Ooezo Agricultural High School is the best agricultural vocational/technical school in Hokkaido, and farm kids from all over the territory come there to pursue an education. But there’s a different student this year. Yuugo Hachiken is from the big city of Sapporo, and for…reasons…has decided to join the dairy science program at Ooezo in lieu of the prestigious prep school he’d been aiming for.
As a city kid, Hachiken is woefully unprepared for farm life, and has no clue where food actually comes from. “Chickens produce eggs from their what!?” He’s warned not to get to attached to a piglet he’s helping raise, but names it anyway. He’s certainly not ready to wake up before dawn to take care of the chores!
But life at Ooezo does have its compensations. Fresh air, exercise, good food…and Hachiken discovers talents he never had the opportunity to exercise before. He joins the Equestrian Club, and there’s this girl named Aki that just might be interested in him. There’s a silver spoon mounted outside the student cafeteria, symbolizing a wish that their graduates will never starve.
This series is based on the manga by Hiromu Arakawa, who also created the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. The story takes full advantage of her background growing up on a dairy farm.
Hachiken is kind of rude and surly early on, initially seeing most of his classmates as hopeless rubes. However, he quickly catches on to the fact that they have their own useful skill sets and acquired knowledge, even the ones that are actually stupid. We see that his true nature is helpful and tender-hearted, which gets him in over his head more than once.
The other characters are more complicated than they may first appear, and Hachiken’s friends have their own stories to live through, not all of them successful.
Parents of young children should be aware that animals have natural functions and the show does not shy away from this. Hachiken skins a deer at one point, and assists with a difficult calving at another. One episode does have some disturbing imagery from a slaughterhouse (when Hachiken must send Pork Bowl off to be turned into meat); the story specifically warns that this is coming up and sensitive viewers might want to leave the room for a bit. Overall, if your child is not yet ready for the “where food comes from” talk, they’re too young for this series.
There are some hints of romance and sexual thoughts, but Hachiken points out (when he is falsely accused of an affair) that the students’ schedule just doesn’t allow time for any serious hanky-panky.
The manga is still ongoing, so the anime stops abruptly about three-quarters of the way through Hachiken’s freshman year. It is unknown at this time if there will be an animation of the remainder of the manga.
Those of you who grew up on a farm will certainly nod along at parts, and big city dwellers can learn new things. Highly recommended.
GooD info that our kids need
Be warned there’s some tearjerker moments.
We live on a farm, so the kids have been involved with a lot of this. It would be fun for them to see it in a book form – especially this sort. They love Graphic Novel type stories and Calvin & Hobbes cartoons. We need to read this! Thanks.
The manga should be coming out in translation in a couple of years, I hope.