2013-09-21, 12:15 | Link #421 |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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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. |
2013-09-21, 13:26 | Link #422 | |
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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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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2013-09-21, 13:40 | Link #423 | |
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2013-09-21, 14:29 | Link #424 | |
Maddo Scientisto
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: UK
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2013-09-21, 15:24 | Link #425 |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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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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2013-09-21, 17:50 | Link #426 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Singapore
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-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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2013-09-21, 18:45 | Link #428 | |
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Location: Austria
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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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2013-09-21, 19:30 | Link #430 | |
Seishu's Ace
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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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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2013-09-22, 02:45 | Link #431 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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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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2013-09-22, 04:50 | Link #432 |
Scanlator
Join Date: Dec 2005
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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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2013-09-23, 08:36 | Link #433 | ||
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Location: Singapore
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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:
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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2013-09-23, 12:30 | Link #434 | |
Human
Join Date: Aug 2004
Age: 37
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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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2013-09-23, 12:36 | Link #435 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2013-09-23, 14:47 | Link #436 | |
Maddo Scientisto
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: UK
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2013-09-23, 16:35 | Link #437 | |
Human
Join Date: Aug 2004
Age: 37
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2013-09-27, 15:34 | Link #438 |
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Join Date: Feb 2010
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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. |
2013-09-27, 19:08 | Link #439 | |
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That being said it is already scheduled for a 2nd season regardless of sales.
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2013-09-27, 19:25 | Link #440 |
Seishu's Ace
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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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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