So here is an interesting show. While technically this is about kids in school, it is certainly not your ordinary school. The story revolves around first-year student Hachiken, who comes from a prep school (in other words he is on his way to a nice college) and enrolls in Oezo, an agricultural High School. There students learn about farms, agriculture, raising crops and animals. As such most of the students grew up on farms and are in school to learn how to take over the family business.

Hachiken finds things the way most of us probably would: confusing and stressful. Who knew he would have to get up at 4am by attending an agricultural school? Probably every other student except him. Hachiken’s sole purpose for attending this school was because it was a boarding school far from home so he could get away from his family. Even though school life is tough, he perseveres through it and pushes on towards graduation.

Along the way he has many experiences. And along the way we experience many things that we wouldn’t normally experience in everyday life. A few of which should be considered before letting children watch. The show itself is clean, but there are a few (very few) edgy scenes of the guys, I could not find any edgy scenes involving girls. In addition to those things, this story is essentially about life on the farm. And that includes watching animals being killed.

I will admit, I fell in love with this show during the first episode when they decapitated a chicken and splattered Hachiken and a few of the other first-years with blood, all the while talking to them like it was nothing out of the ordinary. They didn’t actually show the head being chopped off, but the blood splatter was very clear. They then proceeded to hold the chicken up (again while talking like nothing was going on) on screen, with the spurting neck blurred out. Nothing disgusting but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for young children. And just for the record, I didn’t love the fact they killed the chicken, just the way they did it “on the farm” style like it was an everyday thing, and the poor white face of Hachiken.

A few episodes (I think 3) show the guys in the bath. The most I ever saw shown was a “close up” shot of one of the guys sitting on a stool, from behind and to the side. Nothing was actually visible. Had it been girls it would have been totally inappropriate but being guys (at-least for me as a guy) it was nothing. Unrelated to the bath scenes, one guys’ partial butt-crack is shown after he falls in the forest and tears his pants. That is the extent of the “naughtiness” of the show that I could see.

One last warning for those that might watch with young children, there are a few episodes that have Hachiken imagining things like getting his fingers bit off by various animals when he is told to interact with them. It is similar to the chicken scene, nothing is shown except some blood and the blurred out area where his fingers used to be. It is brief and then he returns to reality.

I really enjoyed this show and can’t wait for season 2, which is supposed to air in 2014.