The Silver Spoon

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

The Silver Spoon felt like a very easy story to get into. I've personally always had the preconception that going into something like agriculture would mean that you grew up in a family that did it and you found your connections through your parents - not that there's a high school that you could go to that trains you. Because of this, Hachiken's high school experience is going to be quite different from my own but I think I'll still be able to relate at least a little bit to how he reacts to the people around him. It's his first time dealing with agriculture and I get to learn about it with him.  Overall, the reading seems like it would be pretty enjoyable.

2. What connections did you make with the story? 

Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

The biggest connection to the story I was able to make was Hachiken's first time being at high school. From his perspective, everyone seems to have their stuff figured out one way or another and the fact that he doesn't have a concrete 'dream' yet already stresses him out and starts to alienate him from the other students, which, I think, is something that a lot of kids go through around that time. At first he feels like he knows exactly how he'll conquer the school and become number one, but he quickly learns that agriculture is going to be a lot harder than he initially thought. 

Hachiken is also a little overreactive, but is still learning how to react and think about certain things, such as the fact that the egg of a chicken comes from the same orifice as the 'shit.' A lot of kids around his age, me included, tend to overthink or over analyze these kinds of truths and what their 'deeper meaning'  could be although they are relatively simple and easy to understand. 

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? 

What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

If I could, I think turning this story into some kind of audio book would be interesting. Since the story seems like it will mostly deal with the 'high school experience,' except at a farm, the setting would be pretty easy to intuit. The story would focus a lot more on being from Hachiken's point of view and accompanied by various relevant sounds i.e. while he's in the chicken coup, there could be sounds of chickens and exaggerated sounds, like a 'pop', when they lay their eggs. The benefit of this being an audio book would be allowing the consumer to imagine each scene the way they want to which would leave a much different impact as opposed to this story just being an anime.