Cross Game - The end of the Adachi Marathon

I have finished my Adachi marathon and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. The mix of sports and comedy and romance is blended so well in all his works and it was entirely too easy to just keep hitting the next button on my computer until all hours of the morning. Cross Game is one of my favorites and I did stay up still morning to finish it. Then I moved on to the anime and found it just as satisfying even with some of the additions the producers and writers made.

Adachi continued balance of numerous genres in his works is always something that I am continuously impressed by. While one genre is always constantly in the foreground the others move sometimes silently but with purpose in the background. This leads to a slow build-up that doesn't seem rushed, but can also seem to be impossibly slow at the same time. It also leads to the quite importance that slowly builds until both parties are able to come to terms with it.

Katsu's Boxing

Okay, I have just decided to marathon all the Adachi manga and get them out of the way. I'm almost finished, so I'll be getting back to something different soon. No worries!

So, next sport on the Adachi list is boxing! It is pretty refreshing that he focuses on a different sport between each of his baseball manga. I would get pretty bored reading nothing but baseball all the time. It also gives him a chance to actually bring in stronger female heroines in my opinion. Girls can't play baseball in Koshien, sadly.

H2 vs. Touch

You know, I really only became a baseball fan while I was living in Japan. I'm not sure how to describe it, but you just cannot ignore the sport in Japan. It doesn't even matter what sport you're into, you will always hear somebody talking about it. Between their own major leagues and then Koshien and high school baseball, it's almost always on the news and most Japanese ask me if I like it or not. I usually end up disappointing them when I say that I am not such a big fan of the "Great American Past time". When I tell them that I'm a soccer fan, I usually win some respect points back.

So, I don't usually make marathons of certain mangaka, but after finishing ROUGH I decided to just start reading H2. H2 and Touch are considered 2 of Adachi's best manga and, since both of them are apart baseball, they are heavily compared. Now that I have read both of them, I shall weigh in my 2 cents on the topic. I know that Cross Game also deals with baseball, but I haven't gotten that far in the list, so I'll leave that comparison for later. It'll be fun to compare all 3 of them together.

ROUGH times with Adachi Mitsuru

Who knew a swimming manga could be so good? Well, with Adachi Mitsuru as the mangaka, you can guarantee that I did. I have not even tried to hide my love for Adachi Mitsuru because I could never be embarrassed of loving such a quality mangaka with such a lasting career in the business. He is a true mangaka's mangaka. He has written successful manga for many genres and, as I have stated in an earlier post, he really is the King of Romantic Comedy and baseball manga. There just is no contest for me. He knows how to balance out the characters and the sport so well that it becomes too easy to turn the page and keep reading.

I actually finished this manga in about 6 hours. It's that easy to read and I really enjoyed the change in sport. I an honestly not able to pull up a swimming manga off the top of my head. I would have to goggle search to even come up with another title.

Baseball and Touch

It is without a doubt that Adachi Mitsuru is the ruler of romantic comedy and he also knows how to write a baseball manga. I will be the first to admit, I'm not usually one for baseball mangas unless it's Ookiku Furikabutte. I usually find the characters too one dimensional and all the "powering up" can get annoying after a while. 

Yet Touch doesn't get that way at all. It's a depiction of what baseball can bring out in people, but it's not an all encompassing theme; which I, as a reader, appreciate. 

This is not going to be a real essay, but just thoughts I had while reading. 

I should warn you, there are spoilers (as always) with this essay.

The New "Modern Family" in Miyuki

Adachi Mitsuru. He's name evokes dozens of different titles compiled in a career that has spans decades and is not finished yet. And I am completely late to the party. I was absolutely oblivious to Adachi Mitsurus works until my advisor handed me a book called 『マンガ論』by Yoshimoto Takaaki, who happens to be a very famous writer and father to Yoshimoto Banana (who is a very famous contemporary Japanese fiction writer). One of his essays talks about gender and family issues in a couple of older manga and Miyuki was one of them.

After I read the essay, I didn't immediately rush to my laptop and start googling up a storm but I started thinking about how little older manga series I have read. One of my habits is to head to tsutaya or book off and take pictures of manga covers that I think look interesting. It makes it so easy, maybe a little TOO easy, to look up the manga later. My "manga I want to read" folder in my bookmarks is ridiculously long now.

Back to the topic at hand, I was at book off when I saw the rather large section of Adachi Mitsuru manga. Since I was curious I looked through to see what titles they had and I saw Miyuki right away. Deciding that this was sign from the manga god himself, I took a picture of it and started reading it right after I finished Basara. How could I have lived to long as a manga reader without reading or even KNOWING his name?! I hang my head in shame and will redeem myself by reading as many of his manga as I can get my hot little hands on.

We shall start with the manga that started this movement Miyuki