Let’s Hear It For Ag Schools!
GBS: It was amusing that we had two shows set at agricultural high schools: the continuation of the highly enjoyable Silver Spoon and the very different No-Rin. There’s not much I really need to say about Silver Spoon that I haven’t already said about the first season. The latter show, however, is an oddity. The setting is an agricultural high school, but the show is in reality a lightly veiled critique of modern anime/manga fandom hidden under a cover of stupid humor and sophomoric gags. It wasn’t readily apparent at first, but the more I’ve watched it, the more I’m convinced that the writing team are taking potshots at various parts of otaku culture and its various subcultures. It’s not done in a mean-spirited way, but the criticism is clearly there.
BM: Factoid: I did high-school agriculture for two years. It was never as much fun as Silver Spoon, but then a) we only did plants, and no animals, b) we didn’t have Mikage, and c) I suck at making things grow. Fairly major failing in the agriculture department, that. Still, Silver Spoon was classed as one of my pleasant surprises during its first season, and while this season wasn’t quite been up there with it, it was still a pleasure. But as you say, No-Rin is a very different beast, one which lost me very quickly. I saw a sense of mean-spiritedness in the way that the lead characters treated each other that very quickly wore me out. Some nice character designs, but otherwise… nope.
GBS: If you only saw the first two episodes, I would recommend seeing a couple more before deciding to give up for good. There are some very on-point parodies in the next episodes following and overall a knowing sense of where various fetishes among the fandom go a bit too far. I didn’t really get the sense that the lead characters were that mean to each other, beyond the normal standards of comedy. And the penultimate episode actually takes a moment to address a more serious theme in a largely sophisticated way (with some lowbrow humor as well, but…that’s this show).
Alternate Trajectories for Second Acts
GBS: Looking at continuations, some have only gone from strength to strength as Kill la Kill and Log Horizon have done with their second parts. Not so for Nagi no Asukara and Golden Time. NagiAsu started poorly, in my opinion, as it was too much Hikari being angry and Manaka being passive and emotionally dependent. The stark midpoint, with Manaka disappearing and Hikari coming back after a time skip, was very well done and reinvigorated the show as a whole. Manaka’s reappearance worked well into things, especially the unexpected nature of her awakening.
In contrast, Golden Time had done a semi-decent job of getting my attention and making me invest some concern in the main characters during the first half, but did everything possible to reduce my interest as the second half has unfolded.
You Disappoint Me
BM: Golden Time edged further into ‘disappointment’ territory with every appearance of Banri’s ghost. The show was a real frustration, with it doing so much good in the way it was developing the relationships between the characters and creating situations that, for the most part, felt real – but then Banri’s ghost and his angst about his past / future would turn up and ruin all the goodwill the series had built up elsewhere. It teetered constantly between good and bad for me, and even after the finale I’m still not quite sure what side of the line it ended up on.
At the risk of committing heresy, I’d also flag Space Dandy as a disappointment. Okay, this may be a little bit of hype backlash at work, but I watched the series up to episode 9, and only one (the zombie tale) held my attention for the full 25 minutes and made me laugh out loud. Even the Redline ‘homage’ episode couldn’t do that. There are several problems, from where I’m sitting, starting with the lack of any sort of continuity between episodes – for all intents and purposes, each could be set in its own little pocket universe, for all the apparent linkage between them.
GBS: Hardly heresy, though I don’t have an opinion on Space Dandy since…I haven’t been watching it. I decided to let that one slide for a later marathon down the road, though it seems that might be a waste because of its episodic character, which comes as no surprise given how I’ve been told that it changes directors with every episode.
BM: Yes, it does, which I think is another of the problems – it feels like each director was told to use this universe and these characters, but otherwise to do what they like. The end result is more of an anthology than the typical anime series, with quality varying hugely between episodes – and with each episode being essentially standalone, there’s nothing to tie you into what’s happening.
GBS: And with Golden Time, exactly, it was the “ghost” that made me roll my eyes on more than one occasion. I had hoped it might just be an authorial device (and it still might be), but it appeared just far too often. Completely ruined any sense of realism the show had taken the trouble to build up. I have to agree with you about being unsure where to place the show on the Good/Bad spectrum, though at the moment, the scale is weighing slightly down on the Bad side for me.
