You can use whatever analogy you like – tortoises and hares, any of a myriad of “simplicity” proverbs – but Adachi Mitsuru is a unique sort of manga magician.  Or perhaps alchemist would be the better term.  I’ll once more set aside Cross Game from this, because it’s a unicorn in every sense, but generally speaking Adachi series offer little to no flash.  They almost always get overshadowed by louder, more frenetic offerings.  But this is the series I find myself looking forward to the most of all the spring series (along with Kono Oto Tomare).

The essence of it comes down to two main factors I think.  No one (and I do include Cross Game in this) can do as much with as little as Adachi can.  And no one can make the familiar seem fresher.  I’ve come to realize over the years that the seeming “sameness” of Adachi’s works (even the author has a hard time telling his characters apart on sight) is not something they achieve greatness in spite of.  Rather, they achieve greatness because of it.  Because the broad brushstrokes are almost always almost the same, he has to mine difference from the fine details.  He has to dig deeper into his characters than an author who differentiates them in more superficial ways.  And my goodness, does he ever.

I don’t know how much of this Adachi planned, and how much is just how things worked out.  But he certainly realized at some point that if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it.  And thank goodness for that.  I mean, how many baseball games have we seen play out in Adachi anime already?  And this was a mere practice game, theoretically meaningless.  But Adachi seems to relish practice games almost more than Koushien elimination battles, because once more he’s forced to make the seemingly mundane meaningful.  It’s not the results here that matter, it’s how they’re achieved and what they say about the characters involved.

Context is everything – in Adachi’s work generally, and in this game specifically.  Truthfully, just by goading Toushu’s manager into leaving his starters – including Mita-kun – in the game for nine innings, Meisei achieved something significant.  Not that Mita would have cottoned to be being pulled – Touma threw down the gauntlet, and Mita is not the sort of fellow to walk away from that.  He knows what the real story of this game is – not a Koushien quarter-finalist winning 5-0 or a hot pro prospect shutting out a nobody opponent, but an unknown 10th-grader holding a national powerhouse scoreless, inning after inning.  The only way Mita can make this day more about himself than Touma is to throw a no-hitter.

Of course, that’s just what he does – and not just that, but a perfect game.  One might interpret the importance Mita places on this as vanity or cockiness, but it’s neither – in a real sense, it’s a show of respect for Touma, not to mention a statement of purpose.  Of course he’s showing off for his sister too, but that’s secondary I think.  The closest Meisei comes to a hit is when Nan-chan tries to break up the perfect game with a bunt – a move which would have you eating a high fastball for lunch in your next at-bat if you tried it in the majors, but shows off just what a grinder Nan-chan is.  But it is worth remembering that Touma should have drawn a walk, and was called out by the umpire on a pitch that clearly missed.

In the end, Touma does exactly what Mita did in his first practice game as a first-year – hold a national power to two hits in seven shutout innings.  And along the way there are so many wonderful Adachi details – the reactions of Otomi and Natsuno, the little smile (was that his first?) that Souichirou gives Touma as they’re in the process of making the game’s last two outs.  Unfortunately for Mita-kun his sister has bailed after 8 innings to go watch Arai-kun’s soccer match – which leaves him none too pleased, though he’s too much of a warrior to let it show for long.

I’m not sure Touma was even the half-serious he admitted to when he suggested to Otomi that he wouldn’t have minded seeing Mita beat little Natsuno up and get suspended for it, but there was a grain of truth in there – an acknowledgement by a fierce competitor of just how daunting Mita is.  We’re headed now into one of my favorite stretches of the manga, where the story begins to connect the dots and expands its breadth considerably, but again that’s consistent with Adachi’s usual pattern.  Even if you know what to expect he’s still going to surprise you – and that’s why those of us that love his work keep coming back for more.