In the immortal words of Audrey II, “Oh, Shit”.

Adachi Mitsuru is trying to thread a pretty narrow needle with Mix, no question about it.  He’s writing a sequel to one of the most celebrated pieces of fiction in modern Japanese history.  But he has to make it a story about new characters whose connection to that piece is indirect.  And he has to do it within the confines of his self-admittedly derivative art style – his characters look like his old characters, and there’s no way anybody could deny it.  On paper this really shouldn’t work, but in practice it does.  I think he’s threading that needle, but no question the hardest part is yet to come.

At least superficially, the main thrust of this episode is the tension between the Tachibana brothers.  It starts with Sou admitting to Otomi that he was tipping Kou’s pitches mainly because he was jealous and wanted to knock Touma down a peg.  The whole exchange over “faith” was interesting, because it kind of shows that Souichirou doesn’t really understand what the word means.  I find him to be a pretty tough guy to like, to be honest.  But I do get why he’s irritated, because Touma leaves a lot of the dirty work to him (sometimes literally).

Adding fuel to the fire is Koumei’s coach using his bully pulpit to hype Touma up.  Sou may say there’s no ulterior motive, but I wouldn’t be too sure.  I don’t think Touma would have his head turned by all that, but I doubt the coach knows that.  And it does seem to be working to his benefit in a (probably) unintended way by causing friction between the brothers.  In truth I think any conflict between the boys is going to be pretty short-lived (albeit quite testy), so I don’t find this to be super-dramatic in its own right.

I’ve talked before about how Mix runs on two main parallel tracks (and one spur line), which only rarely intersect.  For me, the headline actually comes on the other track.  Harada inches closer to regaining his memory, starting with the realization that he knows the words to the Meisei school song Eisuke and Ooyama-san are singing in the house.  Later, at Dragon, the owner talks about his unease over Meisei being a hyped club again, because of the “tragedies” that happen every time it has a promising ace.  One of them was the injury which ended the career of Souichirou and Otomi’s father.  But the one five years earlier is the one that rocked the world of manga and anime four decades ago.

We’ve been inching closer to acknowledging the elephant in the room for several episodes, but the shit hits the fan here.  Harada says the name – Uesugi Kazuya – on hearing the Dragon owner talk of that first tragedy.  It’s another sign the memory is coming back of course, but it feels like uttering that name aloud is a tacit statement by Adachi that Mix is entering a new phase.   Now that Kazuya has been acknowledged, it’s only a matter of time until Tatsuya (who’s Touma’s lookalike of course) is too.  He’s presumably still alive as well.  The exact means by which Touch intersects with Mix is still to be determined – one supposes Harada will be crucial – but I’m expecting significant movement on that score in the not too distant future.

For now, though, the focus turns to an intrasquad scrimmage to pit brother against brother and father against daughter with ramen on the line.  With the current tension between Sou and Tou there’s that angle to watch, plus a bunch of other interesting storylines to boot.  You’d assume whichever team had the ace would have the edge (that’s Ooyama-san’s), but there’s an issue with that.  Without Souichirou to catch his pitches (I certainly couldn’t have picked Nonomura out of a police lineup), Touma can’t go full strength.  But that means this will actually be a really good test – having to rely on location and offspeed pitches, and maybe even largely call his own pitches to boot.

Even looking past the ace, Haruka’s side looks the weaker of the two.  And with her father taking ramen seriously enough to intentionally walk Sou (and even Imagawa), if Sou wants to reassert his standing in the relationship through this game he’s going to have to find other ways to do it.  One of them is guiding Ichiban on the mound of course – this will be a good test for him.  And I really wonder if Souichirou and Haruka will decide to give Touma the IBB treatment too.  My bet is they won’t – because Souichirou will be desperate to prove he can hold Touma down on the strength of his own cunning and Ichiban’s slender right arm.