Krystallina: Like most anime and manga fans, I enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist. But when Arakawa’s next work was announced as a slice-of-life story set at an agricultural school, it sounded to me about as exciting as watching paint dry. The rave reviews about the Silver Spoon anime didn’t change my mind, and I felt like the one manga reader who didn’t cry tears of happiness when the series was licensed. If I really wanted to know what it’s like to live on a farm, I’ll go work at one nearby. I also know where burgers and chicken tenders come from, but for me, ignorance about the process is bliss.
So, could Silver Spoon keep my attention — and, more importantly, could I keep my lunch?
Well, I still can’t say Silver Spoon has raised my interest in farming or food production. But dang, does Arakawa make one fine manga about it.
There are some negatives like the characters looking as if they’re the Fullmetal Alchemist or Hero Tales cast playing the characters (Armstrong in particular has obviously been reincarnated into modern Japan) and protagonist Hachiken crushing hard on the very first girl he meets. But the manga strikes a solid balance between hard lessons of life and fun comedy. Surprisingly, the laughs aren’t always at the city boy Hachiken’s expense — although they do come in spades as Hachiken gets an up-close view of where eggs come from. But the vet student faints at blood, the jugs in a magazine a bunch of guys creepily leer at don’t belong to a woman, and the plump Tamako finds herself floating away in a windstorm. The farm kids may know what they’re doing in the future, but they are still fun, somewhat eccentric individuals.
Meanwhile, Hachiken himself finds himself bouncing between being a competitive studyholic and someone who values effort over results. There’s obviously more to his backstory that explains why he chose an agricultural high school, a school he obviously didn’t look into very deeply. Students have to get up as early as 4 AM and plus have after-school activities, a hard-working schedule that Hachiken wasn’t prepared for. While he does have some tensions with one individual, I like how he isn’t being excluded from the class as “the weak geek from the city”.
But despite his obvious running away from something, the first volume already has Hachiken getting some intangible rewards for his hard work. Hachiken is still far from a farmboy though and still is hung up on trying to be #1, but I can’t wait to see where his journey leads him.
Krystallina’s Rating: 5 out of 5
Justin: You would have thought with the success of Fullmetal Alchemist that despite Silver Spoon’s farming manga premise, someone would have grabbed it. Then years ago by. Then add more years to it, and no one…no one wanted to pick this up. Even after it got an anime in 2013, just silence. But finally, Yen Press decided to license Hiromu Arakawa’s manga, and geez, it’s been way too long a wait for this.
Yuugo Hachiken wanted to get away from the city and his parents. He did by applying to Ooezo Agricultural High School. Thinking he could just get by with his smarts, he soon realizes farming is far more than that — from dealing with calves, to riding horses, and to waking up at 5 AM, Hachiken’s about to discover he can’t quite run away from his issues just yet when it’s a lot tougher than what he thought. It especially doesn’t help when he’s surrounded by those looking to get into their preferred profession.
Silver Spoon is a manga that manages to tap well into Arakawa’s love and knowledge of farming. From her style of humor (where just about every animal that appears wants to wreck Hachiken up) to her detailed drawings (there’s a scene in the manga where a bunch of horses are drawn racing each other and it’s great), it’s pretty clear the knowledge and love is there, and it’s shown in an enjoyable manner.
The variety of things that do happen in Silver Spoon also contribute heavily to why it’s fun. For the most part, it does act like a food manga, but it also goes into character study or explains a particular animal’s history, and it feels rewarding when the particular plot point is wrapped up. As the manga showcases life on a farm and how the people that do farm live, it’s a new perspective that’s told in an entertaining way, and we can even learn some new things. (Like where the eggs come out of a chicken!)
So in short, if you’re in need of a terrific manga that will make you like half (or all) of the cast, then you should definitely look to grab Silver Spoon when it comes your way. If you’re also in need of a terrific food manga too, then don’t wait to grab this one!
Justin’s Rating: 5 out of 5
Helen: One of the many reasons that Hiromu Arakawa’s previous work, Fullmetal Alchemist, is still remembered eight years after it’s finale is because of her characters and Silver Spoon has characters in spades.
It can be a little hard to tell if all of the characters are quite as loony as they appear or if this is a side-effect of having city slicker Hachiken as the point of view character for our adventures on the Ooezeo Agricultural High School campus. Hachiken can’t help but notice the bizarre in each and every one of his classmates, ranging from the extracurricular club dedicated to breeding the perfect cow to the seemingly normal passion for sports clubs, but Hachiken’s classmates view him as the strangest of them all. Hachiken has no lost love or history with farming and frankly not much interest in it either; he may be a student in the Dairy Sciences program but all Hachiken wanted out of Ooezo was a dorm room where he could stay and avoid his family and his old life back in Sapporo.
Even knowing that Hachiken has had a bit of a rough life emotionally (I watched the anime when it came out) I still felt like he was a bit of an ass in this first volume. In fact, he felt like more of an ass than he did in the anime! Despite the fact that the material is nearly identical, I think the anime adapted just about everything in this first volume, Hachiken’s almost constant (and verbal, not mental) complaining is a bit of a drag. This boy needs to learn some tact! It’s a good thing that Arakawa’s deep background, and I’d say love, of farming comes through in this volume to keep everything from getting too mean-spirited.
Hachiken has a rough three years ahead of him. He needs to figure out what his future plans are for life, stop being grossed out by farming life (you can totally tell Hachiken doesn’t have a uterus), AND survive all of the 4 AM wake-up calls. But it’s clear that Hachiken views this isolated school as his last chance to get himself to a better mental place in life so he’s just going to have to tough it out and hopefully make some of his first friends along the way.
Helen’s Rating: 4 out of 5