Gin no Saji is the perfect example that we each have the ability to set our own path and believe what we want to believe. And even if we face adversity we still stand by our beliefs.
Personally I have never seen an anime in which a city boy was placed in a farming school, so kudos to the maker of the manga for doing it well. The anime misses no opportunities to put the main character, Hachiken, into situations far outside of his comfort zone, thus leading to hilarious developments. But don't let the comedy fool you, because there are moments in this anime where they ask the tough questions, and you may see things in a different light by the end. Another plus is that there's never too much focus on one side character at a time, and instead they all develop together through their interactions with Hachiken. The story progresses at a steady pace, which allows viewers to get to know the characters, but also prevents boredom by giving you a nice change of scenery every episode or two. If the beginning was a little less slow it would be perfect.
Now the art is very well done, and for some of the farm equipment and the more movement oriented scenes it is incredibly detailed and flows almost seamlessly. But, I have to take off some points for the lack of movement during a good portion of the dialogue oriented scenes.
The soundtrack wasn't much to write home about, but I did enjoy the opening and none of the tracks felt out of place. On another note, the Japanese voice acting was well done, and I felt that most of them fit there characters perfectly. Even better than that though, is that I found none of their voices to be annoying and normally there is at least one.
What really sets this anime apart for me is the characters. Not because they are necessarily original character concepts, but because they each add something to the story, whether it's laughs, insight, or even their worries about the future.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this anime and would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about watching it.
