Silver Spoon (manga)

Silver Spoon (Japanese: 銀の匙, Hepburn: Gin no Saji) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa, set in the fictional Ōezo Agricultural High School in Hokkaido. It depicts the daily life of Yugo Hachiken, a high school student from Sapporo who enrolled at Ezo fleeing from the demands of his strict father. However, he soon learns that life on an agricultural school is not as easy as he initially believed. Unlike his new classmates, he has no intention of following an agricultural career after graduating, although he envies them for already having set goals for their lives and the pursuit of their dreams.

An anime adaptation produced by A-1 Pictures aired two seasons between July and September 2013 and January and March 2014 on Fuji TV's noitaminA block. A live-action film based on the manga produced by Toho was released on March 7, 2014. The manga was well received by its Japanese audience while earning itself awards.

Plot

After failing to pass the entrance examination for the high school he plans to attend, mild-mannered student Yugo Hachiken moves away from his suburban lifestyle and enrolls at ÅŒezo Agricultural High School (大蝦夷農業高等学校, ÅŒezo Nōgyō Kōtō Gakkō) â€" often abbreviated as Ezonō (エゾノー, lit. "Ezo Agricultural") â€" in the countryside. His relationship with his family is strained at the start of the story, which influences his decision to attend a school far from home. He continues to worry about his future career over the course of the series. He soon finds himself slowly getting used to his new environment despite some initial struggles, and grows into an empathetic and compassionate individual as he struggles to understand the world of agriculture and how it affects the lives of his new friends.

Characters

Yugo Hachiken (å…«è»' 勇吾, Hachiken YÅ«go)

Voiced by: Ryohei Kimura

The main protagonist, Yugo is a city boy from Sapporo. After failing to pass the entrance exams for the high school he plans to attend, Yugo decided to enroll at Ezo instead, believing that an easier academic workload would leave him with more time to prepare for college exams. However, the agricultural courses' demand for hard labor proved his assumptions wrong. Due to his strict upbringing by his father, he is unable to refuse when someone needs his help. Despite complaining a lot when he feels that people abuse his generosity, Yugo quickly earns the friendship and respect of his peers for his intellect and hardworking nature. Shortly after enrolling, Yugo joins the Equestrian Club alongside his classmate Aki, soon rising to the position of Vice President of the club due to his reliable nature. Yugo is usually anxious about his future as, unlike his classmates who already have set their goals in life, he is still wondering about what career he should choose. Much of Yugo's animosity towards his family is a result of being compared to his more successful older brother, Shingo, and the seemingly uncaring hostility of his father.

Aki Mikage (御影 アキ, Mikage Aki)

Voiced by: Marie Miyake

Aki is a first-year student who is also a member of the Equestrian Club. As the only child of her family, she entered Ezo to study so that she would inherit her family business, a cow and horse farm specializing in raising Ban'ei race horses. Her father is very protective and is wary of her relationship with Yugo at first; however, after some time, he starts seeing him as a man worthy of becoming her husband. Later, her family experiences financial difficulties and is forced to sell all their horses to make ends meet. After this event, Aki confesses her true desires for the future, and â€" encouraged by Yugo â€" expresses her will to work with horses professionally instead of inheriting the farm. She then starts studying to enter college with Yugo as her personal tutor.

Ichiro Komaba (é§'å ´ 一郎, Komaba Ichirō)

Voiced by: Tooru Sakurai

One of Yugo's close friends at Ezo and a skilled baseball player, Ichiro is Aki's childhood friend and neighbor; their closeness was initially a constant source of jealousy for Yugo. Ichiro's family owns a small dairy farm, which he manages with his mother and younger twin sisters. Ichiro dreams of becoming a professional baseball player so he can use the money he earns in the league to improve his family's farm. However, his family goes bankrupt and their farm is sold to pay their debt. As a result, he is forced to quit Ezo and look for a job to make ends meet and support his mother and sisters.

Shinnosuke Aikawa (相川 進之介, Aikawa Shinnosuke)

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki

Another close friend of Yugo, Shinnosuke aims to become a veterinarian after graduation. His goal, however, is complicated by his tendency to faint at the sight of blood. He is a member of the Holstein Club.

Tamako Inada (稲ç"° 多æ'©å­, Inada Tamako)

Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki

A wealthy classmate of Yugo whose family runs a huge industrial farm. She is usually an obese girl, but under the extra fat she hides a quite beautiful figure that reveals itself occasionally when she works too hard or goes on a quick diet. However, she feels too weak when she is thinner, and usually quickly regains the weight. Obsessed with money, Tamako's goal is to take over her family's farm (humorously depicted as a "hostile takeover" by her parents), and expand it and make it more profitable.

Keiji Tokiwa (常盤 恵次, Tokiwa Keiji)

Voiced by: Masayuki Shoji

A close friend of Yugo who has a talent of getting himself in trouble due to his difficulty studying and his habit of jumping to conclusions, much to his friends' chagrin. His family owns a chicken farm.

Ayame Minamikujō (南九条 あやめ, Minamikujō Ayame)

Voiced by: Sayuri Yahagi

An aristocratic girl to a vast agriculture fortune and childhood rival to Aki Mikage. She often gets Hachiken's name wrong by replacing the Hachi (8) part of his name with different numbers, calling him "Shichiken" (7) and "JÅ«hachiken" (18).

Shingo Hachiken (å…«è»' 慎吾, Hachiken Shingo)

Voiced by: Katsuyuki Konishi

Yugo's older brother who managed to get accepted to the University of Tokyo, the most prestigious university in Japan. However, Shingo later quit once he realized his father's dream was to have one of his sons accepted there. He decides to pursue his own dream of becoming a great cook, and travels the country to perfect his cooking skills, often with humorously questionable results. He often drops by Ezo unannounced to check on Yugo, since Yugo usually refuses to talk with his family. Shingo is carefree and outgoing which is often a source of animosity from Yugo.

Media

Manga

Influenced by Arakawa's own life experience as she was raised in a dairy farm in Hokkaido, the manga was launched on the 19th issue of Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine on April 6, featured on the cover. It became one of the magazine's main features not long after.

Volume list

Chapters not yet in tankōbon format

Anime

An anime series produced by A-1 Pictures aired from July 11, 2013 to September 19, 2013. Tomohiko Ito directed the series with assistant director Kotomi Deai. Taku Kishimoto wrote the scripts, while Jun Nakai served as character designer and chief animation director, and Shusei Murai scored the music. A second season aired from January 9, 2014 to March 27, 2014. For the first season, the opening theme is "Kiss you" by miwa, while the ending theme is "Hello Especially" by Sukima Switch. For the second season, the opening theme is "Life" by Fujifabric and the ending theme is "Oto no Naru Hō e" by Goose House. The anime has been licensed by Aniplex of America for streaming and home video in North America. Aniplex of America released the first season on DVD on July 15, 2014.

Episode list

Season 1

Season 2

Live-action film

A live-action film based on the manga of the same name was officially announced at the Nikkan Sports and Sports Nippon newspapers on August 7, 2013. Nakajima Kento played Yugo Hachiken, with Alice Hirose as Aki Mikage and Tomohiro Ichikawa as Ichiro Komaba. The film was directed by Keisuke Yoshida, with the production companies TBS and Wilco and the distributor Toho. Gin no Saji premiered in Tokyo on March 7, 2014, and was also shown at the Japan Film Festival of San Francisco on July 22, 2014. The film's theme song was "Hidamari", performed by Yuzu. Iwasawa Koji wrote and composed the song just for the movie.

Reception

Sales

Since its first volume, Silver Spoon had been well received by readers. It became the fastest Shogakukan title to reach the mark of one million first printing copies, a year and three months after the manga was launched. According to Oricon, it was also the 7th best-selling manga in Japan in 2012, and the top selling title from Shogakukan, as well as the top selling title of 2012 not yet to have an anime adaption. By October 2013 it has sold 12 million copies in Japan.

Awards

In 2012, Silver Spoon won both the 5th Manga Taishō Award's Grand Prize and the 58th Shogakukan Manga Award (Shōnen category).

In 2013 Silver Spoon won the first Japan Food Culture Contents Award.

In February 2015, Asahi Shimbun announced that Silver Spoon was one of nine nominees for the nineteenth annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.

References

External links

• Official website for the anime (Japanese)
• Silver Spoon (manga) (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia