If you wanted an episode that distilled down pretty much everything one looks for in an Adachi series (apart from romance, mostly) this would be a damn good one.  It had just about everything baseball-related, and a healthy dollop of fourth-wall breakage as well (though Adachi has pretty well demolished that structure long before now).  We’re even seeing signs of modernization for the master as far as the game is concerned, which in an oeuvre where timelessness is everything is quite a development.

The quarter-finals are the order of the day, and it’s only seeded teams left.  “Almost a little too predictable”, Nishimura-papa muses.  But while his son opines that the people are demanding a Kenjou-Seinan final, Dad corrects him – what they actually want is Meisei vs. Kenjou  Or rather, Meisei vs. Sumi Tech, even though the name has been consigned to the history books.  That was the matchup of legend, the game that spawned a million stories told by middle-aged men who saw it (or were a part of it).  The reason we’re all here, as it were.

It’s interesting to get basically a Takumi-focused ep at this stage, but that’s pretty much what this was.  His resentment at being overlooked has been a staple of Mix, but there’s never been so much talk of how true that is.  He even shows up at a Meisei practice (after a spell of stalking Otomi), and starts a dialogue with Touma (who, having just pitched, is on his rest day).  He asks who will pitch in the quarter-final; Touma replies “that’s up to the manager”.  This is a new thing for Adachi, actively incorporating pitcher fatigue in the narrative.  Perhaps it’s a concession to the times, when the abuse of young arms has rightly become a hot-button issue in Japanese schoolboy baseball.

In the event, it’s pretty clear that Takumi wants Meisei in the semis – he’s desperate to give his dad the rematch he dreams of and to steal the spotlight from the Tachibros.  That’s probably the main reason he elects to give Ichiban some advice, though he’s enough of a baseball otaku and straight-up guy that maybe seeing something of himself in Meisei’s baby baller he couldn’t stand to see the first-year’s mechanics out of whack.  Souichirou allowing it is the proof that Takumi’s advice was good (the evidence will come on the field in the quarter-final game, which Natsuno-kun does indeed start and win).

As for Harada and that mysterious voice, it was Ishida Akira and he was talking to Shouhei.  Their next encounter occurs as a drive-by with Otomi and Takumi as witnesses, and while there’s a red herring with a bystander artist, it’s clear the guy was talking to our Harada even if we have no idea who he is.  It’s also clear – again – that Shouhei recognizes the name, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he refers to Takumi as his “classmate” immediately after.  This is still dragging on too long but these incidents have triggered something for sure, and hopefully this trickle of memories will turn into a flood.

Adachi-sensei’s infamous self-referential humor is squarely on display here, with a couple of dudes reading Monthly Shounen Sunday at Dragon as the narrator talks about the “digest” from the quarter-finals.  “Isn’t that a spoiler that nothing unexpected will happen?” they protest.  But a mysterious guy at the counter (who could it possibly be?) cautions them that this author’s motto is “Meet their hopes.  Betray their expectations.”.  Adachi then goes on, of course, to deliver exactly the expected results in the quarter-finals – and when the dudes complain, the guy at the counter has mysteriously disappeared.

The real test of that premise, of course, starts now.  I’m not sure there’s necessarily an “expected” winner between Seinan and Meisei as they’re both major players in the story, but precedent would suggest it’s most likely in the Tokyo final that Meisei will fall – against the former Sumi Tech.  If and when we get that matchup, there most certainly will be a firm set of expectations – Meisei getting to Koushien with Touma and Souichirou in their second-year would break pretty much every rule in the book (and not just Adachi’s books, either).  But he’s not getting any younger, so who knows?