silver spoon

Arakawa Hiromu's Silver Spoon

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

I found Silver Spoon to be incredibly enjoyable. It's a slice-of-life manga, but informative in all things farming (in Hokkaido). It reminded me somewhat of a manual. Arakawa has this lovely habit of being very intentional in her work and showing progress of a character developing. We all know Hachiken is going to shape up to be a great farmer in the future, but we're just excited to see how he'll get there.

Obviously, the art is fantastic and appealing.

How it starts out makes me intrigued because I want to know what's happening. Hachiken is a stand-in for the audience at this point, because he thinks farm school is a breeze while literally knowing nothing about it. I remember reading this for the first time many years ago right after I finished reading Fullmetal Alchemist, and I was disappointed by the easygoing nature of this manga, so I never made it past the first chapter. I was such a fool...

Arakawa also asks what is intelligence? Is it just knowing how to math or is it dependent on who you're asking? Hachiken shows off how smart he is at rote memorization, but is quickly schooled by the vast specific knowledge of his classmates who've grown up on farms. An excellent critique on the memorize and regurgitate method of success all schools seem to follow nowadays.

I adored this manga and I found so much meaning in the deliberate ways Arakawa depicts death, eating meat, and the respect we must give animals because they provide us with so many great things. And I actually binge-read all 127 chapters during the weekend, so yeah. Very enjoyable.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work that you were able to connect with.

I connected with being in a highly specialized field that people will make assumptions about. People who have never been in an art field will say things like, "art is easy" or are fine with underpaying artists because "passion is its own reward". Which is just. Absolutely not true.

The manga emphasizes hard work and discipline, which is something Ringling for sure teaches. We see Hachiken work his butt off over and over, being very disciplined with himself and holding very high standards for himself as well.

I also really felt that connection whenever the manga emphasizes that real knowledge isn't about the highest test score. Tests are meaningless. Art and farming are both, essentially, trades. This is about getting good and knowledgeable at your trade, so you can provide for yourself smartly. There is always going to be tough situations, like with Hachiken's friend who had to drop out of school. Without giving any of her characters an easy way out, I feel like Arakawa is saying "you must persevere! There's no other choice! You must keep walking forward!"

3. What changes would you make if you were to adapt this into another medium? What medium would you use, what changes would you make?

Silver Spoon would be really cool as a book/novel series. You could get more in-depth about the descriptions about the setting, from the school to the weather to the forest. In a book, you could add more texture to the area, because so far it's a bit difficult to understand if you're not from the area. And there's only so much you can fit in a 20 page chapter.

But, I have to say that there are scenes in the manga that are depicted far better illustrated than they would in written form. For example, this panel when Hachiken gets on the horse.

It'd be tough to write better than this drawing. Very, very tough.