Well, that was depressing.

At a time like this, one thinks about the future of Mix.  This season will use up pretty much all the published manga material, leaving the future of the anime up in the air.  The reasons are very different from something like Hunter X Hunter of course – when he decides not to abandon a series Adachi Mitsuru tends to work very consistently.  But while one doesn’t like to be morbid, Adachi is 72 years old and Mix is published monthly.  Of course one hopes his health will hold up for reasons for more important than that, but even so, you’re looking at probably five years before there’d be enough material.  And with climate change going along as it is pretty much everybody should avoid buying green bananas at this point.

The layout of these last couple of episodes has been interesting.  I don’t recall Adachi-sensei using this sort of time-jumping too often, but piece by piece the picture is filled in.  The game with Kenjou was indeed played as scheduled.  Not only that, but the Tachibros played – though Touma didn’t pitch, leaving that to Natsuno.  Soucihriou claimed Tou wasn’t in any state to deal with that Kenjou lineup, but I find that a bit unsatisfying, really.  Ichiban pitched admirably – he always does.  But he looked very small and scared on that mound – it was asking an awful lot of a first-year to take up that mantle.

As for Kenjou, they lost in the quarter-finals at Koushien – apparently because the game was called in the seventh inning, with Akai due up and runners on first and second, Kenjou down 3-2.  There are a lot of layers of Japanese dumb here, starting with not delaying Koushien games and rolling out the tarp.  But in addition, there’s no way a game of that magnitude should ever be called prematurely.  Delay the game and finish it later (or the next day) – this is Koushien, FFS.  But this way Akai and Kenjou come back motivated for everybody’s third year, and pissed off to boot.

The main focus, of course, was on the aftermath of Eisuke’s passing.  I’m not sure what was up with Sou saying “it’s not like he was my real father” to Touma in the dugout.  I’ve always considered him basically a jerk, but I can’t believe he meant that at face value.  Was it a ploy to motivate his stepbrother (unlikely, as he wasn’t pitching)?  Payback for Touma’s “You seem the same as always” comment (that seems most likely to me)?  Naturally everybody is in a bit of a fog, and in very Japanese “gaman” fashion trying to pretend everything is fine.  But everything is clearly not fine, and Adachi is always brilliant at communicating things like that through non-verbal means.

It was the Dragon guy (does he have a name?) who made probably the key statement of the episode: Tou is now the one person in that house with no blood relatives.  That doesn’t matter much to the others, who clearly loved Eisuke (well, if Souichirou is capable of loving anybody).  But I think it does matter to Touma, who’s clearly looking for reasons to avoid being home with his step-family.  I really feel for Mayumi, who’s now lost two husbands, and Sou and Otomi, who’ve lost two fathers.  But they surely don’t feel as alone in this moment as Tou does, rightly or wrongly.

When Touma literally is alone at home, he’s yelling at Eisuke over what happened, which is somehow the most painful moment of the episode for me.  In Japan high school baseball season never really ends (which is rotten for young pitchers’ long-term health) and that provides a welcome distraction.  But at some point something has to clear the air in the Tachibana house, because this distance between Touma and the others hangs in the air like a miasma, and someone is going to have to take the initiative to clear it.