While it no doubt takes a special sort of genius to create something singular and groundbreaking – like Tachikawa Yuzuru with Death Parade for example – it takes a different sort of genius to make the familiar riveting.  Adachi Mitsuru, of course, is among the most extreme examples imaginable of this.  He’s turned the art form of repeating the same formula into- well, into an art form.  The characters even look alike, so much so that the author himself has trouble telling them apart.  So what in the world is it that keeps us coming back?

I think about this a lot with Adachi, because he really is the ultimate example of this approach and “ultimate examples” of anything are noteworthy.  In the first place, the formula in question better be a damn good one.  That’s just the entry ticket, but Adachi definitely has that covered.  Somehow, though, I think he manages to turn all this familiarity to his advantage.  When everything is so superficially similar, the differences between series and their casts have to be really subtle, and subtlety is another art form Adachi has mastered.  Because of this subtlety and his measured and restrained approach to showing us what his characters are feeling, everything seems very real with an Adachi series.

If Cross Game was as close to singular as an Adachi baseball series could ever be (as I would argue it was), Mix is what I would call “more Adachi than Adachi”.  All the familiar elements are here – siblings, injustice, the past refusing to let go of the present, stifled baseball genius, self-promotion and meta-humor.  And the slow burn, of course – Mix is typical in taking its time to really get cooking, but we’ve reached that point now.  As a fan of his work I can feel everything clicking into place now, each episode seeming shorter than the last one.  When I read Touch I could always read the next chapter when I wanted (and I ended up powering through the entire series in a matter of days), but with Mix there’s no choice but to wait.

So who is Sawai Keiichi?  That’d what I was asking myself when reading the manga after that name was dropped by Ooyama Goro, the portly visitor Touma’s father receives this week (he popped up for about three seconds last week too).  It wasn’t a name I remembered from Touch, but Ooyama lets us know that he was Souma’s father and a pitcher on the Meisei team, two years behind Ooyama and Eisuke.  That answers the mystery of the #1 jersey Touma and Otomi found, but not of how all this ties in with the events of Touch.

Meanwhile Meisei’s season is in the process of coming to an end, as Nikaidou is being pummelled by Mizukami even as their ace, Nishimura, mows down Meisei without too much trouble.  Touma is growing ever hotter as he watches this unfold from third base, but in a curious moment Nikaidou looks over and grins at him (the first smile we’ve seen from him, if I’m not mistaken).  Souichirou is hot too, of course, but the manager shuts him down when he raises the topic in the dugout.  But the angriest person – and Tachibana – is actually the one in the stands, which catches the disapproving attention of Nikaidou’s father.

So that’s the present done and dusted – the season ends in ignominious fashion.  But what of the future?  The boys are certainly thinking about it, as the prospect of being “domesticated” by this manager is hardly appealing.  But one day (as Sou is shamelessly reading H2) a knock comes on the door, and no, it’s not Maxwell and his silver hammer – it’s Nishimura Takumi.  His Mizukami side have lost in the semi-finals of the Tokyo tournament, which he blames on the lack of a quality catcher.  This is a recruiting trip plain and simple – Takumi wants Sou at Seinan High School, where his dad is the coach.  And Touma?  He can come along for the ride, if he wants.

It’s as this point that the Touch references start kicking in hard, starting with the school (Sumi Tech – formerly) the three boys pass on their way to Seinan.  The coach at Seinan – and his voice – certainly should need no introduction to Touch veterans.  Nishimura Isami (Nakau Ryusei) is a familiar figure indeed, and he knows more about the Tachibana brothers than they about him.  But, as Souichirou says, getting mixed up with another “doting father” is the last thing they want to do right now (and to his credit, Isami gives them no BS).  His memories of all those years ago – an astonishing pitcher, a most painful base on balls – are the clearest of the series so far.  But if Seinan is not the destined landing spot for the Tachibros, then where?  And what was their hated manager doing, silently bowing outside their house as Otomi watched from hiding?