Hiromu Arakawa's "Silver Spoon"

According to amber1003's deviantART journal, Hiromu Arakawa's finally announced the name of her new work. The title is Silver Spoon (Gin no Saji) and from what I could tell by reading the description, it seems like it'll be a sort of slice-of-life story about a boy in rural Hokkaido. Probably inspired by her childhood, growing up on a farm there?

It'll definitely be hard to top Fullmetal Alchemist in my mind, but I'll definitely have a look.

Tough act to follow and all that, kind of makes me think about how I'll feel when JKR announces a new project.

I'm curious as to if it's going to be strict realistic slice-of-life, or some other weird stuff pops in.

Also, what the ongoing plot is going to be. But I suppose I'll check out the first few issues.

Here's a translation of the first chapter.

Well, the art and character designs are great, as I'd expect of Hiromu Arakawa, but I'm not really sure I find it interesting. It's only 11 pages translated so far but I don't really get what it's supposed to be about. Thoughts?

edited 6th Apr '11 11:12:22 PM by AXavierB

Full chapter here. As to be expected from someone who grew up in Hokkaido, the agriculture details are spot-on.

I LOLed at one part near the end. You'll know once you get there. ;)

edited 8th Apr '11 6:18:37 PM by PikaHikariKT

Was sort of just browsing through it, but do you mean Alex Armstrong showing up?- really weird how distinctive her style is.

"Look at mah horse/Mah horse is amazing..."

Great. Not I've got that stuck in my head.

It's a decent first chapter. This is one I'll keep reading.

One of the students in class looked like the first Greed.

Well, that was a fun little story. Liked that the gym teacher was an Armstrong clone. Will have to keep reading this one, see where its headed...

Its about a guy who has no dreams for the future surrounded by people who already have dreams. He's going to try and find his dream by doing a whole bunch of things.

Its plot has been done before (can't name a specific manga/film/etc.), but hopefully Arakawa's storytelling can make it better than most.

Defiantly already has a CMoF toward the end of the first chapter, at least in my book.

Also, its possible that after FMA, she probably can't top that and just wants to tone it down a little.

edited 8th Apr '11 9:48:42 PM by tclittle

Komaba does look like the first Greed. Nearly identical.

And I'll keep reading. It seems to have the same kind of humor FMA had. I laughed out loud at the chicken getting decapitated. Arakawa has such a twisted sense of humor. XD

This seem promising. I'm not really a big fan of Slice of Life but I actually enjoyed this first chapter. I considered Full Metal Alchemist to be THE BEST shounen out there so I certainly hold Arakawa in a very high regard. Looking forward to this series.

\*reads*

JESUS CHRIST MAJOR ARMSTRONG IS TEACHING PHYSICAL FITNESS GET IN THE CAR!

Other than that bit of terrifying news, this was a pretty promising first chapter. Arakawa's brand of humor certainly shines through (and I can definitely relate to the main character ).

Seems like a good read. I've always liked series with non-standard settings, and a realistic take on a rural setting sounds interesting.

Likewise on both counts.

By the way, can we change the thread title to include the manga's name?

I'm sad because this looks like it's is going to be good except that it seems based on the humour I disliked in the FMA manga. I might check it out later though.

What don't you like about the humor? Just out of curiosity.

@Koujin: No, I don't think threads can be renamed except maybe by a mod.

Someone else tried to make a thread with the translated series named (Silver Spoon), but abandoned it because we already had this one.

I'd suggest we either start using that thread, or make a new one with a title along the lines of "Silver Spoon (Hiromu Arakawa's new manga)".

I'd say the easiest thing to do is just PM a mod instead of making a new topic.

edited 9th Apr '11 1:11:39 PM by Thenamelesssamurai

It just doesn't fit my sense of humour, I get that with a lot of Anime/Manga but sometimes all the other stuff is worth it,which is why I usually avoid A/M that is heavy on comedy.But if it like in the FMA manga isn't always the focus I can just skip the panels but that doesn't really work in animation(as seen in brotherhood IMO). I can usually tolerate it more when binge reading since it then has more "other"-stuff. What I'm going to do is wait a few chapters/volumes and then see how it is.

Edit: Am I the only one that think that the Main Character looks like a young Maes Hughes?

edited 9th Apr '11 1:14:33 PM by mahel042

Yeah, the humor is just stupid. I winced and felt like clawing my eyes out every time a stupid joke from the manga was included in Brotherhood (seriously, you'd think Studio Bones would have known better - at least in the original anime the humor was genuinely funny aside from the short jokes). Arakawa really needs to stop trying to be funny since she can't. Aside from that, Silver Spoon seems pretty interesting. The main character's totally going to have psychic powers. Perhaps there will be some kind of Doctor Doolittle-type situation?

Hmmm. Maybe it's because this one doesn't involve an archive binge first, but I think I may be hooked. If so, it's my gateway manga...

[obligatory YMMV comment]

Are you the mod that changed the title? Thanks.

I can kind of see what you're getting at, but Maes has a fairly prominent nose, thicker eyebrows, and eyes with a flat top leading to a sharp corner◊ while Yugo (main character) has a small nose, very thin eyebrows, and the top of his eye curves to a rounded end.

On a related note, I love how that cover has Yugo and Ichiro (the guy on the left) making this super-serious pose even though one is holding a piglet and chicken in each arm while the other is trying to keep a calf from gnawing on his pants.