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Old 2013-09-21, 12:15   Link #421
FrejaOne
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Not the obvious, but the important things not even every adult is able to fully realize. Otherwise adults would be completely uninterested in those stories.

So, that's what I've been wondering, just how exactly does he grow? Growth means progress; he's not progressing but rather conforming. He was more of his own person at the beginning of the story, now he's just another young farmer, except he likes pretending pigs are his pets until the S-day comes, because he's quirky like that.
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Old 2013-09-21, 13:26   Link #422
340.29
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If the purpose of the story is to say "it's perfectly okay to raise animals for slaughter, stop being a silly bleeding heart about it", then the story does not work as it is.
I'm honestly not certain if you even read our posts. More than one person has stated quite clearly that this is NOT the intended point of the story. You may, obviously, choose to believe that it is, but treating it as an absolute when so many people disagree is quite ridiculous.

It really feels like this is going around in circles, and this has quickly become non-constructive, so goodbye and see you all next season (hopefully).
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Old 2013-09-21, 13:40   Link #423
FrejaOne
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Originally Posted by 340.29 View Post
I'm honestly not certain if you even read our posts. More than one person has stated quite clearly that this is NOT the intended point of the story. You may, obviously, choose to believe that it is, but treating it as an absolute when so many people disagree is quite ridiculous.
I'm not treating it as an absolute, the word "if" was there on purpose. I'm questioning the treatment of this point due to the way it is portrayed in the story. Because while there are hints on a different morale (and conclusion), the way the inner logic of the plot is presented makes it look like that was precisely the point.
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Old 2013-09-21, 14:29   Link #424
Gan_HOPE326
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Originally Posted by Clarste View Post
"A dog looks up to humans, a cat looks down on them, but a pig will look you in the eye and see an equal." -the show in the question

Anyway, I think making a spectrum with "human" on one end and "object" on the other is missing the point just as much, and perhaps more dangerously. Once you start sorting sentience on an algorithm like that, it's only a short leap to say that mentally retarded people, or some whole ethnic group, or... babies... aren't fully "human" and therefore don't deserve human rights. Heck, maybe the people who score below me on an IQ test are edible? I don't think it's rationally justifiable to assign value to human intelligence alone. Unless you want to eat babies. For the record, adult pigs are smarter than human babies.

You could go the other way and say "humans are humans, and pigs are pigs" but then you've already left your pretense of moral justification. If humans are humans and pig are pigs, then surely there's nothing wrong with pigs slaughtering humans, right? I mean, the human perspective is by hypothesis nothing like a pig, so there's no reason for a pig to feel guilty. Which, well, maybe you'll accept as true. But in that case we're not "justified" in killing pigs because they're lesser than us, we're just overpowering them because we're stronger. And maybe there's nothing wrong with that, except wars and slavery and whatnot.

But didn't we just say humans are humans? Well, sure, but unless you extend your sense of kinship to an unreasonable level there's nothing that makes humanity fundamentally adverse to killing each other. Ultimately it comes down to either two theories: social contract ("I'm afraid of being killed so I'll agree to mutually avoid killing") or basic empathy. And clearly people are also capable of empathizing with animals. So yeah.

Moral of the story: don't eat other humans because you'll get Kuru. This is a prion disorder that spreads by eating nerve tissue of the same species. Humanity, in our infinite cruelty, decided to recycle inedible cattle parts by grinding them up and feeding them to other cattle, which is a huge contributor in the spread of Mad Cow Disease, which is basically the same thing as Kuru, but for cows. Eating your own kind is just plain unhealthy. So eat pigs instead. But love them.
Well, you got a point, but I guess you could just go along the lines of something like "babies/mentally retarded are still OUR species, so we should protect them". The case surely works better for babies, which represent literally the future of our species. Then of course, where does one draw the line? I don't know, honestly. Maybe if I had to do with animals on an everyday basis and could tell how intelligent they actually are I would change my mind? On the other hand, if we thought all big mammals were deserving a right to life, what would we do about big mammals who are eaten by other carnivorous big mammals (example, gazelles eaten by lions)? It's clearly either one's life, or the other's. Should we let nature do its course, or stop lions from killing other living beings? I don't really think there is an easy answer. The most consistent one that I can find is that we can relate mainly to ourselves, us humans, and we should care first and foremost for our own species. Even if a pig could get attached to its owner (I honestly don't know whether they do or not), we can't really communicate with pigs as a whole. We couldn't get a pig to understand the concept of "duty" or of "right", and have it respect them. Hence, no duties, no rights. Both things are a product of human society and communication. This is the only logic that kind of works without crumbling on itself. To define it "right" would be maybe a stretch - but then again, how do we define the very concept of right or wrong if not with respect to what humans feel and think about it?
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Old 2013-09-21, 15:24   Link #425
FrejaOne
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Originally Posted by Gan_HOPE326 View Post
Even if a pig could get attached to its owner (I honestly don't know whether they do or not), we can't really communicate with pigs as a whole.
They can. Some people actually keep smaller pigs as pets, they can learn their name, learn some tricks and discipline like dogs, can be trained to use a litter box like cats and so on. The problem is that there is a lot of dishonesty among the breeders and as a result people expect a miniature pig and end up with a farm-sized pig. But that's a different matter.
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Old 2013-09-21, 17:50   Link #426
Eclipze
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Originally Posted by IllegalGoddess View Post
Not the obvious, but the important things not even every adult is able to fully realize. Otherwise adults would be completely uninterested in those stories.

So, that's what I've been wondering, just how exactly does he grow? Growth means progress; he's not progressing but rather conforming. He was more of his own person at the beginning of the story, now he's just another young farmer, except he likes pretending pigs are his pets until the S-day comes, because he's quirky like that.
-Hachiken and the pizza incident. Something that he has never done before in his life, something totally unnecessary, but he took it upon himself to research for and actually getting the task done.
-Experiencing his first real major mistake at Mikage's farm, learning from it, and understanding the importance of how he should spends his first hard earned paycheck (and money on a whole).
-Gained understanding on various people's circumstances and worries, changing his original assumptions about people.
-Overall social development. From the overly stressed city kid who had no desires in life, to a more out-going person that people can depend on. Still no ultimate "goal" to strive for, but that's the case with most people at his age anyway.

...I really doubt you were paying attention to the story at all, and you are now complaining about it. I mean, seriously?
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Old 2013-09-21, 18:17   Link #427
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None of those had anything to do with Pork Bowl, though.
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Old 2013-09-21, 18:45   Link #428
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That said, while I wouldn't phrase it so harshly as it's been phrased here, I do think there's something to the idea that trying to be loving and respectful to animals while they're alive and then sending them to the abattoir right on schedule is hypocritical. Some people never think about this issue, some do. And among those, some decide that eating meat is OK and some decide it isn't. But let's not kid ourselves that Hachiken's answer is about the pigs - it's not. The naming and the petting and the cuddling is for him, not them - it's because he feels guilty for loving pork too much to stop eating it and wants to do something to assuage that guilt.
Hm, I wouldn't call that hypocrisy at all. Surely, it's better for the pigs that they're being treated kindly, while they're still alive? Sure, a lot of what Hachiken does may be assuaging guilt, but the guilt itself is about the pigs. It's a pretty complex constellation of emotions, some of which are contradictory. Ultimately, it's an emotional distinction between attachment and purpose: the running solution is to live with it. Don't think about it. Don't name the pigs; it'll be hard to part, etc. (The farm I know, IIRC, named their cows - dairy cows - but no their pigs. However, the cows would still go to the slaughterhouse eventually.)

My own problem with the show was one of imbalance: it focusses on the emotional conflict, rather than on the philosophy/ethics of it. It's presented as a distinction between attachment to the pigs and the deliciousness of the meat. And there's quite clearly an imbalance: the pigs have a whole lot more to lose. There are supporting structures in the background that the show takes for granted, but that other people (say vegetarians, and above all vegans) criticise. And that makes it seem shallow, and sometimes callous, even though it really isn't.

Both Hachiken and Yoshino considered vegetarianism. Hachiken pretty much dismissed it as a viable option for himself, while Yoshino is on the fence, leaning no. But both put "delicious" on the other side of the scales. The result, ostensibly, is: my taste buds are more important than your life. That is hard to swallow.

What the show hasn't really engaged is tangled web of division of labour, tradition, food chain, and all the interplay between that. There's a difference in living conditions between smaller farms and factory farms, for example, but the tour of Tamako's farm pretty much ignored the topic, with things like the milking roundabout being "convenient and efficient". But efficiency often comes at a cost. There are no easy answers, but Silver Spoon isn't even interested in raising them. The focus is decidedly emotional.

And this also where I fail to connect with Hachiken. I'm very different from him in a lot of respects, but no scene shows this better than this one:

Hachiken and Mikage sit on a bank, and he muses about becoming a vegetarian. Mikage wordlessly offers him some meat from what she is eating, he eats it, and it's delicious. Yeah, vegetarianism isn't for him.

This wouldn't have worked for me. Had I been offered meat in this situation, it would have nauseated me, and I'd have felt that I'm not being taken seriously (which would be unfair, because once the moment passes I immediately revert to my old meat-eating ways - the point is on the mark).

Basically, my situational reaction is more intense than Hachiken's, but my over-all conflict isn't nearly as strong. I feel little conflict between caring for a farm animal and eating it, though when the moment comes and I make the connection I might be physically unable to keep it down. (For those who are watching Uchouten Kazuko, the way this show treats the conflict is far more intuitive for me.)

The point? If we invoke hypocrisy, then I'm certainly much more of a hypocrite than Hachiken is. He's coming to terms with the status quo, and that's all that there is to it.

But because of the lack of any real engagement of issues beyond the immediate and personified (e.g. the vegetarian perspective, industrialised farming and living conditions...), and because I don't emtionally connect to Hachiken (I don't even like him much; I prefer his brother), the show falls a bit flat for me. I'm on the fence of whether I should pick up the second season or not. The treatment of farm life is a failure (for me), but I am interested in Hachiken's personal story, and I'd like to see what the show makes of it. Depends how busy Thursday/Friday is next season, I suppose.

[Btw, I really like Clarste's post. Since rep-points have gone, here's some public appreciation. ]
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Old 2013-09-21, 19:13   Link #429
Eclipze
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Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
None of those had anything to do with Pork Bowl, though.
You do realize he was asking about Hachiken's character development...right?

This is getting ridiculous man.
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Old 2013-09-21, 19:30   Link #430
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Originally Posted by IllegalGoddess View Post
I happened to come across Guardian Enzo's thoughtful review over at Random Curiosity and realized I had something else to add about not seeing the point.

If the purpose of the story is to say "it's perfectly okay to raise animals for slaughter, stop being a silly bleeding heart about it", then the story does not work as it is. Because the viewers who already share that opinion won't find anything new for themselves, they simply wasted some time watching this city kid not agreeing with the obvious and then shrugging his doubts off and eating bacon just as happily as his friends. Basically, the kind of viewer who agrees will shrug and say: so what, this is obvious.

The kind of viewers who don't agree with the message will come away annoyed or even offended, because the author played on their sentiments for so long just to end it in that ahh-tasty-meat way. There is no argument presented that can bring such a viewer over, just a gleeful disregard for his or her feelings.

So... what's the point? Those who agree don't need the whole arc, those who don't agree will be alienated even more.
Thank you for the plug, but I just want to make clear - the conclusions in your comment are not the conclusions I draw in my post.

That post is 9 paragraphs so I won't try and recreate it here - if people want to read it, they can. But I'll repeat a couple of points I made earlier. First, that I don't believe the debate over eating meat is the central theme of Gin no Saji, though it is important. Rather, it's used as a way to support the central theme, which is Hachiken trying to figure out what kind of person he wants to be.

On the issue of vegetarianism itself, I think Arakawa speaks pretty clearly through Fuji-sensei - you can think for years on this issue on never come up with a satisfactory answer that reconciles the inherent conflicts involved. I get the idea that she never has. So rather than try and come up with a pat and easy solution (which is what most anime would do) she honestly admits there is none. Is there a measure of hypocrisy involved in what Hachiken is doing? Yes, as I've said before. But I don't think Arakawa is denying that.
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Old 2013-09-22, 02:45   Link #431
Anh_Minh
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Originally Posted by Eclipze View Post
You do realize he was asking about Hachiken's character development...right?

This is getting ridiculous man.
Not really. Pay attention to context. We were talking about Hachiken's history with Pork Bowl, and his eventual decision to name the next batch of piglets. He accused Hachiken of hypocrisy for saying he loved pigs (like pets) and then sending them to the slaughterhouse and eating them.

The answer: "character development", like that explains or justifies anything.

So, no, the question isn't Hachiken's character development, but Hachiken's character development as it relates to his "personal connection" with the pigs. Of which you didn't provide an example.
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Old 2013-09-22, 04:50   Link #432
nojay
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My father's cousins were farmers, raising beef cattle and hosting sheep from the neighbouring hill farms overwinter. The cattle weren't pets, they were a business but they were deserving of good treatment while they were in his hands. One cousin was deeply Christian and kept the Sabbath as best he could but he had to work on Sundays taking care of the animals as they would have suffered otherwise. He thought God would understand, his Son was a shepherd[0] after all.

I helped out on the farm as a kid and a young man, there's a lot of hard endless shovel-and-fork work involved in farming even if much of it can be mechanised (something Gin no Saji continually emphasised) but it's a business and in today's world of low food prices enforced by the big supermarket chains, going bust is an always-present threat (something else which is part of the storyline of Gin no Saji). My father's cousins eventually gave up farming and raised a fine crop of bed&breakfast signs instead.

[0]Shepherds are farmers too. They castrate the young male sheep soon after birth, send them to slaughter after a few months of growth, shear the rest of the flock in the summer then organise a mass rape orgy (often incestuous) of the ewes in the autumn before sending the barren females to the slaughterhouse like their sons before them. Maybe Christianity shouldn't have chosen shepherding as being representative of their religion's Saviour.
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Old 2013-09-23, 08:36   Link #433
Eclipze
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Originally Posted by Anh_Minh View Post
Not really. Pay attention to context. We were talking about Hachiken's history with Pork Bowl, and his eventual decision to name the next batch of piglets. He accused Hachiken of hypocrisy for saying he loved pigs (like pets) and then sending them to the slaughterhouse and eating them.

The answer: "character development", like that explains or justifies anything.

So, no, the question isn't Hachiken's character development, but Hachiken's character development as it relates to his "personal connection" with the pigs. Of which you didn't provide an example.
You should be paying more attention here. Read the post that I was replying to. You guys may have been aruging about Hachiken's hypocrisy in regards to Pork Bowl for the past few pages, but that does not mean that you can actually ignore what the post actually says and act like that invalidates my comments here.

Since you seem to refuse to read his post, let me quote it for you with underlined parts that I was referring to in the beginning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IllegalGoddess View Post
Not the obvious, but the important things not even every adult is able to fully realize. Otherwise adults would be completely uninterested in those stories.

So, that's what I've been wondering, just how exactly does he grow? Growth means progress; he's not progressing but rather conforming. He was more of his own person at the beginning of the story, now he's just another young farmer, except he likes pretending pigs are his pets until the S-day comes, because he's quirky like that.
IllegalGoddess is directly attacking Hachiken's development here, not just matters relating to Pork Bowl.

Are you then in agreement that Hachiken is the same person as he was back in the city, as an aimless and completely self-loathing person?
That he is merely conforming to his environment while willfully ignoring how he has actually changed throughout the course of the series thus far?
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Old 2013-09-23, 12:30   Link #434
Clarste
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And this also where I fail to connect with Hachiken. I'm very different from him in a lot of respects, but no scene shows this better than this one:

Hachiken and Mikage sit on a bank, and he muses about becoming a vegetarian. Mikage wordlessly offers him some meat from what she is eating, he eats it, and it's delicious. Yeah, vegetarianism isn't for him.

This wouldn't have worked for me. Had I been offered meat in this situation, it would have nauseated me, and I'd have felt that I'm not being taken seriously (which would be unfair, because once the moment passes I immediately revert to my old meat-eating ways - the point is on the mark).
That moment also felt extremely weird to me. I kind of get the point that the show was trying to make: that his objections to eating meat weren't really well thought out at all and merely a base emotional reaction, but it certainly seems like that emotional reaction should at least be stronger than that. It was just a quick joke thrown in to lighten the tone, but a joke that also undermined the emotional weight of what he was supposed to be feeling. And when the climax of the season revolves around that emotional weight it just feels weird.

Now, I'm not saying it would have been better for him to temporarily commit to vegetarianism or anything, and that would probably make him look even worse when he gives it up a week later or whatever, but that one moment just seems like it could have been written a lot better.
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Old 2013-09-23, 12:36   Link #435
Anh_Minh
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Originally Posted by Eclipze View Post
You should be paying more attention here. Read the post that I was replying to. You guys may have been aruging about Hachiken's hypocrisy in regards to Pork Bowl for the past few pages, but that does not mean that you can actually ignore what the post actually says and act like that invalidates my comments here.

Since you seem to refuse to read his post, let me quote it for you with underlined parts that I was referring to in the beginning.

IllegalGoddess is directly attacking Hachiken's development here, not just matters relating to Pork Bowl.
And that's why I'm saying that context is important. If you pull something out of its context, of course the meaning is going to change.
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Old 2013-09-23, 14:47   Link #436
Gan_HOPE326
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And this also where I fail to connect with Hachiken. I'm very different from him in a lot of respects, but no scene shows this better than this one:

Hachiken and Mikage sit on a bank, and he muses about becoming a vegetarian. Mikage wordlessly offers him some meat from what she is eating, he eats it, and it's delicious. Yeah, vegetarianism isn't for him.

This wouldn't have worked for me. Had I been offered meat in this situation, it would have nauseated me, and I'd have felt that I'm not being taken seriously (which would be unfair, because once the moment passes I immediately revert to my old meat-eating ways - the point is on the mark).
I see your point, and I think the issue here is with Arakawa-sensei's upbringing in a farming context. People who works in agriculture/herding tends to give a great importance to food. To many of us, something like "but meat is so good" sounds almost a vulgar reason, because if we live in cities or big towns we're used to a more "steril" kind of life, where sometimes we adapt to eating quickly tasteless food because we have other things we want or need to do. But if food is a big part of your life, then the pleasure that comes with it is important too, and you wouldn't be able to renounce it so easily - would anyone of you give up internet access if they told you you'd save the life of some random animal by doing so? I think this is the main issue. In this sense, however, this is also a failure on Arakawa's part to properly represent her own character - as I think that Hachiken should have a point of view closer to ours than to hers, given how he's a "city boy" just like I am.
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Old 2013-09-23, 16:35   Link #437
Clarste
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I see your point, and I think the issue here is with Arakawa-sensei's upbringing in a farming context. People who works in agriculture/herding tends to give a great importance to food. To many of us, something like "but meat is so good" sounds almost a vulgar reason, because if we live in cities or big towns we're used to a more "steril" kind of life, where sometimes we adapt to eating quickly tasteless food because we have other things we want or need to do. But if food is a big part of your life, then the pleasure that comes with it is important too, and you wouldn't be able to renounce it so easily - would anyone of you give up internet access if they told you you'd save the life of some random animal by doing so? I think this is the main issue. In this sense, however, this is also a failure on Arakawa's part to properly represent her own character - as I think that Hachiken should have a point of view closer to ours than to hers, given how he's a "city boy" just like I am.
But Hachiken hasn't adapted to bland food. Even if he's a city boy. Mikage's family noted that his sense of taste implied that his parents made sure to feed him only the best stuff. Hechiken's not just some faceless city-boy for us to identify with, he also has his own background and circumstances.
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Old 2013-09-27, 15:34   Link #438
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Another flop

http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showthrea...56#post2032856

Blu ray
-- (*25) --- *1,428 **1,428 **1 Gin no Saji v1
DVD
12 (*42) --- *1,173 *,**1,173 **1 Gin no Saji v1

Total = 2601

And since Shogakukan are not on the production committee increased sales of the manga won't help to offset the cost of the anime So a continuation is very unlikely.
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Old 2013-09-27, 19:08   Link #439
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And since Shogakukan are not on the production committee increased sales of the manga won't help to offset the cost of the anime So a continuation is very unlikely.
That's too bad, I guess for manga readers the anime must not add much. I am enjoying it since I have not read the manga. But from what I understand a lot of scenes are cut and the animation is limited. Fans probably think buying the manga is enough. The manga sells very well after all.

That being said it is already scheduled for a 2nd season regardless of sales.
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Old 2013-09-27, 19:25   Link #440
Guardian Enzo
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Considering the content I can't imagine they expected much more than that. And I'm certain Shogakukuan are involved in the back-end in some capacity, even if they're not listed on the P.C. under their own name.
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