I remember when I watched the Silver Spoon anime for the first time. It happened to be the summer of 2020. Like a lot of people in those months I was spending most of my time at home. Online college classes gave me something to do but it definitely wasnt the funnest time. But when I watched this anime it reminded me of a lot of the simple pleasures of life. Like seeing a brilliant starry sky. Or eating delicious food. Or the excitement of rooting for your schools baseball team. Watching Silver Spoon at that time made me feel more alive than I had in a while. It was a light in the darkness. The show was funny it showed me new perspectives I grew up in the suburbs so the daily labors of farming are foreign to me and it had characters I really wanted to root for. Before long I started reading the manga. And I gotta say the manga is funnier. Dont get me wrong the anime is good. But there are just a few certain panels that are toned down in the anime for whatever reasonand I just cant let it go mostly in chapter 33 to be honest but there are others. Still its good Anyway the manga finished in 2019 and realistically the anime is not gonna get another season so might as well jump into the manga right? Silver Spoon follows the high school journey of a young man named Yuugo Hachiken who wanted to get far away from his parents and Sapporo after being unable to measure up to the competition presumably he didnt pass the entrance exams for the high schools he hoped to attend. So he ends up at an agricultural high school with dorms in the middle of nowhere. As a city boy he knows nothing about farming. Now mangaka Hiromu Arakawa best known for Fullmetal Alchemist draws from firsthand experience when writing about this rural life as she grew up on a dairy farm in Hokkaido. So shes uniquely qualified to write in this settingand thats on top of her being just a fantastic writer in general. She is wonderfully thoughtful about charactersmost of the characters in this series I may not be able to tell you their names right offhand but I can absolutely tell you their personalities and what theyre into. Our main character Hachiken is kind of an uptight guy and a lot of the realities of life at his new school are quite shocking to him. Practically all of the other students have agricultural backgrounds already so hes a real fish out of waterbut even though he has a lot to learn his unique perspective influences the other students too. Unlike the other students Hachiken has no idea what he wants to do with his life. But hes certainly a hard workerin fact he soon ends up with a lot on his plate because he never says no. A girl invites him to join the equestrian cluband well clubs are mandatory and he definitely is thinking this girl is cute so he joins. Learning to ride a horse is just one of the many little adventures hell get into in this series. But the series isnt merely a collection of This month were going to learn about this farm topicthough dont get me wrong many chapters are very educational. You can learn how cheese is made for instance. There are even discussions on the ethical issues in agriculture. But the focus of the story is first and foremost on Hachikens growth. And that means sometimes the challenges he encounters are gonna be more relationshiporiented. I mean the dudes main goal in the beginning was to get far away from his parentsthats definitely something we might want to unpack right? And rest assured we will. Personally the highly humanfocused stories that sometimes explore that classic question why is this person like that? are where I got the most invested. But the great thing is the handson farm stuff and the personal stuff are in most cases connected in some way. This is a series people might call slice of life yet it has a great sense of forward momentum and thats because of the way events like preparing bacon or competing in an equestrian competition can link back to characters growth. There are a couple scenes that are just filled with raw emotion conveyed with only a few words with the artworkwhich is not gorgeous but is effective at conveying what it needs todoing most of the heavy lifting I will always remember chapter 56. The anime did great with it too. And man theres a lot of comedy in this series and its super goofy and absurd and I absolutely love it. Its probably not surprising to learn that a series about a dudes three years of high school will have some romance elements too. This is done so incredibly naturally and with such sweetnessif you enjoyed the small pieces of romance present in Fullmetal Alchemist trust me you will love it in Silver Spoon too where its a little more prominent. The series goes through Hachikens first year of high school at length but the next two years happen at a much quicker pacewhich felt a bit jarring at first but overall I think it was a logical decision. Its better to get to a few key moments in those last two years rather than try to go at the same pace as when Hachiken was still learning everything about farm life. By the end of the story its not like Hachiken ever had a grand revelation and suddenly knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Its more like hes found a path one step at a time because he stayed open to possibilities he wouldnt have imagined. Silver Spoon is an uplifting tale that can remind you of the joy in lifes simple moments and give you the courage to face its challengesor not because sometimes you need to run away to survive as a wise principal taught Hachiken. Hiromu Arakawa may be famous for excellent fantasy manga but her first attempt at a realistic one is a masterpiece I will always treasure.