I recently started watching Gin no Saji -- better known as Silver Spoon -- and so far, it is a very charming series to watch. The slice-of-life genre has always been a coin toss for me, probably better put loaded dice, where most of the time they end up being pretty useless shows filled with a lot of pandering tactics -- whether that be the moeblobs, or the fanservice. However, Silver Spoon is something different, almost to the point of me wishing more slice-of-life would head in the direction of where this anime is going.
Now, I've only watched three episodes so far -- which is my marker for when I can judge an anime -- and for something that revolves around a subject that I never really had much interest in, like farming, it made me care about the subject while being both educational and entertaining. This was the biggest complaint I had for Free!, when I talked about why I dropped it.
It's difficult to find any anime that can just make it fun to learn about something that you didn't previously have much drive to educate yourself in the matter; not to mention the balance between seriousness and comedy in topics very similar -- chopping a chickens head off and the funeral of a deceased horse. Probably the first anime that did something similar in nature was Upotte!!, but the moe stuff is completely cut out.
In just the few episodes I watched, the anime had some interesting topics covered, that I'm surprised they put them in so early on. Things like, would you eat a certain food if you knew how it was made, or knowing what your dream is isn't the only thing required to actually accomplish it; all the while, there is still an actual plot being revealed slowly as things progress.
Maybe I'm caught up in the "new anime smell" that dies down after a while, but I would say that Silver Spoon is one of my favorite anime this season so far, despite it being so late into the season. And I'm kicking myself for skipping it in favor of the non-as-wonderful Watamote.
I better stop myself before I insult anymore anime out there this season. Either way, Silver is probably one of the few anime I would recommend to people from season. For a slice-of-life, it is certainly the type of risk in a genre that I wanted to see.