“Jan-Ken-Pon”

I’ve actually been toying with the idea of saving up Mix chapters until there are a few unreleased ones out there before reading and posting, as the series really seems to flow better that way.  But given how irregular the releases are I’ll stick with brief (or not, as need be) reflections on the new ones as I get them.

What interests me here, primarily, is that Adachi seems to be taking Mix is a somewhat unusual direction for him – he seems as if he’s going to set Touma and Souichirou off as rivals for the Ace number.  This could be a feint (and if I were Sou I wouldn’t buy any green bananas) but for now at least, the suggestion is that Sou is every bit the pitcher his brother is.  The only reason Touma got the nod is that the brothers decided that rather than compete they’d decided who would pitch based on a game of Janken – the “first and only” time Touma has won, according to Sou.  Of course this is the guy whose ego is so huge he tells Ooyama that he’d always be a disadvantage as a pitcher, because he doesn’t get to throw to himself and Touma does.

Apart from that, it’s mostly a matter of potential side plots this time.  We have what seems to be Touma’s father reflecting on the year he thought he’d finally get the Ace number, only to be nosed out by a first-year prodigy.  We have hints of romance between Otomi and soccer boy Akai-kun, who pointedly says “Baseball is the only one I never tried.”  And we have Touma jogging by Kenjou High – which if you remember, used to be Sumikou.  Which if you have a really good memory, was the team Meisei beat in the Tokyo final 28 years ago.  They have a slugger strong enough to regularly plant balls in the river, which suggests they may be setting up for a resurgence (hell, there’s no may about it) to coincide with that of Meisei…

An another note – apparently, Adachi-sensei made an appearance on Japanese TV recently where he was shown pictures of three of his male leads – Tatsuya from Touch, Masato from Miyuki and Yuusaku from Hiatari Ryoukou! – and was unable to identify them correctly.  While I think it’s pretty douchey for them to do that to him, I have to admit – it is sort of funny…