Review Episode 1 - 6
Airing date: July 11 - ?
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Episodes: 11
Genre: Comedy, Slice of life
The one series I was really looking forward to this fall season, with high expectations from the studio A-1 picture to do the best in adapting Hiromu Arakawa's new series. Its great to know already that this series is going to have a second season.
Based off of the Hiromu Arakawa, the author/artist of Fullmetal Alchamist brings you Gin no Saji, the story of Hachiken Yugo who is sick and tired of the school experience in the city, goes to a agricultural high school in Hokkaido. Because the environment is so different from the city, Hachiken does his best to try and do his best to adapt to his new surrounding.
Screen captures may include major spoilers, proceed with caution.
Episode 1: "Welcome to Ezono!" 「エゾノーへ、ようこそ」
Welcome to Ezono, The series starts off with Hachiken Yugo, chasing after a calf and getting lost in the grand land of Hokkaido. Hachiken moves to Hokkaido from the city to attend an agricultural high school where everything is completely new to him. Wanting to discover himself and what his purpose is in life. At this school its not just the usual math and english classes, but they also learn first hand at how to take care of live stock. First mission, taking care of chickens. Waking up early in the morning to go pick out fresh eggs from the chicken hut, each egg being very valuable Hachiken learns the importance of each egg, and where they really come from.
When I first watched this, I was a bit disappointed with the voice actor they chose for Hachiken. The image I had of Hachikens voice was a lot more different, I feel like he's got too low of a voice, I was expecting more like Edward Elrics voice, but maybe that would of just been awkward. Watching these kind of shows always makes me really hungry, like the egg rice dinner they eat at the end, even though you know that the egg comes from the chickens butt.
Episode 2: "Hachiken rides a Horse" 「八軒、馬に乗る」
Waking up at 5 am is really hard, REALLY HARD, but in Ezono high its mandatory for the first years students to participate in their first week morning sessions. Hachiken doesnt know where everyone from his class get the energy to wake up that early and be awake for class. This episode focus on finding a after school club activity, which is required. Hachiken is almost recruited to the Holstein club, where they breed cows with beautiful form and submit them to cattle fairs, right before he gets dragged into the club a savior appears, a knight(more like buddha) riding on the white horse, his name is Nakajima the club instructor for the equestrian club. Hachiken then gets a ride from Nakajima and is lead to the equestrian club, he then joins the equestrian club, but he did not know that taking care of horses would be alot of work, now he needs to wake up at 4 am to tend the horses.
Great episode, I wish they would have introduced more different kind of clubs in a agricultural school. The Holstein club is very funny, I wouldn't join it, but its interesting to see that those kind of clubs probably do exist. Watching this episode makes me wanna ride horses, but for me to do that I'd have to drive hours away just to get out of the city. Nakajima sensei is definitely based off the Buddhist character from the story "Journey to the west"
Episode 3: "Hachiken meets Pork-Bowl" 「八軒、豚丼と出会う」
This episode starts off with Hachiken and his classmates attending a pig pen, where they learn the life lessons of piglets. After the the days over Hachiken returns to his dorm where his room mates were packing to go home over Golden week break. Because Hachiken doesn't want to go home, he ends up staying over to take care of the horses, along with Mikage. Mikage invites Hachiken if he wants to go to a place with mascots, gift shops and a place full of dreams, Hachiken gets the wrong idea and is devastated to the fact that it was actually a racetrack for horses. There he meets up with Komaba Ichiro and they find Nakajima sensei betting on horses. Things gets a little frustrating when Hachiken states how lucky Mikage and Komaba are because they don't really need to work for jobs because they will just take over their family farm, Komaba then gets furious over the comment and they start arguing, but in the end Hachiken learns valuable lessons. End of the episode Hachiken names a piglet Pork bowl.
I learned so much about pigs and piglets in the first 5 min of this show, quite educational. Good to see some conflict and emotions bursting out, makes the slice of life aspect stand out more, which should really help support the story later on. I really like it when Nakajima sensei appear, his holy saint like appearance is soon brushed off to a evil demeanor. A solid episode that has nice story with comedy elements.
Episode 4 : "Hachiken bakes Pizza" 「八軒、ピザを焼く」
Time to clean up the school campus! The campus is HUGE, acres to acres, land spreading out to the horizon, it looks endless. The students that day is required to go clean up trash around the campus, but as for a reward its barbeque for dinner! As the group cleans off the junk Hachiken find what it seems to look like a brick oven. That night he researches about it and discovers that with this oven he can make many kind of dishes, one dish in particular that caught everyone's attention; Pizza. Hachiken then becomes in charge of making pizza with the brick oven, but he's never made pizza before and doesn't know where to get the ingredients. At the end of the episode with the help of the students and faculty Hachiken manages to create a delicious pizza and everyone lived happily ever after.
This is probably my favorite episode, it was my favorite chapters in the manga as well. Just the idea of making something from scratch (in this case pizza) and working together with your friends. This episode was a small stepping stone for Hachiken to discover something that he might want to pursue. I was a bit surprised that they were able to fit in the pizza arc in one episode, but if they didn't then it would have been too much, this episode is kind of like a filler episode feeling. Nonetheless one of my favorite episode.
Episode 5 : "Hachiken runs off" 「八軒、脱走する」
Area 51, the crop circle, and the heavy security, what does Hachiken and the gang see at he end of the road. Hajime Nishikawa gets a mysterious phone call that confirms that "it" will be appearing in area 51 at midnight, Nishikawa makes the announcement and rounds up a crew to encounter the thing. But the dorm has a curfew of 9pm and if they are caught outside of the time, they get in trouble, big trouble. Hachiken gets dragged into this escape plan and doesn't even know what he's getting into. As the time strikes the gang make their escape the dorm, one by one as they get closer to the destination point the members dwindle..at the end its just Hachiken and Nishikawa. A ray of bright light shines upon the two, the "thing" shows its self. The "thing" is none other than a giant self-propelled harvester. Nishikawa is going nuts over the gigantic machine while Hachiken is just speechless, over the fact that they went through all this to look at a vehicle.
This episode was pretty hilarious, the whole mission impossible dealio. The bond between friends is always a good thing. At the end where Tamako says how she just wanted to see the machine because her family's farm is going to buy that said machine and everyone is welcome to see it once they purchase it, the faces on the guys who went through all that trouble to see it was priceless. Ah the life of an agriculture students keeps me amused.
Episode 6: "Hachiken stays with the Mikages" 「八軒、御影家に行く」
Everyone is going home for the break, Hachiken again, doesn't want to go back to his home in the city. He then gets invited by Mikage to come over to her farm to do a part time job. Hachiken accepts right away that he gets to go to and spend time with Mikages over the break and also earn some money. Hachiken cant concentrate on his work due to not being able to send a simple text to his family, he could of easily used the phone at Mikages house but refuses. Aki suggest Hachiken to go to Komabas farm which is a little bit up the hill so they may have better reception, so during break Hachiken attempts to go to Komabas but gets lost, luckily Komaba was in the area and found him. Hachiken then stays at the Komabas for a bit until he gets picked up by the Mikages. There Hachiken learns of Komabas dream of becoming a pro baseball player so he can support his mother and the farm.
You can tell in this episode how much he doesn't want to be in contact with his family, the many times he checks his phone whether to contact them or not, his hesitations towards his family. But I feel like he's beginning to understand a little bit more about family as he spends his time at the Mikage's and also with Komabas family. Hachiken learns something new everyday, even from the simplest thing, like the rice ball tastes really good because it was made by the hands of a real person to how to cut up a deer and the lesson about life. I learn something new every time I watch this show, cant wait for the next episode.
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