Common knowledge does vary with the individual.
- Summary of episode one: our high school freshman, Hachiken Yuugo, enters the agricultural high school of Ooezo. He is not accustomed to being around livestock and gets in some hi-jinxs with a calf, making himself known right on the first day. The class is divided into teams of five, and we get to follow the adventures of his team on the next day.
- My impressions: We get our fairly standard first episode, introducing the characters and the setting. The different backgrounds of Yuugo and his classmates were highlighted pretty well, leading to a bunch of funny scenes. It was interesting that during the self-introduction in the class, the boys (and a girl, let’s not forget) whose introductions we saw would all end up in the team of Yuugo – completely “by chance”, of course. Well it’s expected, this doesn’t seem to be a show with a huge cast of characters, and this way it’s easier to show the differences between the characters and use it as basis for jokes.
- Speaking of jokes, there was this one scene with the freshly laid egg popping out of a chicken that was reused multiple times, and I feared it would get stale very soon. It was, however, used for character development, as Yuugo became so exhausted from all those exercises that at the end of the day, he chose to eat that egg he was repulsed by throughout the episode instead of staying hungry.
Unconventional camera angle underlining significance of a common egg. A rare sight, indeed.
- Another scene that was nicely done was when our protagonist realizes that the most conventional subject likely to be encountered in this school is… Math. Although most students abhor math and see it as incomprehensible, for Yuugo it’s something he’s used to and can use this to his advantage. The real challenge is the agricultural stuff, which we soon see he thinks he is prepared for, having studied the course material during the spring break. And in the next moment the teacher crushes his hopes announcing that the class will be switching over to a different textbook. All that effort he spent on memorizing stuff just went down the drain. Poor Yuugo.
- Nevertheless, he is approached by Keiji who begs him to tutor him in match. Soon a discussion erupts when the boys start comparing their best grades from conventional junior school stuff, like Math and English. Hearing this Yuugo is confident he can attain top grades in his class… until some classmates behind him start to talk about stuff only people well-versed in agricultural sciences can understand.
Help… I need someone to explain what this ‘cloning’ stuff is…
- We got to see that life of an agricultural high school student is fairly taxing. Waking up at five in the morning, physical exercises during the day, classes, compulsory club activities, and a twenty kilometer lap around the campus to boot… no wonder they are exhausted at the end of the day.
- During the self-introduction in the class, pretty much everyone of our protagonist’s classmates states they were there to continue the family business, be that a dairy business, poultry farm, or to take up an occupation like veterinarian, agriculture manager and so on. Contrary to that, Yuugo has nothing to add, and when he is walking in the morning mist along his teammate Shinnosuke, he hints that the only reason he applied for this school was because it was far enough from his home. It’s a fair guess that the mystery as to why he would want to be separated from home will be used as a plot device in the next few episodes.
- Finally, some words about animation quality…It was fairly standard, no unrealistic body proportions or heads distorted for comic effect. Secondary characters and backgrounds are not that detailed, but that’s expected, I guess. The animation did have some surprising moments though…
That surely is one evil-looking plow horse.
…or when they suddenly decapitated a chicken and blood was gushing left-and-right.
- All in all, a nice, laid-back yet funny episode, I’m sure to tune in next week as well!
