Krystallina: OMG, Vice Prez is on the cover! Squee! Who’s a good boy? No, I’m not talking to you, Hachiken — get out of the shot! Or at least turn around so we can see all of Vice Prez’s face!!
Ahem, sorry. The dog lover in me took over.
It’s almost the end of the school year for Hachiken and the gang. While he and his fellow classmates aren’t facing as much pressure as Ookawa, they still have to figure out whether they are going to continue to live in the dorms or move out. Of course, ideally, they’d also be narrowing down what they want to do after graduation. And Hachiken may actually have an idea?!
Much of Silver Spoon volume 11 is just silly comedy. Mikage and Hachiken agonize over Valentine’s Day, the boys have a mystery hotpot party — that sort of thing, a lot of which you’ll be quite familiar to you at this point. Humor has always been strong in this series, but a lot of it felt at odds with the relatively big developments and the more reflective tone the manga struck. It wasn’t one of the better ones in balancing comedy and slice-of-life.
What’s much stronger is Hachiken both growing as a character and showing off how he’s already changed. He gets a little advice from here, picks up some things from there, but it’s his own off-hand comment to Ookawa that ends up getting the wheels in Hachiken’s head turning: start a business. Exactly what kind of business is the problem though. Hachiken wants to come up with a way for all the students without a lot of money or a family business to lead to band together. It sounds nice in theory, but that’s all it is — a theory.
But Hachiken thinks he’s on the right track for himself, and he manages to willingly call his parents to ask to move out of the dorms as well as use his college fund as a business investment. While he does get permission for the former, in the latter’s case, his father refuses. But as readers know and others makes him realize, dad didn’t say no just to be mean. Hachiken has to come up with a plan to impress. This is something he’ll likely have to work on for quite a while. Tamako is advising him, and she’s quite strict. Not to mention his own strict father is the one he needs to get approval from!
While I mentioned this volume was about Hachiken’s character growth, Dad is slowly becoming less of a jerkface. That’s amazing considering his attitude drove both of his sons away. While I could go on and on about how he and his wife need to reconsider their parenting skills, this time, he’s got a point. It also helps that I found his coming to Ezo Ag the funniest part of the manga. He makes quite an impression on both humans and the animals at his son’s school.
Speaking of impressions, despite the story showing Hachiken’s first firm steps toward his future, the volume itself didn’t leave as strong as impression on me as I would have liked. (Well, except for the cover.) If I were to reread it, I’d probably fast forward through the filler-ish comedy portions. Although it ended on a moment that cracked me up, so perhaps I’m being overly harsh…?
Krystallina’s rating: 3 out of 5
Justin: The year for all the students at Ezo Ag is finally winding down. First years advance to their second year, the third year students graduate, and it’s time to decide whether to stay in the dorms or not. Ah, yes, time for Hachiken to once again stress about his immediate future! As he’s not looking forward to going home, he tries to decide if he wants to stay at the dorms or find a boarding house. While he makes his search, an off-hand comment from Ookawa of all people leads him to think about starting his own business.
This also means having to convince his parents — especially his dad — to help fund him living at a boarding house, but with a flimsy business idea his dad ain’t buying it. Now Hachiken has to come up with a suitable idea that will get his dad to invest in his business, and who better to ask than Tamako, who calls business proposals her favorite food!
…He soon learns he’s gonna have to come up with a proper plan…
Silver Spoon volume 11 takes a more business-minded approach than other volumes. Over the course of the series we’ve gotten plenty of examples of the students and farmers struggling to make ends meet in a cutthroat and difficult business. So for Hachiken, becoming your own boss sounds appealing, as you answer to no one but yourself — which is the only good thing! As he discovers more about becoming an entrepreneur, the realization of what he lacks — and where he’s currently lacking — hits him pretty hard. This of course comes into play when he tries to convince his dad, which naturally doesn’t work out well at all.
But it’s more than just convincing his dad — he needs to convince other people. And in a very shrewd way, volume 11 also makes a point to make sure you network. For Hachiken, who still doesn’t have a concrete idea of his future, knowing people who do or are in the same boat (or in some cases, could be worse off *looks at Ookawa*) can be valuable immediately or valuable down the line. A very classic case of making connections, but done after years of knowing each other and having actual moments together.
This is not all that this volume covers — we still see Hachiken tutoring Mikage, which seems to lead to a breakthrough for Mikage since her grades are going up. This proves to be valuable later on when Mikage ends up having to confront Hachiken’s dad later on in the volume. We also see Mikage lacking sense of what happens on a certain day in February, only serving to make Hachiken bleed faster for MANY reasons — and eventually, making her friends unquestionably mad. We also get to the end of the school year, where we finally get the meaning of the silver spoon from the principal himself, and we watch the boys make the strangest hot pot ever to cap their final days until the spring.
So in other words, this was yet another fantastic volume of Silver Spoon. It did feel very lengthy, but all of it was fascinating. We get to see the side of Hachiken’s dad that…might care for him (though whether it’s too little, too late is up for discretion)? We continue to receive Arakawa’s incredible humor in text and visual form. We also get to see Hachiken learn that having Ookawa as a friend might not be the best thing in the world (I mean, can you trust a guy who laughs at someone getting dumped by his girlfriend?!?)? And yes, that means this makes everything involving Silver Spoon a terrific read.
Justin’s rating: 5 out of 5