Sorry to repeat myself, but it’s a real shame that almost nobody who watches English-subbed anime seems to be watching Mix.  It’s in prime Adachi mode now, a consistent blast to watch.  I think Adachi (always self-referential to begin with) is finding the right balance between nostalgia for the past and focus on the present.  This is not Touch, and it’s not trying to be Touch.  But it manages to be Mix while still channeling the elemental power Touch has over Japanese people, and not just anime and manga fans either.

I tell you what, that Otomi sequence was one of the more intense moments I’ve seen in any Adachi series.  Otomi’s little joke about her brother getting hit by a truck didn’t go over well, to say the least – either with Harada or with Nishimura-san.  It was literally a trigger with Harada – another flashpoint for his memory.  Obviously in terrible taste even absent the context, but it’s the kind of tone-deaf thing you can imagine a 15 year-old – even a sweetheart like Otomi-chan – saying.  What’s really interesting is that Adachi would go there – to refer to that defining moment in his lexicon (and indeed in all of manga and anime) in joking fashion.

Nishimura going to the can at the exact moment Harada stopped by is another of those irritating Adachi coincidences that drags out the Harada situation needlessly.  I am wondering, too, if the Dragon owner is another stealth Touch crossover.  I can’t place him, but he certainly knows Nishimura on-sight and seems very interested in Meisei baseball.  That was a near-disaster, as Otomi was apparently on the verge of telling Nishimura what Touma’s tells are (unless she was trolling him) before Haruka stopped her.  A pitcher tipping his pitches is a disaster, and it can be a lot harder to correct than you might imagine.

I would also argue that Natsuno kind of got the shaft here, because he did a damn good job keeping a national powerhouse under control and got no praise for it.  As for Meisei they aren’t doing a damn thing against Koumei’s ace and are still being no-hit by the time Touma comes up to bat in the sixth.  I had a strong inclination he’d do what he did – bunt – just to irritate the guy he homered off in the prelims the summer before.  This practice game is really about getting a mental advantage more than anything – winning is irrelevant.  Touma plays the airhead very well, but he’s a lot smarter than even his coach and brother give him credit for.

Once Akai has been dealt with – first on a four-pitch walk before Touma has gotten warm, then a deep fly ball snagged by his brother – Sou goes into his full asshole mode and starts tipping Tou’s pitches to the enemy.  I would be very pissed at this if I were Touma, though I get it from a strategic standpoint.  Again, if they get hits off a guy when they know what he’s going to throw, what the hell does that prove?  The fact that he was still able to contain their attack shows just how far Touma has advanced, and how narrow the gap really is here.  Not only has “cutting them off at the knees” failed, but Meisei comes out of here with more confidence than ever that they’re not grossly overmatched.

The frustrating thing, of course, is that we’re so far away from an endgame we don’t know if we’ll ever even reach.  A seventy-something mangaka with more than a few hiatuses in his recent track record may finish this series, or he may not – who knows?  We can say for sure that we’re in for another long wait after this season, though at least we have another full cour to look forward to after this one.  How Adachi plans to ultimately connect the past and present is quite the fascinating question – especially when there are a couple elephants in the room who’ve only been acknowledged in a tangential way.  I sure hope we get the chance to find out.