Yes, things are definitely happening here.  I’ve been reading back through my notes on these chapters and…

Now wait a minute.  I’ve just realized something – Mix is the first anime I’ve blogged where I’ve covered the corresponding manga chapters first (Chihayafuru figures to be the second).  I’ve blogged the same series in both mediums, certainly – Hunter X Hunter, Chihayafuru, Hourou Musuko et al – but in every case the manga chapters took place after the anime ended.  That’s pretty monumental after almost a decade doing this, certainly – worthwhile of an interruption in regularly schedule programming to make note of.  I don’t make personal history too often on the site, so for me it’s kind of significant.

Well now, isn’t that a thing.  Anyhoo, as I said I’ve been looking at those old posts (five years – has it really been five years?) and my reaction at the time was just about identical to now.  This was definitely the point where things really started to happen – the booster rockets detached and the story cleared the atmosphere.  Both in terms of what’s happening in the present (mainly through Haruka) and its connections to the past, this was when Mix started to get serious.

Adachi is ever-cagey about what’s going on in Touma’s head vis-a-vis Haruka, but not so with Souichirou and Nan-chan – they’re both less than pleased.  We also get a visit from Ooyama-san’s ex-wife (Haruka’s mother) who apparently left the family behind to become a writer.  But the main action here is on the field, not off it – the practice field, that is.  Ooyama sees Sou giving Tou corrective advice on his pitching form, and the wheels start to click together in his head.  He asks Sou to “try pitching” (like “That’s How a Childhood Friend Should Be” a manga chapter title), and Pandora’s box is opened.

Again, Adachi gives us something that’s at once both a development in the present and a link to the (Touch) past.  We get our first extended look at Tou-chan’s tou-chan, Eisuke, as a lad – a year behind the heroes of Touch and hoping to get his chance at the ace number.  But he was beaten out by a younger and more talented first-year pitcher whose identity may not be horribly difficult to guess at.  Eisuke was hit hard by this, and Ooyama was of course a teammate of both at the time – and the complicated matter of the Tachibana brothers and pitching sends his mind hurtling back to those days.

Maybe it really was as simple as Sou losing a janken match to Tou at the start of junior high, but the truth of it is in high school even if you only have one ace, you need multiple pitchers.  For Ooyama this is a bonanza, but for Souichirou it’s clearly complicated.  His ego is such that he bemoans his huge disadvantage in not having himself as a catcher, but it’s not hard to imagine taking a back seat to Touma has never proved easy for him.  How good a pitcher is Sou now that he and his step-brother are in high school?  One can’t tell from a few warmup tosses but Ooyama doesn’t have the look of a coach who’s going to let this go lightly.

That’s not the only Touch connection that rears its head in this episode (and that’s not even including Nishimura-san’s role in the cold open).  Touma takes a run past Kenjyou High (the former Sumi Tech) and is closer to the truth than he suspects when he wonders if a “big fish” has caused the splash in the river he hears.  Developments in the present linking to the past again – Adachi has never gone down this route before, but as usual he’s making it look as easy as falling off a log.