Notes of Silver Spoon Episode 8

Motorbike guy slipping on cow manure? Check!

• In last week’s Silver Spoon, we watched Hachiken visit Tamako’s industrialised farm and face the sometimes harsh reality of agriculture.

• Summary of Silver Spoon episode eight: The last week of the summer break has arrived. Hachiken has gotten quite used to the life around the farm, and in turn, Mikage’s family has accepted him…except her father, of course. Some cows from nearby fields have broken loose and got mixed up with the cows Mikage’s family is keeping. All of them are occupied with sorting out which animal belongs to which farm, when help arrived, unexpectedly, in the form of Hachiken’s brother, Shingo. He leaves the next morning though, making Hachiken not pay attention to what he’s doing and as a result of that, spilling quite a lot of milk. Hachiken takes responsibility immediately, and is thinking how he will compensate Mikage’s family, but they are having none of it and in the end he receives his pay for helping out in the past weeks.

• My impressions: This episode was a total surprise with the sudden appearance of Hachiken’s older brother, Shingo. And to top that, we got to meet their parents, though only on the phone, not in person. There is a life lesson in this episode as well, though: carelessness leads to mistakes and having to bear responsibility. How one can deal with having caused others harm and what one learns from it is different for everyone, and it is interesting to see how our protagonist deals with it.

• Hachiken would make a nice addition to the Mikage family. He works hard and is accepted by pretty much everyone, except Mikage’s father.

  Even Mikage frowns at her father’s stubbornness.

• Shingo is quite something. We learn that he is a university student, and is attending the prestigious Tokyo University to boot. Even Mikage’s father admires a feat like that. A fragment from Hachiken’s part is revealed: he has grown up in the shadow of his brother and still harbours resentment towards him. He was always compared to his brother in school and presumably, no matter how he performed, he could never quite live up to what was expected from him.

  So that’s why he is so good at Math…

  In the next moment, however, the brother reveals that he quit the university and is aspiring to be a ramen cook. At first it was shocking to hear not just to Hachiken, but to me as well (why would he do that?!), but the phone call with their parents shed some light on his reasons. Since there is no cell phone reception, Shingo borrows the land-line phone and calls their mother to inform that Hachiken is doing okay. This is overheard by their father, who cuts in abruptly and triggers a defiant attitude in Shingo. We learn that going to Tokyo Uni was a form of passive resistance against their overbearing father, and he dropped out just to annoy him. It was interesting to see how the brothers chose different ways to deal with their father: the older son rebelled openly while the younger son just ran away as fas as possible. This seemed plausible to me, as children get older, they revere/fear their parents less and less, taking up more and more confrontation. I would very much like to know why the father has become so demanding from his children though.

• There were no dead animals in this episode thankfully, but the deer Hachiken gutted in episode six makes a short cameo. Another thing that was funny to watch is that whenever someone is cooking in anime, it always turns out either super tasty or super awful – there is no middle ground. The ramen cooking skills of Shingo are so bad that everyone faints across the table.

  It is clear from his face that he’s actually enjoying watching the others suffer.

• The character I liked most in this episode was, however, the ever silent Granny. I mean, who can make a cow change its mind and run off just by showing it a scary face?

  Don’t. You. Dare. To. Touch. Them. Carrots!

  I liked Granny, however, for the other thing she did in this episode: commenting on what Hachiken will do with his hard-earned pay. Her lines felt a little bit forced, as if she was the voice of the author in this episode, providing words of wisdom that everyone (including us, viewers) should take heed of. Or maybe she’s simply old and wise.

• Hachiken was surprised that Komaba’s twin sisters brought him some corn to thank him for helping feed the cows when he was at their place (in episode six). The surprise on his face told that he didn’t consider this as helping them out per se, but still, the sisters felt gratitude. Similarly, he is surprised that the host family is willing to pay him even though he doesn’t consider himself to having been a big help, and even causing them quite the damage by letting the raw milk spill. The host family, however, is grateful for his help, and he has shown that he is hard-working and wanted to alleviate the damage caused by working even more.

• Speaking of being hard-working, it was fun to see Mikage’s mother teasing his husband about having Hachiken marry into the family.

  His angry face never gets old.

• It’s interesting to see what Silver Spoon can get away with. They have shown decapitated chickens, dead bears, bloody cows giving birth, and so on, and this tradition continues in this episode as well, although a bit differently. According to Japanese law, it is prohibited to sell raw milk. So Mikage’s grandfather, as a seemingly law-abiding citizen, refuses giving Hachiken raw milk. In the next moment, however, he quotes a loophole in the law that it is not unlawful to drink raw milk produced on one’s estate. He then declares that if Hachiken were to drink it, he would turn a blind eye and act as if nothing ever happened. All this while dashing out of the milk storage building. The way he says that I’m not bearing any responsibility! while encouraging our protagonist to do so is not something a law-abiding citizen would do, and not something that should be shown on TV, is it?

  Just look at the smirk on his face.

• All in all, a surprisingly revealing episode this week complemented by a few hilarious scenes.

  No wonder he’s beaten up by Mikage’s dad.