59 replies to this topic

[Comadrin]

Wow, two cool chapters!  Usnek's second theory was right, although Nikaido survived his surgery instead of dying.  He's still not my number one candidate for best bud, but came out looking a bit better than before.  Coach was still a moron, even though he had a "plan" for Tou and Sou. Ruining three years of baseball for a whole team of middle schoolers isn't excused by "I did it all for my buddy." AAAANND, I was right about Nishimura Jr, although I didn't think he'd fall for Otomi quite so quickly.

[bane_ecf]

Yeah, what the coach did was morally wrong by wasting two good years of Tou's talents at third base. Resigning was the right thing to do, he should have been fired if he didn't.


I think Sou's attitude about forcing Tou to watch over Otomi is his realization that Tou is the only guy he can trust to take care of Otomi and hopefully eventually marry her, since he can't marry her himself.

Edited by bane_ecf, 12 May 2013 - 04:08 PM.

[Comadrin]

Dad's old buddy moves back into town with a hot daughter.  The plot thickens.

[somanga]

What's on my mind right now after finishing reading chap13: the new girl's dad might become a coach; the new girl becomes the love interest of both brothers and she might become the club's manager; she might also be the reason why the sister would understand that she really cares about Tou... Just guessings but with Adachi, we never know what's going to happen!

[Comadrin]

Somanga,

 

You're starting to think in Adachi mode!  If you hit it on the button, I'm going to think you ARE Adachi Mitsuru.

[somanga]

Somanga,

 

You're starting to think in Adachi mode!  If you hit it on the button, I'm going to think you ARE Adachi Mitsuru.

 

I just love all the stories I've read so far from this mangaka and those ideas are only a "mix" of some points I've seen in his other stories... What's really cruel here is that he's so great and we still have to wait a month between each chapter... Sometimes, I feel it would be better to wait a couple of months (or even to wait till the moment the manga has ended!) to read it, but I just can't... it's so frustrating! Adachi-addicted! 

I'd love it if he were to be invited to the Japan-Expo here in Paris! I still remember when I was a child: the anime "Touch" was such a success and I know so many people that are my age that keep on reading his books because they were captivated by such a story that was neither specifically for boys nor girls; just human!

[Comadrin]

Same here.  First Adachi manga I read was Itsumo Misora.  I decided I liked the style, so I read Cross Game, and was totally hooked on Adachi's works.  His characters are great, his plots are intricate and interesting, and his sense of humor makes me laugh loudly while reading manga online (in other words, it matches my sense of humor).  I also love baseball, as well as subtle romance, and we have a writer/reader match made in heaven.  If he comes to the Japan-Expo, get his autograph and frame it.  I'd do it if he came to Southern California.  I like some of his works better than others, but I've enjoyed all of them.  May he keep writing for a long, long time.

[Comadrin]

-Somanga-

 

Uncanny accuracy is one thing, predicting the future is another.  So, did Adachi Sensei appear to you in a dream with with a précis of the plot, like he did with Otomi to get her to name the dog?  At any rate, great call in the speculation department.  

 

I was thinking back on what you said:

 

I still remember when I was a child: the anime "Touch" was such a success and I know so many people that are my age that keep on reading his books because they were captivated by such a story that was neither specifically for boys nor girls; just human!

 

Adachi is obviously a guy (or one hell of a cross-dresser) and yet he makes both the guys and girls in his stories into real characters, whereas so much shoujo and shounen manga have either female characters and male stereotypes, or the reverse.  That is, of course, when they don't have all stereotypes and no characters!  The people in his manga have pretty established characters, and he doesn't have them act in ways incompatible with their characters just for a gag or to move the plot in some direction.  It think a lot of that is the reason he is so consistently popular with readers.

[somanga]

The first part of my prediction is right! If I get all correct, I'll buy a crystal ball and play lottery! 

[Comadrin]

Give me a lucky number sequence!  I'll share the winnings.

[burucchi]

Lol, since we were all talking about how we got introduced to Adachi, I'm a more recent fan (although after discovering his works I've read almost everything by him that's avaible in english, yikes!), but my story is pretty funny. I was interested in checking out the first episode of Cross Game when it was going to premiere, so I went to a website that one guy used to run -- he'd stream anime from time to time, and change the channel to whatever people requested. Basically, I (and some other few guys) asked him to put on the channel for Cross Game, and a lot of people there didn't really know what it was about other than "baseball anime". At first some people even complained that it was going to be boring and what not, but when we reached the end of ep1, I remember all the comments on the stream were of people really, really touched by how <that scene> was handled, with Ayaka's song rolling through the credits and what not, too.

 

Right there, I totally saw how talented Adachi was. I didn't really know him before other than by name, and I reckon a lot of people on that stream were the same. But just that first episode and what happened were enough to make me fall in love with Cross Game and, after that, with all his other works.

 

And regarding MIX, now, I just hope he won't delay too much until dropping the bomb about what happened to Minami and Tatsuya. I'm getting sligtly worried, here. At first I thought it was a good thing not to have their kids being the main characters and what not, but with even Nishimura making it to the spotlight, and there having been no mention of them, I can only hope Adachi isn't planning to tell us that anything bad befell the couple after the events of Touch. That would be just too sad, considering everything they went through to be together.

[Comadrin]

Should have known that with Adachi, it won't just be the coach and hot daughter showing up at high school.  Now we have a hard hitting, jealous and enormous baseball player with bulldog fangs and a fear of cockroaches, who doesn't want any males getting within five metres of said daughter.  Adachi sure is a lot of fun to read.  I'd like to read the manga in one sitting, but waiting on the next chapter and speculating has its' own charm too.

 

Like burucchi, I'm waiting to find out what happened to Minami and Tatsuya, and hope it was nothing bad.  I also want to find out more about Sou and Otomi's father, and what role he played in Meisei's baseball team.  Definitely looking forward to more of Mix.

[Comadrin]

"It's still just Meisei."  Yeah right.  Think about 26 years (27 now) ago, and who handed your ass to you, Coach Nishimura.  

[bane_ecf]

Sounds like both Haruna and Otomi are going to be interested in Touma, with Otomi tending to defer (probably because blood relation or not, it's a little weird to date your live-in brother/sister) and letting Haruna date him. Souichiro is the big loser in the hot girlfriend sweepstakes here, he can't go after Otomi but Haruna won't give Sou a chance. Sou is going to be both jealous for Haruna and upset at Touma for not taking Otomi (Sou sees Touma as the only guy he can trust with Otomi.) The story is going to go through a bunch of emotional stuff regarding the friendship, rivalry and romance competing against a common goal of winning the Koshien as battery mates between the brothers. A love rival who goes after Otomi arrives from Kenjou/Sumi high school...sound familiar? Touma eventually realizes that Sou is right in that he can't trust anyone with Otomi, does the right thing and dumps Haruna for Otomi before the love rival wins Otomi's heart, which allows Touma to win his desired prize in Haruna. Everyone lives happily ever after except for Shirou (the slugger who's afraid of bugs) because in the end Haruna never really takes him seriously.

So let's see how much of a genius I am when this is all over. :-)

[Comadrin]

If you hit it as close as Somanga did, I'm really going to believe that Adachi appears in people's dreams!

[somanga]

Wonderful! I'm just back from holidays and I've got two chapters to read! I'd like so much for the story to move faster but it woudn't be Adachi if it were so!

 

I liked the ideas suggested by bane_ecf. I wonder if we'll ever see any real competition between the brothers (at least, as far as love is concerned). Tou seems to have no clues about anything except how good a pitcher he is! Just like Tatsuya before his brother's death... I hope that no tragedy will happen in this manga, though that's the kind of event that makes the story move forward...

[Comadrin]

Date: just after chapter 17 appeared (thanks Tenko)

 

Well, it looks like we're going to learn more about Nan-chan (of the bulldog orthodontics).  He had to have more to him than just fear of bugs.  This is Adachi who is writing, after all.  In Adachi's manga, if someone is not a total a@@h$%e, they're going to have a real character of some type.  In Touch, even Nishimura Sr. had a lot of character besides comic relief.  

 

Mix is really shaping up to be in the great style of Touch, Cross Game, and H2.  My Adachi baseball manga favorite so far is Cross Game.  Touch pissed me off with everyone making goo-goo eyes at Tatsuya's brother, and H2 pissed me off with the 2nd heroine keeping the mc pining after  her (and the idiot mc pining after her, with a far cuter babe waiting in the wings).  I think Koh Kitamura is my favorite Adachi mc so far, but what we have seen of Tou-chan, Koh could be given a run for his money.  I really like the way Adachi Sensei can combine a "healthy" young high school student with a fairly pure young man and make it believable.  Of course, being Adachi Mitsuru, he really isn't predictable.  My predictions for Slow Step were totally off the mark.  I still loved the manga, and will probably love all of his manga yet untranslated and yet unwritten, no matter in what crazy direction they will take us.  His manga can piss us off at times, buoy us up at times, pull the rug out from under us a lot of times, but it is always believable and, while not conforming to what we may want, it always conforms to the Adachi perception of what is right and wrong.  No wonder he is THE MAN when it comes to writing manga of his genre in Japan.  

[Comadrin]

Well, we got to see Meisei on the stage, with Otomi's self-proclaimed rival talking her Koshien pitcher brother into a game with them.  Haruka's father, the new coach, is dense and opinionated enough to make Coach Koga (Koga Haruka's brother) from H2 look like Casey Stengel and Sparky Anderson rolled into one.  At the same time, I'm wondering how this dweeb (so far) "saved Nan-chan's life" during a typhoon.  So far, the only good quality he has exhibited is being the father of a hot daughter, who also appears to be a good person.  I'm hoping that he will show some good qualities in future chapters, or he will be relegated to the majority of coaches in Adachi's baseball manga, who are either sadistic scumbags, opportunistic buttheads, or total morons.  So far as I've read in Adachi's works, only the elderly coach from Touch, the "cesspool" coach from Cross Game, and three of the coaches from H2 (Koga [reasonably competent], Hideo's coach, and the one who later took over Eikyo Acadamy) were worth the price of the powder to blow them up.  All the rest should have been taken out with the burnable trash.

 

Anyway, we now have a start on the high school baseball team playing (actual games) for Mix.  I'm looking forward to it.

Edited by Comadrin, 02 March 2014 - 05:10 AM.

[Comadrin]

Well, chapter 21 has just appeared, and we come across a couple of jerks.  One wonders how Natsuno managed to live to get into 9th grade if he never learned that you don't insult someone's little sister to his face (incredibly stupid as well as piss-poor manners).  Then, for a personal and petty reason, a top of the line team requests and comes to play a practice game with a rather poor team (albeit with a very good pitcher in his first high school game), and they use all of the starting players to basically "teach these upstarts a lesson."  How very mature.  What great, well-deserved pride these near champions must have. It would be as if the Boston Red Sox or the Yomiuri Giants thrash a neighborhood team and start beating their chests on live TV over their fabulous achievement.  Their coach, as well as their ace, must be a mighty manly man.

 

Then we have Otomi bashing Touma in the head with a bucket for making a joke, and Sou yelling at him to shut the dog up and take him for a walk.  Not only is Touma probably the most decent person in the manga so far, he's also the pitcher who held the great top-of-the-line team to no score for all seven innings he pitched.  No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.  

 

The great sponging coach, at the end of an incredible game, tears up the scoring sheet for the game.  What does that say to his players?  That he's a big baby?  That was my take on it.  

 

It pretty much makes me think that Touma is kind of on his own.  

[Xamdiz]

Can we talk about the raw too here? The raw have a lot of furigana, so it's pretty easy to read.

 

I know enough Japanese to know what's going on but I skipped a lot because I can't read kanji (at all).

 

Spoiler

So it seems that Haruna knew Touma from a long time ago. She claimed to be his childhood friend because they met each other when they was 3 years old. The reaction from the characters are funny. Nishimura Sr is still really sentimental about this childhood friends business I wonder if he actually married his childhood friend after all. Otomi is a bit sad because she first met Touma when she was 5 so she "lost" to her. Souichiro is pretty cool with that, it's an old story after all. Haruna's father keep saying that Touma may be Haruna's first love, sadly Touma claims that he remember nothing and they are might as well be stranger at this point.

 

Other interesting point is that Akai-kun's older brother seems to be a really strong slugger in another school. I can't wait to see his appearance as their rival.

 

Souichiro is a really good pitcher, but he lost to Touma's luck in janken and decided to be a catcher instead. I wonder if there's more in that...

 

Things I don't really catch because of my poor skill:

I can't really read Haruna's letter to Touma since there's no furigana. I think it's the invitation to go out to the mountain, but I wonder how she addressed it. I also wondering what Touma have to say to reject her, it's a really long sentence.

 

What is the deal with Haruna's parents?

 

Is Akai-kun's older brother's school in the same qualification area as Meisei? I think so because the school is in running distance but I remember H2 and not so sure anymore.

 

Otomi's regret about her father. When punch is "sick", Otomi is really worried about him and start talking about his father. Is it something about his nice father that suddenly become ill and died? I need clarification in this.

 

Overall, I really love how this is going. This manga feel like a MIX between Touch, H2, and Miyuki. Although Adachi claims that he never recycle plot.

Edited by Xamdiz, 14 July 2014 - 10:08 PM.