All in all this was an episode with a lot of common sense to it.  That’s not actually a given with Adachi series, where sometimes you get real head-scratchers.  As I noted this week the past is very much an important character in Mix, and given what it’s a sequel to that’s all well and good.  But to a bunch of teenagers playing a game, what the hell does what happened thirty years earlier matter?  The answer of course is not much – and it was nice to see Adachi make it clear in no uncertain terms that they were absolutely right.

Mind you, it is rather clever of Adachi to make Mix a sequel to Touch and yet have most of the backwards-focus not on those events, but ones which happened a few years later.  And if any kid does have a reason to care about them, it would certainly be Sou.  But he doesn’t, as witness the abandon with which he chases foul balls towards the dugout.  The Eishin manager is certainly one of those who remembers the past.  He was there the day Sawai-san was injured, in fact – as the captain of that Eishin team.  And he seems to recongize that the guy in the other dugout is still haunted by what happened that day.

Ooyama (who was right in declaring his orders to Tou offensive to baseball) costs his team a run with that mistake.  And Eishin’s coach pulls the old hidden ball trick in top of the second, depriving Meisei of a scoring chance.  I don’t know how true it is about that being against the unwritten rules of Japanese high school baseball (baseball has so many unwritten rules you’d strain your wrist if you did try and write them all down), but if you tried it in the States your next batter would get a fastball right in his earhole.  But it’s pretty obvious that Eishin isn’t doing any more damage off Touma.

Meanwhile, Otomi has caught a cold and been forbidden to go to the game.  As her mom notes, Otomi really does love Touma.  Really, really, love him.  I don’t know how much she knows (or suspects), and in fact I’m not sure how much Otomi and Tou realize themselves.  And there’s an interesting development at the pool, where as he’s getting off his shift Harada is hailed by name, by someone I’m almost sure is Ishida Akira.  “This is it at last!” I thought to myself – but no, it’s yet another tease.  And a weird one at that.  So who the hell was that, and were they even talking to Shouhei?  All that’s certain is that he definitely responded to the name, which should clue him in to his own identity at the very least.

Back at the ballpark, it’s another bit of false drama (Adachi seems to enjoy that more lately) as in the end Eishin really have no answer for Meisei.  Tou even covers first – with one out in the seventh, no less – and it’s a completely routine non-event.  Symbolic, that, and one ghost at least has been exorcised.  All the big names await in the quarter-finals of course (will Ichiban pitch that one, I wonder?).  And the greatest opponent of all, sports manga and Adachi orthodoxy – an enemy that will have to be defeated if the heroes hope to go to Koushien as second-years.