ties in to Ringo.

Ringo immediately relates to the poisoned land. She gets sad when she sees how crappy the soil is and meekly asks Kousaku if it will ever be able to grow anything again or if it's been ruined forever. Kousaku points to some tomatoes growing in a hectare a few paces away from them. He tells Ringo that the dead land they're standing on right now is only half of the experiment: it's the control. The other half of the experiment lies over there, where the tomatoes are growing. The students at Kousaku's school decided to try and find a way to repair land that has been killed by overfarming and harsh chemicals. It's not easy, he tells her, and the fruits of the labor she's witnessing took seven years just to get to this point. But, he tells her, the land is recovering. All hope is not lost.

Ringo asks to try one of the tomatoes. It's not quite ripe yet but she scarfs it down anyway. "It's bitter," she notes, "... but it's good." And she smiles. It isn't a big smile. Her eyes are still half-shut like normal, her voice quiet and calm. But there, unmistakably on Ringo's tomato-stained face, is a tiny smile.

As you can tell from the wall of text above, I really quite enjoyed Episode 04. I was also pleasantly surprised by this serious turn of developments. For those of you who chose not to expand the spoiler box, I mentioned in the Episode 04 discussion that Nourin takes a surprising turn for the dramatic in this episode. It's not a drastic turn. Nourin remains a lighthearted, fan service-heavy comedy. But the turn is noticeable. It lends the series some added depth, depth which was unfortunately missing from the earlier episodes. If you read my initial impressions of Nourin last night and wrote this series off as something that isn't for you, do be sure to check back in and see what I think of the series once I reach the end. Because Episode 04 offers a glimmer of hope that this show could actually be the gem that I'd hoped it would be.
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Old 03-30-2014, 04:02 PM   #8
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I was going to post earlier, but then you somehow made another wall of text while I had my back turned. ^^;; But I'd like to discuss some things, having now completely finished the show myself. Glad you're liking the show! I admit, there's plenty of fanservice, but No-Rin! also deals with some surprisingly political and tough topics during its run.

Now, some notes about things in the already-mentioned episodes!

Episode 1:
Spoiler: show
I was actually fully aware of the eggplant-cucumber-thing. ^^; I'm not that out of touch with lewd references! Not sure if I should be laughing or upset you'd think that...

I personally couldn't help thinking of another big-busted brunette with short hair and too much energy for her own good from Sakurasou when I first saw Minori. And I actually think Minori-fans get a lot more service in this show than Ringo-fans, but that might be a subjective opinion.

I actually started watching No-Rin! because a certain Finnish anime blogger you might remember back from the WataMote thread showed off Becky-sensei - he liked her a lot ("best thing in the show") and I fell for her, too! It's...I'm not sure if I should be worried or disturbed. Especially when you get to the point with her stuff where you start thinking "oh my god that's exactly how I feel/have felt! ...oh my god D8".


Episode 2:
Spoiler: show
Minori and Kochou. I knew they'd be Talon's Favorite Girls of this show.

No comments on the panties-stuff. I wear them and that's all.


Episode 3:
Spoiler: show
I was worried when mud-wrestling came up, but...I'll admit, this was actually the first time I've seen rice being planted. It was very educating! And the chicken coop cleaning lead to me asking my Japanese teacher why it is that cockroaches are censored on Japanese television. He seemed to have never thought of it before. ^^;; Got out a "because...they're gross? ^^;;" before we started class. So I'm still not all that sure!


Episode 4:
Spoiler: show
If you think this episode took a political stand, I can't wait to see your reactions and opinions on the things featured later on. And it all works with the setting and plot! I applaud the writer for that.


I really need to give you all a heads up about Episode 5 now: if you think there's been a lot of fanservice for men in this show so far, Episode 5 gives all the fanservice to the ladies - or rather, fujoshi. It's still hilarious, but I know there are people who really don't like that sort of thing.
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Old 03-30-2014, 07:32 PM   #9
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Episode 05:

Spoiler: show
This episode introduces three of the four members of the Shintennou, the Four Heavenly Farmers (a play-on-words of the original Shintennou meaning the Four Heavenly Kings). In other words? The Elite Four. While the plot is kind of disjointed -- it's not well explained why Kousaku & Co. have to go from Class B to Class F, for example -- plot development isn't really the purpose of this episode. Introducing new characters is.


First up we have Suzuki Akari, a.k.a. Bio Suzuki. She's the class representative of Class 2-B, the 'B' standing for biotechnology. (I take it then that the 'A' in Kousaku's own Class 2-A stands for agriculture.) Kei and Kousaku indicate that they have a hard time communicating with the biotech students, but when the ag department runs out of miso, Minori sends the boys on a mission to fetch some miso from Class 2-B.

Pale skin. White hair. Victorian-era dress. A lace ribbon worn across the top of the head. A fascination with Lactobacilli and their use in dairy products. Calling people "Obaka-san" when insulting them. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Suigin Tou enrolled in a Japanese ag school under the alias Suzuki Akari! Akari is fun to me for these similarities she shares with the best of the Rozen Maidens, but beyond the ones listed the two don't share all that much in common. Suzuki is a bit of a devilish pervert, for one. From naming a new strain of bacteria "ANaL BB" to tricking Kousaku and Kei into participating in a homosexual bukkake photoshoot, Suzuki displays a penchant for naughty things. For another, Bio Suzuki definitely gives off the air of a girl scientist. From the white lab coat to the lectures about what the biotech department is up to, you can tell that she really loves science.


Next up we have Miyamoto Rintarou, a.k.a. Woodman Rintarou. He's the class representative of Class 2-F, the 'F' standing for forestry. Kousaku runs into Rintarou and the rest of Class 2-F ... I don't exactly understand why. In the previous scene, Akari warns Kousaku that "F has made a move. You might want to watch out." Next thing you know, Kousaku is on the edge of campus, deep in the forest. Is he going to meet Class 2-F? It's not exactly clear if he is or why he would want to. When Minori and Ringo speak up, he freaks out and tells them to stay away. Why? Is it because they're girls and Class 2-F is starved for females? Probably. But this isn't really explained. I'm only offering my best guess. Anyway, Rintarou and the other forestry students soon show up, telling Kousaku their sob story about how they have no women in their class. Meanwhile Kousaku, they jealously note, has not only got Minori throwing herself all over him but he's also got the transfer student, Ringo. The conversation carries on like this for a while until finally Kei distracts them with the notion that hiking is the latest fad amongst trendy women and that maybe just maybe if the forestry department tries to reach out to hiking-crazy girls then they might be able to get some more girls to enroll in that department.

Miyamoto Rintarou can be summed up in three words: a woodsman Kogoro. They're even voiced by the same voice actor, Hiyama Nobuyuki! Just like Kogoro, Rintarou is exuberant, loud, MAAAAAAAANLY, and kinda pathetic but in a lovable way.


The third member of the Shitennou that we meet is Hanazono Kaoru, a.k.a. Rose Hanazono. He's the class representative of Class 2-E, although it's not explained in this episode what the 'E' stands for. (Kei does mention later on though that Kaoru's is the landscape department.) Hanazono kidnaps Ringo and Wakadanna. When Ringo doesn't show up for her study date with Kousaku, he gets worried and goes looking for. Eventually he tracks her down to a shack where Hanazono is keeping her. While she drinks green tea and eats snacks, Kousaku chews Kaoru out for what he's done. But the effeminate young man is unfazed by this. Instead, he challenges Kousaku to a match. They each must take a nibble of a Pocky stick one after the other. Whoever breaks away first loses. If Kousaku wins, Hanazono promises to return Ringo to him.

It's pretty obvious where this is headed: the two boys will end up kissing. But even though I predicted that, I have to admit that I didn't think the effeminate Hanazono was gay. ^^; I thought he was just effeminate and silly. Whoops. I also didn't expect him to steal Kousaku's first kiss! That was pretty mean.


As for more specific thoughts of mine on this episode ... well, for one, I liked the scene in the forest where the 2-F students began to list off all of Minori's positive traits. "Good natured!" "Nice!" "Plump!" "Childhood friend!" "Good cook!" And then Rintarou goes and declares: "She's the ideal wife." It's a shame that everyone else sees what a good catch Minori is except the guy she's in love with. *sigh*

Another thing to mention is the pop culture references. I already brought up the similarities between Bio Suzuki and Suigin Tou, but there were a few others as well. The very character of Hanazono Kaoru seems plucked straight out of Utena. The scene where he steals Kousaku's first kiss was a parody of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, with Kaoru's dialogue resembling Dio's and Kousaku's dialogue and animation resembling Erina's. There were a few scenes with Rintarou where he looked like he was plucked out of a Fist of the North Star chapter, though having never read nor seen any Hokuto no Ken stuff I can't say for certain that it was that specific series. Finally, going way back to Bio Suzuki's film shoot scene, there are some references to Togashi's Yuu Yuu Hakusho including a brief glimpse of a chibi Yuusuke and the name of her film being revealed to be YOU Yuu Hakudaku.

When Kaisa warned about fan service scenes for women, I braced myself for impact. But once I saw the bukkake photo shoot scene, I figured that that was it. The gay kiss caught me completely by surprise. Blegh. >_< Now I know (for all of a few hours before I forget ) what it feels like when girls see a girl kissing another girl in anime.

I'm a little annoyed that at least three of the school's Four Heavenly Farmers are only 2nd year students. I would have expected most or even all of the Shintennou to have been third years. Kinda strange that the student body is being run by juniors.

I remember when I first looked into this series that Yoshida was described as one of the Shitennou. Clearly that's not the case. (Unless she's the mysterious fourth member ... but that seems unlikely since, from the silhouettes, it looks like it's going to be a male student with short hair.) I wonder how or why that misinformation was ever put on MAL/Wikipedia/wherever it was that I read it.

Closing thoughts: Episode 05 was a fun episode but it was also kind of fluffy. It was so light on plot development and on character development for our main four (or five if you count Yoshida). But that's okay. It was a fun way to introduce three new characters. And I guess next time we'll get to see who the fourth Heavenly Farmer is.
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Old 03-31-2014, 03:04 AM   #10
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Congrats for surviving Episode 5!

Spoiler: show
I don't mind two people kissing in anime regardless of gender. But you might now have an understanding of how it feels to keep seeing gravity-defying boobs in anime for no reason, at all times! Blegh. ^^; (This is still a subjective opinion though.)

And the age of the Elite Four can probably be explained by the timing of the plot: as I've understood, most of the show takes place during spring and (later) summer, so the previous seniors might already be in the phase where Japanese students focus more on entrance exams and (probably in the case of agriculture students) helping out with family businesses. That's my theory at least. Seniors stopping club activities at a certain point seems to be the norm.
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Old 03-31-2014, 02:43 PM   #11
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Episode 06:

Spoiler: show
Our departure from Ringo's character development continues (boo) but we meet a new character and get additional development along the lines of "serious business" / politics & ethics (yay). It was an entertaining episode and the newest addition to the cast is interesting but I'll be happy to return to the Ringo subplot about why she lost her ability to smile, why she came to this ag school, whether she knows Kousaku is the fan who sent her the eggplants, etc.

The episode opens with Minori and Kousaku discussing Moerice, a recent product on the market which is essentially nothing more than a bag of rice with a cute decal stuck to the front of the bag. Yet this cute decal appeals to the otaku demographic, resulting in the Moerice company being able to sell 32 tons of rice in just three months! More than double their annual sales, Kei notes. Minori, encouraged by this news, says that the Tama Ag students should think about how they package their produce.


Enter Kanegami Torao, a.k.a. Money Kanegami. A student from Class 2-D, she is the fourth member of the Shintennou. An agribusiness expert, Kanegami was recently suspended for one of her previous business projects. But her suspension's just ended. And overhearing Minori's and Kousaku's discussion about Moerice, Kanegami couldn't help but to join the conversation.

The episode wastes little time establishing that Kanegami's sense of morals doesn't quite line up with most people's. Thus, she isn't exactly unethical -- she does have her own moral code that she lives by and it's clear, by episode's end, that she's generally speaking a nice girl -- but Kanegami does make decisions which force Kei and ultimately Kousaku and the others to quit working with her.

One thing I found interesting about Kanegami was her insight about what high school can be: a risk-free playground to experiment. Now that I've graduated from school, I can definitely appreciate how students have many opportunities to take risks with other people's money, property, and time that adults in the working world don't have. I find myself torn, then, between respecting Kanegami for realizing this and taking charge of her own education (good) and disrespecting her for being so flippant about wasting Tama Ag's time, money, and possibly even their reputation (bad).


Episode 06 establishes that there aren't four members of the Shitennou: there are five. It turns out that Yoshida is indeed a member of the Shitennou. I wasn't the only one who was confused: Ringo also assumed that there were only four members of the Shitennou, what with its name ("Four Heavenly Farmers") and all. Now the title for Episode 05 makes a lot more sense. 五人の四天王 translates to "The Five People of the Shintennou." But it can also read (and this is how I originally read it) as "The Five's Shitennou", the Five in question being (I had thought) our group of five: Kousaku, Minori, Kei, Yoshida, and Ringo.

As I understand it, it's not typical for Japanese high schools to use the English lettering system for classrooms but to skip a letter. The fact that Tama Ag has a Class 2-A, 2-B, 2-D, 2-E, and 2-F confirmed indicates the likely existence of an as-yet unrevealed Class 2-C. Whether they'll ever be revealed or not remains unknown to me at this time. But it would be surprising for only one class out of the six to lack a member of the Shitennou. The importance of the number four is already out the window with five members, so why not have six? One for each class? Guess we'll just have to wait and see. Either the author never intends to reveal Class 2-C, the school skipped the letter C for some reason, or the author is saving Class 2-C for last.


As far as the episode's messages went ...

Should you market your product? Or should the craftsmanship of your product be all the marketing you need? It's a romantic thought that your superior craftsmanship is all you rely upon to sell your product, but I don't think you should deny yourself smart marketing. Kei and Kanegami disagreed on this point, and in the end Kei resigned over it. Kei ended up deciding that it was wrong of the students to market the eggs using a moe mascot character, manga, artwork, et cetera instead of simply putting the eggs in nice packaging and letting people see for themselves just how great these eggs taste. I think I may see things a little bit more Kanegami's way, although I definitely sympathize with Kei. I think that if you're selling a superior product and you want to have a cute mascot character to sell them, that should be fine. The presence of the mascot character shouldn't detract from the quality of your product. But ... I can also see the argument that people buying the eggs for the mascot character rather than for the eggs themselves is wrong. That, to some extent, you might rather have nobody buy your eggs than have everybody buy your eggs but only be buying them for the cute mascot character and not because they recognize that your eggs taste great.

Should chickens be raised free-range? Or are industrial-scale poultry farms okay? This is a divisive issue. Most people tend to want to have their cake (plentiful, cheap eggs and poultry) and eat it too (animals leading pleasant lives). People don't like beak clipping ... but the industrial farmers have to clip the beaks or else the chickens peck at one another. People don't like wing clipping ... but the farmers have to do this too for various reasons. People have a psychological aversion to the idea of loading an animal up on hormones ("'roiding it up"), but at the same time they love having enormous chicken breasts, meaty chicken legs, etc. Nourin unsurprisingly takes the side with the more positive image, arguing for free-range chickens and against chickens raised in cooped-up quarters, vaccinated, given antibiotics, etc. But it fails to address why a free-range farmer like Yoshida might require the help of a moe mascot character like Ran: and that's the fact that, at the end of the day, people may talk online about how terrible industrial chicken farms are but they vote with their wallets and 99% of the time aim for the largest eggs @ the cheapest prices. If you're not using steroids and such, you might not get eggs that enormous. If you're not using the techniques of industrial chicken farms, your output is going to be a lot lower, forcing you to charge a higher cost for your goods. And while a gourmet restaurant might be willing to pay more for higher quality, your average household isn't going to want to pay $5 for twelve free-range eggs when they can pay $2 or less for twelve factory-farm eggs. It just isn't economical to do so. That's where a mascot character like Ran can really be helpful for a farmer like Yoshida: it allows her to stick to her morals (1, free-range conditions being much more humane to the chickens; and 2, quality over quantity) while at the same time not going belly up as a farmer. I would have liked the episode to have examined this in more detail. Instead, they acted like Yoshida's eggs didn't need Kanegami's help to sell and that Kanegami's efforts were polluting the purity of Yoshida's mission.
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Old 04-03-2014, 02:42 PM   #12
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Episode 07:

Spoiler: show
With this episode, we return to the main plot. Laughs, surprises, and exciting drama await!


The episode opens up with an incredibly adorable scene of the four best friends putting on some weight. While it's superficially played for laughs, I can't help but feel that the scene was secret fanservice for fans of attractive chubby girls. Chubby Ringo was very cute and Chubby Minori called to mind what she might look like as a farm wife in ten to twenty years. Seeing the girls press bellies against one another was one part hysterical and one part "If Bio Suzuki had a fat fetish I'm pretty sure she'd be busting out the camera at this point."

I lost it at the part where Kousaku teases Minori for being the last one to lose the weight they'd all put on and we see the flashback scene where Minori breaks down and tells Kousaku "I can't become a bride! ;_;" Funny not only because of how much she wants to be Kousaku's wife, funny not only because of how important becoming a wife is to her, but funny because she honestly looks like a married woman in this scene.


The part with the southern blight was interesting, exciting, and sad all rolled into one. I'd never heard of southern blight before this episode, but I appreciated from Kousaku's explanation just what a scary soil-borne disease this is. Even though they lose their entire crop for the season, modern farmers can at least combat southern blight by removing and/or destroying all of the contaminated soil. But I wonder how terrible a disease like this would have been two hundred years ago. It's like the biological equivalent of salting the earth. Terrible.


The part with the split tomatoes just about broke my heart. Again, this is something that I didn't see coming since I'm not a farmer; but having grown up in a farm state (and one that just so happens to produce a lot of tomatoes), I instantly appreciated the severity of the problem and I also felt really able to relate to this scene. Indiana is no stranger to droughts followed by intense rain and cooler temperatures. It's very easy to imagine this happening in my own backyard, hurting the ability of Indiana farmers to make a decent living that year.

I feel like it's worth pointing out the dual nature of the problem with split tomatoes. On the one hand, you have tomatoes that are edible but not sellable. This is because even though the tomatoes are technically fine, split tomatoes look awful to consumers. Once the scars heal, they look like they're moldy. Nobody wants to buy a split tomato. Nobody. Grocers won't buy them to shelve, and if a tomato splits on the grocer's end, consumers won't buy them to eat. This means that you're pretty much forced to use the tomatoes a) for non-human consumption or else b) transform them into other forms. (Purees, pastes, sauces ... canned or jarred ... basically anything but a whole, fresh tomato.) On the other hand, splitting in tomatoes can in fact actually render the tomatoes inedible. It is an open wound which allows pathogens to infect the tomato and rot it. This is why the farmers had to harvest the tomatoes immediately: even though they knew that split tomatoes would only have one destination (purees et al), they couldn't let them stay on the vine and risk infection. Immediate action had to be undertaken. It was great of Nourin to actually show us this rather than just expecting viewers to know. I also felt that the direction and music during this scene did the reality justice: yes, it migth seem "SUPER SERIOUS BZNESS" and whatnot with the dramatic dialogue and soundtrack, but this is a farming crisis. It's so mundane and seems so simple that we take it for granted. It doesn't have the same grandeur as an alien invasion or a nuclear winter. But the farm is a battlefield of its own and things like southern blight or tomato splitting are the farmers' own enemies fought in battle.


The apex of the episode is when Ringo finally brings up Kousaku's vegetables that he mailed her. She confirms that he was, in all likelihood, the fan who sent her vegetables. She tells Kousaku that the food was very good and that she knew she wanted to meet the fan who had written her all of these lovely letters and sent her these wonderful vegetables. A slight mix of confusion and disappointment crosses Kousaku's face as he tells Ringo that while it's true he sent Kusakabe Yuka vegetables he never sent her any letters. Does this mean Kousaku was not the only fan who sent Ringo vegetables? Does this mean he was not the fan she wanted to meet? :o

Ringo is just as confused as Kousaku is. Not only did she receive letters from Kousaku but she wrote him letters back. Kousaku of course says that he never got any letters. Ringo invites Kousaku into her dorm room and shows him one of the few ornaments in her room: a framed photograph of Kei, Kochou, Minori, and Kousaku. She tells Kousaku that this picture came with one of the letters. Clearly the veggies were sent to her by someone at Tamo Ag. Most likely someone in the group of four. So if not Kousaku, then who? Kousaku asks Ringo to show him the letters. He analyzes the handwriting and concludes that Minori must've been the one who sent the letters in his name.

When Kousaku confronts Minori over this, she admits the truth. She wrote the letters. She tells Kousaku that she did it as a favor to him. A, Ringo's managers would've likely just thrown away strange vegetables that arrived in the mail without any explanation. By including letters that made it clear that the vegetables came from a fan, there was at least a chance that they'd feed Ringo Kousaku's vegetables rather than just tossing them in the trash. (In real life I think this very unlikely since the world is full of crazy people and a good manager would probably throw away any edibles sent to the idol, but we'll roll with it.) B, Minori tried to keep the letters fairly platonic. She was aware of what she was doing and didn't want to toy with a maiden's heart. Thus, she kept the letters' contents fairly restricted to sharing with Ringo details about school life at Tamo Ag, what was going on here, etc. She treated Ringo as more of a pen pal than a love interest. Nonetheless, Minori feels guilty for what she did and apologizes to Kousaku and Ringo. She's scared of what might come next, but as Ringo stands up ...


... she goes over to Minori and snuggles up against Minori's bosom, embracing her in a loving hug. "I've always wanted to meet you!" she cries with tears of joy. She tells Minori, "I loved the stuff you wrote about," expressing to her just how much she's longed to meet the letter-writer and talk to her face-to-face. Minori is speechless. "You're not mad? " "Why would I be? " Ringo asks, sniffing back tears. "I mean ... I was pretending to be Kousaku ... " Minori says. "But the contents of the letters were real, right?" notes Ringo. "Besides," she says, "I was hiding my feelings too, so we're even." Hiding your feelings? Does this mean ...? :O


"Can I call you Mino-poyo? " "Sure! Can I call you Ringo-cchi?" "I'd love that! I love you, Mino-poyo." Cue the picture above. And that is when I lost it. TOO ADORABLE TO HANDLE. And what a twist.


Pooooooooooooooooooooor Kousaku. ^^;;

What started off as a bit of a cliche quasi-harem with a simple premise has, in just seven episodes, become a bit of a darling little series. If things keep up, it will be easier to recommend Nourin to fans of all sorts and not just those who want to watch another school days x romcom hybrid.
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Old 04-03-2014, 07:09 PM   #13
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Episode 08:

Spoiler: show
It doesn't take long to figure out that this week's episode is an intermission, whether canonical or not. The episode explores four side stories involving Becky, the students' homeroom teacher and does nothing to develop anyone else's characters or advance the main plot. It's a silly episode and it knows it: the less seriously you take it, the more fun you'll have with it. But even knowing this, it was hard for me to enjoy the episode.


The episode opens with a parody of Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. Kousaku, Kei, and Kochou are checking on the status of the corn crop when Becky arrives on her motorbike, cursing all girls in love. Kei ends up fighting Becky off in a parody of the film's opening scene where Ashitaka rides his trusty goat-like steed and takes out the rampaging boar. The scene is cute but silly and inconsequential to the main plot, setting the stage for the rest of the episode to come.


The second scene of the episode opens with the boys in class 2-A debating whether breasts are better large or small. While I enjoyed the Kochou fanservice, I disliked this scene because of its bias. The presented arguments supported flat chest fans much more than large breast fans, resorted to a few logical fallacies that were clear as day, and then ignored them in a hastily-declared victory for Team Flat Chest. It even had the heretical audacity to convert Kei from Team Big Boobs to Team No Boobs. Bah! Kousaku's foot fetish portion was also a pretty fast and efficient way to kill a boner.

Becky's role in this scene is rather indirect: she simply arrives to class late, punctuating the debate and bringing it to a screeching halt as she shares with her class some of her gloom as a single woman nearing 40. We get a pop culture reference to a series I don't recognize (I think it might be Saint Seiya but I don't know) and then it's on to the next scene.


The third scene of the episode sees Kousaku, Ringo, and Becky trying to lead the class in a home economics lesson. Becky and Ringo keep clashing over a variety of things, usually with Becky making a disparaging remark about Ringo and prompting Ringo to want to clobber her. Before long Becky settles into the pattern of insulting Ringo's flat chest. The gags are cheap but mildly amusing. The highlight for me was probably this moment:






I've never heard anyone other than bbb refer to a large-breasted woman as a "titty monster" before. So not only was this scene funny on its own merits but it was especially amusing to me to see a bbb-ism pop up somewhere unexpected. (Kochou's not a titty monster. )


Final scene of the episode sees the kids going to some sort of public performance event. The kids are thinking about trying their hand at a five-man band but stop dead in their tracks when they see Becky take the stage. Introducing herself as "AKB40", Becky sings the ending credits for this week's episode and soon after the episode ends. The gag that Becky is a single woman nearing 40 is so thoroughly hammered into the ground by this point that the episode is practically begging to be put out of its misery. ^^; But hey: if you find this sort of thing hysterical, then Episode 08 probably goes down as the comedy highlight of the season for you!


The highlight for me was definitely Yoshida Kochou. She hasn't gotten too much screentime thus far but this episode did a good job of putting her in front of the camera. Obviously Kochou wasn't the star of the episode (that was clearly Becky), but she felt like an authentic member of Kousaku's group rather than a fifth wheel who only occasionally shows up. She was utterly adorable when Kousaku embarrassed her in front of Kei (pictured above), her shapely breasts were given a lot of screentime in the second scene, and she stole the spotlight for me in the third scene where she protests being labeled a titty monster. All in all, Kochou's a sweetheart.
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Old 04-04-2014, 05:37 PM   #14
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Episode 09:

Spoiler: show
Another swing and a miss. Both this and Episode 08 were stupid humor episodes, and the thing with stupid humor episodes is that you either love 'em or else you find them to be a colossal waste of your time. I was in the latter camp for both 08 and 09. Nourin had been looking at me with longing eyes after Episode 07 to bump its score up to a "7/10 - Good", but with 08 and now 09 in the picture, the "6/10 - Fair" is feeling more solidified than ever. It'll take a lot to get Nourin into 7 territory. A shame, too, considering how poised it seemed to be to do it just two episodes ago.

Not gonna waste my time with flashy pictures or lots of words on this one. Long story short, this was the series' token beach episode. Nourin's attempt at putting a spin on it was to have the students get rained out of going to the beach, to have the school get flash flooded, and to have the students find themselves on emergency duty to try and save rice from drowning. While you might think that that sounds little different from the emergencies described in Episode 07, the difference is that where 07 presented the emergencies with much respect and a fair degree of drama, 09 presented its emergency with lots of levity. You never doubted that the students would save the rice because the episode was too lighthearted for a sad ending. You couldn't get excited as they saved the rice because there were just too many interruptions for stupid gags.
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Old 05-02-2014, 12:36 AM   #15
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Episode 10: I watched this weeks ago -- the picture alone has been sitting in a folder since at least April 5 -- so unfortunately I'm not going to be able to offer as detailed a recap w/ thoughts as I normally do. However, the episode was important enough that I still remember what I most wanted to talk about. Episode 10 of Nourin takes a close-up look at the war between organic produce and GMOs. If you don't plan on ever watching this show but you're interested in the GMO debate, be sure to check out the spoiler box below.

Spoiler: show
In this episode, we learn that Kei is a huge proponent of organic produce. More accurately, he's hugely opposed to GMOs. It is revealed that Kei's family name isn't Kamatori -- it's Menjou. He took the name Kamatori after moving in with his aunt of the same last name. Kei's father, it is revealed, is the owner of a large agricultural company which sells GMOs on the Japanese market. It isn't just genetic engineering Kei is opposed to; in fact, genetic engineering is only a speck of dust on Kei's radar. Kei's major complaint is with the harsh chemicals that modern farmers use -- antibiotics, pesticides, weed killers, etc. And the reason Kei is so upset about these chemicals? His mother's death. Kei attributes his mother's death to these chemicals. Whether he's right or wrong is not revealed, but the point is that Kei is so convinced of this fact that he reviles his father, blaming him for her death.

With such an opening premise, I was not optimistic that Nourin would be presenting a fair and balanced argument for GMOs. It looked like they were going to take the easy way out that so many modern-day stories take -- "GMOs evil , organics good ." So imagine my pleasant surprise when the episode ends with Kei's father defeating him in a contest to see who could sell the most vegetables to consumers. It wasn't even a fair fight either -- it was a fight stacked in Kei's favor. Normally Kei is all about not using Kanegami's marketing tactics to sell stuff (see: Episode 06), but this time Kei didn't just follow Kanegami's advice -- he drenched himself in it from head to toe! From spraying the veggies and pre-packaging them in cellophane to hiring booth babes and even taking advantage of Yoshida's physique, Kei did everything he could to try and lure customers over to his booth to purchase his vegetables. And while people did purchase his vegetables, they purchased much more of his father's. Even though his dad didn't do anything super special to sell them. He just let people taste them -- and they tasted wonderful.

That's the thing. That's the thing I was really grateful to see Nourin admit. Too often in pro-organic stories, people will act like the crops that use pesticides taste plain or bitter whereas the crops that are raised the old-fashioned way taste rich and delicious. In reality, however, food has never tasted better than it does in the modern era. It is thanks to the wonders of science that modern agriculture is able to produce the juiciest, tastiest, largest fruits and vegetables in the history of human civilization. People don't buy vegetables treated with pesticides because they're cheap -- they buy them because they're cheap while still tasting great. If they tasted like shit, then you better believe people would be willing to spend a little more money to get the good stuff. It's because they don't taste like shit that 99% of us buy pesticide-treated vegetables and only the 1% who have enough money to burn and enough persuasion to buy organic do buy organic.

In fact, one thing I was disappointed to see the episode not address -- as this is a major factor in the war between GMOs and organics -- is the fact that Kei should not have been able to price match his father. Kei indicates that he'll match his father's prices, but in reality the profit margin on vegetables raised the old fashioned way is much less than it is on vegetables raised the modern way. The yield is a lot less the old fashioned way, is the thing: for every n many hours of labor you put in, you get a lot fewer potatoes or tomatoes or whatever doing it Kei's way than you do doing it Kei's father's way. As a result, organic farmers have to charge a lot more than GMO farmers do just to break even. This is part of the reason why organic food costs so much at the supermarket -- not because they're ripping you off (although I'm sure that that's also probably part of it) but because they have to charge more in order to stay in business. tl;dr, Kei said he wanted to match his father's prices but I think the episode should have shown that no matter how hard he tried it just wasn't going to be feasible -- his father would always be able to lower the prices yet again until finally Kei could lower his prices no further.

Aside from that main focus of the episode, one last thing:

Spoiler: show
I was surprised to see Kei and Yoshida heading to America. With only two episodes to go, I'm a little worried that we're not going to see them again before the series wraps up.

I'm disappointed that the author hasn't done more with Kei x Yoshida. So far, it's a very, very one-sided relationship. Yoshida is willing to put her studies on hold and leave the country to remain with Kei ... whereas Kei still doesn't seem to even acknowledge Yoshida as a romantic interest. Obviously it could just be that Kei is a very private man and he doesn't let his feelings show, but still. I'd like to see Yoshida get some lovin' in return for all of her devotion to him. If he doesn't do it soon, then frankly he doesn't deserve her.
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