Chapter Summary
A freshman at Hokkaido Yezo Agricultural High School, Hachiken meets new people and begins to learn completely new things. In a completely alien environment and troubled over a certain concept in which the students of Hokkaido Yezo Agricultural High School have no problem, has Hachiken went in over his head?

Characters in this chapter
Hachiken
Mr. Minami (teacher)
Aki (classmate)
Mayumi (classmate)
Aikawa (classmate)
Ichirou (classmate)
Beppu (classmate)
Nishikawa (classmate)
Inada ("Smoked-chicken" upperclassman)
Mr. Yachiyo (Animal Husbandry Teacher)

Places
Woods
Cow shed
Somewhere in the vast school ground
Classroom
Dorm Room No. 138 (Hachiken's, Beppu's and Nishikawa's dorm room)


---------------------------------







===================

ETA: If you'd like to read chapter 1 in English, please send PM to A Pierrot's Aria for the link.




----

more preview page scans on baidu
more pictures

I found these pictures from mengahideout
huh...it's so surprised that someone had got this magazine so quick
And I'm gonna buy this magazine too and scanned the story at next week

Thank you so much, hiraly!!

Ohhh, now it makes sense! It's not just any high school, but it's Agricultural high school.
Hokkaido, and agricultural theme, that's totally Arakawa-sensei's area! Now I'm totally excited and looking forward to getting to know this series. ^^

The first chapter looks like the series starts as the main character starts his days as a freshman in this agricultural high school, and the part with posted scanned pages on baidu (brought to us by hiraly above) seems he's talking to an escapee chicken, and the upper-class man shows up on a horse who were looking for this escapee chicken, and soon as he found the chicken he swiftly and effortlessly cut off it's head in front of the main character. Although, the sequence of the preview pics may be wrong, so this may not be correct. xp XDD The last page of this chapter ends with the main character saying "I... want to...." "Quit....." XD

Looks like a fun series!


=====


<Program Note>

We will be opening up a new forum for "Arakawa's other works" shortly, and moving this thread there, as well as opening a dedicated thread sub-forum for this series. Just letting you guys know in advance.

Thank you for the overview of the pages, Tombow! I wonder if this is the character's first experience at being in an agricultural school and that may be why he's freaking out at the whole chicken incident and is saying he wants to quit. xD I really would like to know this character's name, too. I can't wait to see the whole chapter!

@Tombow Wow! You must have read my mind...I was going to suggest a separate forum for Arakawa's works in the suggestion forum. It's so awesome to hear that there is going to be one!

Pretty surprised that Arakawa would move to Shounen Sunday now o_o So it's in the same magazine as Detective Conan, Kyoukai no RINNE, and Hayate no Gotoku, the three series I currently follow on Shounen Sunday. 8D

I'm also surprised that she'd start a new series so soon too. It's not even a year since FMA ended, and only about 6 months since Juushin Enbu ended?

Weekly manga seems pretty promising. =D Too bad the raws were a little too small for me to actually read everything...



http://club.shogakukan.co.jp/kod/arakawa_hiromu.html <--- according to that, Silver Spoon is school-genre.




It will likely be shorter for the later chapters. The first (few) chapter(s) of a new series tends to be longer, for introduction's sake. Kyoukai no RINNE ch 1 was 39 pages, ch 2 24, ch 3 20, then it stayed 18 pages starting chapter 4. Silver Spoon will likely follow similar pattern as 35 pages per week is too much really.

Just realized that there is Chinese scanlations here --- http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=1042995145

If you can read Chinese then you can read the scanlation there...

IN SUMMARY the story is about this kid who entered this agricultural high school so that he can become the top student in the whole school or something like that. The first chapter basically talks about how being in this new school is like for him... with the last page saying "zomg I need to drop out from this school" lol it's starting to remind me of Moyashimon lolllll I only had enough time to skim it through right now...

There's a message from Arakawa on Shonen Sunday's website. From what I could get, she encourages the people affected by the earthquake, and says a few words about her new manga.
Message from Arakawa-sensei on the start of "Silver Spoon" series


ETA:
Note: Anyone who are participating in the Silver Spoon discussions and having trouble finding the first chapter, you can send PM to A Pierrot's Aria and ask for the link for English "reading reference". ^^

PM me if anyone would like to read it in English.

Hachiken is such an adorable name! And the poor guy...reading and memorising all of those books just to find out they have to use different ones instead!

I'm liking it so far, can't wait for more!

Heh, this series looks as though it will be very funny. XD And don't have to wait very long for the next chapter either! Great. ~

I really liked this chapter overall. I think it's a great start to such a series. I really love how it opened; I just love how tranquil and appreciative the first part of dialogue begins "The big blue sky...the hum of Mother Nature..." Then it gets a little weird with the "...an overly friendly calf", making a transition to just an irritated "...a cell phone with no signal. Where am I?".

I love the humour in it, too. It's like Hachiken has stumbled straight out of his comfort zone and is still a little freaked out by it all. The part with the decapitation of the Chicken - Although definitely not on the same level --reminds me of a situation that happened to myself. My step dad is a farmer and he handed me a small ring one day and I looked at it and was like:
Me: What's this?
Step dad: It's used to castrate bulls.
Me: O.O

One reason I'm really interested in this series so far is because it seems quite refreshing! My mum and her family grew up working on a farm (it belonged to my mum's grandparents), and my step dad works on his dad's farm. So they both know the ins and outs of agricultural life and it's something that bought them together, and they often tell me about it and I'm always interested in listening to their "farm stories". I'm interested in what Arakawa can make of it, especially since she has an agricultural background herself! I can't wait for more!

If anyone is interested, the Japanese publisher, Shogakukan released the raw of the first chapter online:
http://club.shogakukan.co.jp/magazine/SH_C...zis_001/detail/

I really like this series so far. Hachiken seems like he'll be a really fun character to explore, given, as A Pierrot's Aria said, how very far out of his comfort zone he is when it comes to routine farm activities. Even though I've never lived or worked on a farm, I know that you don't chase a calf; you lead it! (Although I'm right there with him on the squeamishness about the chicken!)

<Program Note>

Anyone who'd like to write a very short summary of this chapter, please write and post it here.
(It will be added to the first post)

I'm excited about thisnew series! I like it so far - I feel like it's going to be very funny, but will have (as explicitately stated) a deeper undertone to it as well - although Hachiken's struggles to fit in and adapt to his new surroundings are comical, I think this story will him on a journey into adulthood and self discovery. It's even more interesting because we all know Arkawa used to work on a farm, so she's very intimate with the setting and its affects on people, so I'm interested how she'll portray her close relationship with the land and nature to Hichiken's relationship with it, and how it will change him as a person.

Did anyone notice the PE teacher looks exactly like Armstrong? lol

And the three main characters remind me of Watanuki, Himawari, and Doemeki from xxxHolic a little bit I'm sure that as these characters develop these similiarities will lessen but my first impression was of this - I mean, the nonathletic boy with glasses has a crush on the sweet, inviting girl, who has a relationship he doesn't fully understand with the dark, athletic other-guy (for lack of a better noun).

I also thought the kid seated behind Hachiken in the homeroom looked a bit like Mustang.

Likewise with the xxxHolic similarity. And the vet kid reminded me a bit of Fai from Tsubasa, or possibly Rurouni Kenshin.

As for my overall impression, if Arakawa was trying to do something as different from FMA as possible, well, this would be it, lol! If someone told me that there was a manga about kids who attend an agricultural high school, odds are my initial reaction would be to ignore it (I'm not much for the slice of life and/or school genres, especially if they feature some hokey sport or skill), but since this was Arakawa, I'm willing to give it a chance. Thanks to FMA, I've developed a love for her art and story-telling styles, not to mention her characterization skills. Time will tell if I truly come to enjoy this one, but it's off to a decent start.



<Mod note: Topic below was split into a separate thread. Anyone who would like to reply on this topic, please add your post on "Genre" discussions: categorizing Silver Spoon thread. >
On a side note, is this really going to be considered a "shonen" series? XD It hardly seems that way so far to me! Unless the high school turns out to be a front for something epic! Doubtful, hah.

<Program Note>

@jacksparrow589 - I used your reply post to allykatty1's post above as an OP post, and opened a separate thread for
"Genre" discussions: categorizing Silver Spoon, is it "slice of life"? "Scool drama"? Is Silver Spoon considered as Shounen? discussions, since I have gotten several messages with questions regarding Silver Spoon's genge also.

Anyone who'd like to discuss about Silver Spoon's genre, please add your post on Silver Spoon "genre" discussion thread.

Just read teh first chapter. Very different, but I'm very excited to see where it goes! Hope it's as well thought out and written as FMA.

And is it me or does the gym teacher towards the end look like Armstrong with hair?