Justin: Last time on Silver Spoon, Hachiken had the bright idea to team up with Ookawa on his new business venture. The only problem aside from Ookawa’s terrible job luck? Well, burning down Hachiken’s new room is not exactly a good start. But outside of that, Hachiken’s still having trouble making a good enough proposal to get funds from his dad. So how is this business he’s starting going to get off the ground?
Well, it’ll have to involve making money with their own two hands. And that means working some part-time jobs!
Silver Spoon volume 12 brings a mix of stories into this one, as while we continue to see how Hachiken can get his business off the ground, we follow Mikage as she tries to improve her grades, Komaba and his family as they try to improve their future, the Ezo Ag Equestrian Club as they prep for a competition, and we get a couple of pages of Ayame still beautifully doing her thing…until she gets a major culture shock!
So yes, you’ll find a lot of variety and humor throughout this one. You’ll get the usual suspects goading Mikage and Hachiken to finally get into a relationship, but you’ll also get a segment where potatoes end up turning into different types of girls (from an American gal to a magical girl), so thanks a bunch Nishikawa. And yet, we even get a new character introduction: a freshman who was inspired to join the Equestrian Club! Despite all these different plots, it still manages to be a compelling read.
The one thing, however, that continues to give me pause is any sort of resolution between Hachiken and his dad. It’s certainly trending that way, which isn’t a major problem. We’re all at some point going to get into an argument(s) with our parents. It doesn’t matter if we’ll be right or wrong, it’ll just happen. Some arguments eventually cool off and it’ll be water under the bridge. Others last a while, but through enough discussion, it’ll be resolved. And then others, for enough reasons, will persist for a long period of time…and maybe forever.
Hachiken’s relationship with his parents, especially his father, was always going to fall into Category B, where at some point they’ll find a way to solve their problems. But this current method doesn’t feel like it’s it. Like this volume even had Hachiken’s dad do something that felt ill-timed. Maybe that’s why the various rumors involving Hachiken’s dad being a Yazuka member after he made his trip to Ezo Ag was a thing, and while it was kinda funny, I’m not sure Hachiken’s dad has done enough for redemption. I can certainly say Hachiken going all the way out to a farm school to get so far away from his parents might have been excessive, but throughout this entire series, I’m not sure his dad’s attitude towards him, his school, and his classmates makes any sort of redemption feel correct. I guess we’ll see if (or how) that particular arc gets wrapped up, but I’m not feeling too confident about it.
Despite my misgivings regarding that, that is not enough to deter me from everything else that’s great in this series. Volume 12 manages to throw in a lot of character stories (and this includes the teachers — including one who’s gonna move on from teaching!) and manage to be informative and/or funny. Silver Spoon just continues to be really well written and entertaining, and always worth your time to read. Volume 12 is no different.
Justin’s rating: 4 out of 5
Krystallina: Anybody else saw the movie Coco in theaters when Olaf’s Frozen Adventure was showing in front?
Because Silver Spoon volume 12 gave me the same feeling: a long opening that was meant to be short but drags down the superior main content.
I know Silver Spoon has went on hiatus a couple of times. I don’t know when serialization was interrupted, but the first half of this volume seemed choppy to me. Well, maybe not so much choppy as much as each chapter is a bunch of mini-chapters strung together. They even have their own titles like “The Tale of Aki Mikage”. It felt more like I was reading a 4-koma or something like Arakawa Under the Bridge. The approach wasn’t necessarily bad, but it just wasn’t what I’m used to in Silver Spoon.
We continue to see the characters start to zoom in on and lock down their future plans. Aki is studying, Hachiken tries to work on a business proposal, Ookawa looks for permanent work, and Komaba’s mother urges him to follow his heart. School-wise, there are also some changes like a new student joining the equestrian team. Most manga starring students points where they turn the focus onto the future, but here, Silver Spoon gives these moments a lot of weight. It’s not just about having someone flunk an exam or just finding work; for many of the characters, they’ll have the weight of a family business on their shoulders. We’ve already seen the toll that’s taken on Komaba, but he may be getting a little relief on that front.
As I mentioned, the manga jumps around a bit. This does accurately reflect how the characters are branching out from Ezo Ag, but I wish the manga had gone deeper with most of them. It’s like we got a little taste of how they’re preparing or deciding, but the next chapter (or mini-chapter) moves on to someone else.
By the time I had gotten used to the discombobulation I felt, Silver Spoon had shifted into a more standard approach. Parts had dropped in on Hachiken trying to come up with a solid business plan, but the second half mainly focuses on it. As I’m sure most readers expected, Ookawa is heavily involved, and so is a pig. But I didn’t see Ookawa’s new pig to be the star!
While Hachiken’s original plan was to get the seed money from his father, that idea turns out to be a double-edged sword, as this scares off other would-be investors and participants. This forces Hachiken and Ookawa to do a lot more than just write: they need to study, do research, and find resources. It’s where all their natural talent and their connections shine. It’s obviously what Hachiken was meant to do, and we also see others (like Mikage) pursue their own interests and yet contribute in their own ways.
Which includes comparing potatoes to anime girls.
Honestly, if this whole volume had been like this, I think this would have been my second favorite volume of the manga. (Ayame’s debut is #1, and after a lack of Ayame-ness in the previous book, I’m glad to see she remains the best…except when it comes to her grades.) But the slow beginning was such a downer compared to Hachiken’s business idea taking shape.
Krystallina’s rating: 4 out of 5