Silver Spoon, Vol. 2

銀の匙 Silver Spoon [Gin no Saji Silver Spoon] #2

by Hiromu Arakawa

The discovery of a brick oven on campus prompts the only logical response from the students of Ooezo Agricultural High School: a pizza party!!! City-boy Hachiken has been nominated to oversee the process, but he quickly discovers how much work is involved in securing each and every ingredient that goes into making the perfect pizza. United by a common hunger, students from every discipline contribute the necessary flour, cheese, meat, and other toppings. Everyone is waiting expectantly-but can Hachiken deliver?!

Genres: Manga, Comics, Slice Of Life, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Young Adult, Animals

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 14, 2011

About the author

Hiromu Arakawa (author: 荒川弘) is a Japanese manga artist, best known for Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師 Hagane no renkinjutsushi).
Her real name is Hiromi Arakawa (荒川弘美).

Arakawa was born and raised on a dairy farm in Hokkaidō.
She thought of being a manga artist since she was little. After graduating high school, she took oil painting classes while working on her family's farm. During that time, she also created dōjinshi manga with her friends and drew yonkoma for a magazine. After eight years she moved to Tōkyō and started out as assistant writer for Hiroyuki Etō.
Her debut as manga artist is in 1999 with STRAY DOG. In 2001 she started working on her famous and award winning series Fullmetal Alchemist, that soon gets a successful anime adaptation.
Other works include Silver Spoon (銀の匙 Silver Spoon, Gin no saji Silver Spoon).

Reviews

[The Book Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. But I’m a farm girl at heart so I guess I’m a little biased.

But the pizza arc is so good. All the students coming together with spare ingredients to make a delightful event that everyone enjoyed. Plus that pizza looked tasty~

Then Hachiken goes to work and Mikage’s farm for the summer, forcing him to face some of the heartless ways farmers have to live their lives in order to make a living. Like butchering wild game or sending the less productive livestock to the slaughter house.

We love our animals, but we don’t always get to keep them.

This series has 15 volumes.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having grown up on a farm, this series continues to be a source of nostalgia and amusement as a city kid discovers how hard and complicated the agricultural life can be. I like the balance of education and entertainment.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh no it's still perfect

[Saar The Book owl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in the Silver Spoon series and I loved this one also. It gives a great view on agriculture and the related subjects: education, running a farm, how to treat the animals...without being pedantic. Hachiken is still searching what he wants in life, as he seems not to have a goal in his life, besides everyone is having one. Most of the students are planning on taking the farm over from their parents, as it seems to be a set goal. Hachiken is still in search of his own goal. While doing that, he learns about the agricultural life, but the most important thing is that he learns to make friends.
The characters are not too complicated, but funny and sometimes hilarious.

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hachiken attends an agricultural high school even though he has no interest in pursuing an agricultural career. In this second volume, he discovers an old brick oven, and his classmates beg him to make homemade pizza for them. Hachiken has to find all the right ingredients, and even bribe the teachers to get cheese for a huge pizza party. If he can pull it off, he'll be the most popular guy in school.

This manga is hilarious! The characters are fun and some of them are really silly. Poor Hachiken has to learn to butcher a deer, and he witnesses a calf's birth. He is completely grossed out by these things, and is trying to decide for himself if he can be steady enough to embrace the farm life.

Hachiken gets closer to his friends and learns more about his school. He earns the respect of his teachers. I really love the character dynamics and their friendships.

I think this cover is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Who goes horseback riding in a mini skirt? Her legs would be so horribly chaffed. It makes no sense. Plus the character is well-known for her expertise with horses, so she would know better.

[Husna Rosli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like the first book, I took a lot of pictures.

Behind the chaotic scenes, there are lessons in it.

My fav - "Is everything in your life written in textbooks?"

[Emilija · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how Hachiken is growing as a character. It's such a fun manga to read and I'm really enjoying it. I also really like the various cast of secondary character, who are all being developed as well as Hachiken. It's fun and surprisingly deep.

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I said in my review on the first volume of this manga, in the event you have not yet taken the opportunity to watch the anime for Silver Spoon [Gin no Saji] on Netflix, I cannot stress enough the recommendation that you do so when you have the chance.

Review beneath the spoiler cut.

So in this volume, we have Hachiken researching the old brick oven he found on the campus in a trash pile, and with one thing and another, this leads to him organizing a huge pizza bake for fellow students on campus and some of the staff. Nearly everyone pitches in to contribute, but Hachiken stays in charge primarily, nearly working himself to exhaustion in the process. In the end however, it proves to be utterly rewarding upon completion.

We also see a brief face-off between Ooezo Agricultural High and Ooezo Technical High, and gradually the shift to see Hachiken going to work as a part-time farm hand at Mikage's family farm over summer break. Along the way, he also visits the Komaba and Inada family farms during his stay, but this isn't the focus of the volume. The real focus comes into play when Hachiken's resolve is put to the test.

From the story about the pizza bake, we see Inada-senpai remind Hachiken that eventually the piglet he's dubbed "Pork Bowl" will have to be sent to a slaughterhouse before long, and he questions if Hachiken could bring himself to let that happen, or if he couldn't handle it. Hachiken continues to remember this at points in time as the volume continues, and later on when Mikage's grandfather hits a deer on the road and offers Hachiken the chance to butcher the deer, it brings Pork Bowl to mind again. He acknowledges to himself that he's struggling with and putting off the question regarding the piglet he's grown attached to, and though he doesn't find resolve or peace on the matter in this volume, he does recognize that he's going to have to face up to it soon.

Additionally, we see him get insight into the vast differences regarding his friends. His crush, Aki Mikage, is secretly struggling with the idea of not pursuing her dream to instead succeed her family and take over their ranch. On the other end of things, Tamako Inada is obsessed with the idea of overthrowing her parents and taking over their dairy farm in order to perfect the business, while Ichirō Komaba is planning to both pursue his dream of professional baseball and the desire to take over the family farm so he can use the money he makes from baseball to improve his family's fortunes and make life easier on them. While we do little beyond seeing the evidence of these things in this volume, it's clear that Hachiken is watching closely and much of what he is experiencing is affecting him on an empathetic level and rattling his perceptions of the world.

All in all, I have thoroughly enjoyed this volume, and I am so excited and eager to read the next one!

[haven ⋄ f (hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This so good!!! The humor is spot on. I love it. I’ve been missing this author’s humor. I’m glad I read this one because it was HILARIOUS.

It was also pretty realistic. Cattle raisers have to deal with birth, sickness, and death all the time and this one really pointed that out. (There are 2 butchers and one birthing sequence. Not very graphic.)

The cell reception joke with the tall person was my favorite part!

Edit (spoilers!!): I just flipped through this book again and came across the school festival part. I LOVE how it showed the boys being intense and then cut to the girls just chatting and having a lovely time then back to the boys screaming/generally being intense. That’s my FAVORITE part. I just love it.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this volume. I feel like I learn so much about farming while reading this. The art is great. The story is great. I enjoyed this volume more than the first.

In a lot of ways I feel a connection to this story as I do not think I could butcher an animal or really be good at farming in general. I also feel like I too do not have a dream career like others...so it was nice seeing that as well.

[Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book moves at a pretty slow pace, but that makes for pretty calm reading. Some of the graphics are a bit much for me, but considering I'm a vegetarian, I expected to find some parts of the farm process hard to read. I still don't feel attached to any characters, but I can see the appeal of the series for other people. I think I'll stop here and maybe come back to it in the future.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpectedly fun and feel-good manga about attending an agricultural high school. I love how this doesn't equate good grades and a college education as the true path to success. These high school kids know what they want and they run themselves ragged to make it happen.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my god, that calf birth scene. It reminds me of when I witnessed an alpaca birth and my first thought was, "Miracle of birth, my eye. That shit's disgusting!"

Then all the alpacas in the herd started humming at the new baby and things got weird fast.

[Cookie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational and enlightening. The human drama is excellent too: I really enjoyed the very real depiction of family business and the pressure they bring to the children. The author does not hold back and depicts an accurate portrait of how money and parenting can play in the balance of things...

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series continues to be too good and pure.

[Julie (Let's Read Good Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

review to follow

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another cute volume! I love that they used all the stuff that the high school makes to have a pizza party, that was adorable.

[Evan Storey]

I might be too vegetarian for this lol

[Nattapan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Realistic.

[Axelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know it's about farmers but seeing cute animals and then the harsh reality of them getting killed.. ouch, I wouldnt want to be a farmer that's for sure

[Taylor Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This second book was pretty nice. We get to see Hachiken get closer with his schoolmates and he’s starting to become more confident. We also get to see over the break with his Mikage. I’m still curious to see more about his home life and his parents. It was still pretty good. Five out of five stars.

[Issei Miyata · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read "Gin no Saji Silver Spoon" this manga is very very interesting. This plot is that the protagonist is a agricultural high school student who is from city. He doesn't have any knowledge of agriculture and dairy farming. But he does his best.

This manga told us the importance of life. I think this is one of the theme. Because there is the scene that they eat pigs they raised.

The author of this manga is Hiromu Arakawa. He also creat "fullmetal Alchemist" she is very good author.

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sigo promediando para arriba porque este tomo me pareció más gracioso incluso que el primero. Y aunque la serie en sí no es la octava maravilla, sí tiene una premisa y un desarrollo bastante originales, además de didácticos, por lo que voy a tratar de seguirla lo más asiduamente que pueda.

[Nunya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was just as magical as the first, perhaps more so.

There were specific parts in this book that I found interesting or relatable.

The first moment I loved was at the pizza party when Hachiken says “I’m never doing this again” in a tired manner and then grins as if in that instance he has changed his mind. I love this because how many times have we in our lifetime said “I’m never doing this again” because it was a lot of work, but in the end it turned out to be so much fun, we ended up doing it.

When Hachiken suddenly becomes popular because everyone wants him to come work on their farms. This was refreshing because in most manga the main character is deamed the ‘most attractive’ and everyone wants to be with them. I love that Hachiken is popular because he’s a cheap worker.

Hachiken’s awe at discovering that age of Aki’s great-grandmothers age is amazing. Kids lack the amount of awe they should have when meeting older people. I love that he even says she’s ‘a living witness to history’

Hachiken’s relationship with his parents is very realistic, and I look forward to learning more about it in the future.

I don’t know if Arakawa-Senpai thought of this when writing it, but when Komaba has Hachiken help him practice pitching, and he hits the ball, there is realism in that. When you’re adrenaline gets flowing (for example, when you get angry, like Hachiken does.) your senses, reaction time, etc. are heightened, which means he would have been more likely to hit the ball. Or, you know, it could have just been luck.

Finally, I love the little comics at the end of the book, especially at the end of this book where Aki makes the connection that Hachiken’s older brothers name must be Shichi because that means seven and Hachiken means eight. (I also look forward to leaning more about Shichi-San in the future maybe?)

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

El segundo tomo transcurre entre el final de la primavera y el comienzo del estío; con lo que conlleva las vacaciones de internado formativo. Hachi y su cuadrilla encuentran un horno artesano y deciden sacarle partido, haciendo una pizza artesanal con todo lo que le da la tierra dentro del ciclo. Así que irán conociendo más alumnos externos ( y los lectores también. Es una hábil forma de realizar la introducción de más personajes secundarios en la historia) a su reducido grupo, que les ayudarán a recolectar los ingredientes suficientes para una fiesta de pizzas.
Dentro del desarrollo, en su primera parte más desenfadada, tontorrona y ligera, lo complementará con la visita del antiguo profesor de Hachiken y los torneos tradicionales de la escuela previos a las vacaciones.
En lo que yo defino su segunda parte ,de tono introspectivo y personal, Hachiken decide no regresar a su casa por vacaciones y pasarlas en la granja de Mikage. Allí obtendrá su primer trabajo remunerado. Ése estío descubrirá mediante sus vivencias las distintas realidades que conforman a las personas del sector: familias, negocios agrícolas y principios y prioridades
Un volumen que da más entidad a los personajes y sus realidades, con más calado en general pero igual de liviano y realista, y a veces alocado, que el primero.
NOTA IMPORTANTE
Aquí concluyo la lectura de ésta serie. Los motivos, aún reconociendo que es un Manga muy bien confeccionado, es que hay ciertos aspectos que hieren mi sensibilidad. Es lógico que se traten todos los pormenores del día a día agrícola; pero tuve que saltarme páginas.
Además, ojeé el tercero y sigue con la misma tónica en ciertos aspectos; lógico de otro modo.
Por lo tanto, no lo recomiendo a los que estén muy sensibilizados con la causa animal. Si no es vuestro caso, podéis leerlo. Es un buen Manga.

[Paul Spence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silver Spoon is obviously unique in that it’s a shounen farming manga. Repeat after me — farming, shounen, as a manga? Yep, Arakawa manages to convey in fascinating fashion the joys and pitfalls of farming, and has a city slicker with no goals come to deal with all of the issues with it. The procuring fresh meats and veggies for his brick oven pizza party is great and healthy — the obvious killing of animals, or the amount of work it takes to run a farm, is one of the things that does get questioned in volume 2. Not everyone is cut out to do any of this, and many of the choices Hachiken has to make, whether it’s through peer pressure or his own troubles, are not easy.

But this volume does make sure it highlights its other colourful cast of characters, like Mikage and Komaba. From worries about taking over the family’s farm to working at a farm and dreaming about becoming a great baseball pitcher, the two have their worries despite their positive demeanour, and how it’s shown in the manga is touching.

What makes this manga so special is that it mixes in farming know-how and technical skills with jokes, a character who has to grow up in some way, and characters that are somewhat crazy but also have their own goals as well. There are still plenty more characters that haven’t been touched upon yet, and after how the backstories were shown here.

This isn't on the level of Fullmetal Alchemist, but Silver Spoon does have its charms.

[Sarah B · Rating 5 out of 5]

So like the first book in this series I really enjoyed this one too. Hachiken gets some time off for summer in this one and he has some really exciting farm adventures. But before that he has to figure out how to bake a bunch of pizzas from scratch using this old brick oven plus all his classmates are hungry!

I think of the three books I have read so far, this one was my favorite. And it's not just because of the horse on the cover. I feel that more stuff happens, especially when he is staying with his classmate over vacation. He truly learns a few facts about being on a farm out in the country, things he never expected. Because he is a city boy. And the rural countryside no matter what country you are in is very different than being in a city! Poor Hachiken has a few nasty shocks! And I can relate to some of these things because I have experienced some of these facts while visiting the horse ranch I go to. Sometimes I just can't get a phone signal out there.

But he grows a lot as a character in here and he has to do some hard things as well. Some of them are emotionally hard. He doesn't really know if he can do them but he tries. I guess he finds out what he is made of.

He works hard as always and he certainly has a problem about saying NO to people. Sometimes I think he takes on too much.

[Becky B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hachiken decides to see if he can use the old masonry oven they uncovered in the junk pile at school which balloons into a huge pizza project/event, then Hachiken gets a summer job working for Aki's family as a farm hand and also get's to visit two other classmate's farms (each of which manage theirs a little bit differently).

I liked this one quite a bit. It was so funny to see how the pizza project ballooned and how everyone got involved. (It also seems completely puzzling that pizza would be so hard to get everyone would be super psyched about it.) I really like the taste of modern farming culture in Japan. Recommended to those looking for a fairly clean and somewhat funny manga.

Notes on content: About 5 minor swear words. No sexual content. (There's an animal birthing, but it is very technical.) One butchering scene.

[Mehsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pizza parties and summer vacations! This was a lot of fun with tons of great moments. I loved that Hachiken was able to stay with Mikage during the vacation even if it meant a lot of labour. I love the school and seeing all that happened there before the vacation. While it seems at times a bit hellish I would definitely love to be there for a bit and try out things. It sounds fun.

Though at times I wasn't such a fan of Hachiken. I mean, I get it he was worried for his parents but boy you should have send that message before your friends already told you that you wouldn't have any connection at their farms. Now he was just a bother. And then he even does a stupid thing like going hiking, wth? This boy is so smart but yet so dumb. But at least he knows he does dumb stuff and he tries to do the right thing and he is also open to things, which is why I don't entirely dislike him.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small side project evolves into a big party and Hachiken becomes a dependable social organizer. He also avoids a return home by taking a summer job. I loved the chapter where Hachiken believed himself to be a popular student when really his peers were looking for cheap, student labor. Too funny! There is great progress in Hachiken’s understanding of the world and his place in it, and I particularly appreciate his realization that there was more to learning than face-in-book studying. The volume does a fair job contrasting big agri-business with small family farming. And, it sheds a light on some of the challenges farmers encounter. As usual, Arakawa’s art is fantastic and this volume showcases a lot of her spirit animal—cows!