Silver Spoon: you definitely have earned the right of the saddest death of a pig in any anime ever. The final four episodes of the first season put the focus back from the part time job, to the little piglet we saw in the first number of episodes. For me this was by far the most profound part of the series.
It definitely does help that there was a lot of development between the main character and the pig. I mean, it really had impact when the date for its trip to the slaughterhouse got closer and closer, and he just kept on growing.The creators played well with that, and it’s definitely done better than with Moyashimon: the series feels much more cohesive and with a purpose. The central themes of this series? Brilliant!
If I had to pick a least favorite part of this series, then I’d say that it’s the part that took place in the holidays. It feels detached from the rest of the series, it abandoned half the cast, which broke the flow of the series a bit. In Moyashimon it would have fitted, but not here where the series is so well constructed otherwise. Anyway, looking forward to the second season!
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)
Yes, but without the deer butchering (and its religious framework), it seems clear that killing the pig would have been too much. And the religious framework of the deer butchering wouldn’t have worked without the Buddhist horse funeral.
The holidays basically were to slap the kid with a fish, so he’d know that this stuff was life or death for his classmates and their families, back in the real world.
I would say the holiday arc was one of the best parts of the story, and an integral part of the themes the show developed. To each his own, I supposed.