TOUCH



Touch is a shonen story about two twin brothers, a pretty girl next door, and that good old pastime of baseball. The manga was written by one of the most well known manga-ka out there, Adachi Mitsuru in the early 80's (1981-1986). Adachi is a wonderful writer who tends to write stories that are related to sports but mostly baseball and Koshien, the stadium where the All High School Baseball Tournament is held.

Touch ~ the anime, aired from 1985 to 1987. From there, two movies came out in 1986 which were basically a recap of the most important scenes of all Touch's 101 episodes although told in a very different way to make it more dramatic. The third came out in 1987 and because of its popularity a TV movie came out in 1998 called Miss Lonely Yesterday and in 2001 a fifth movie came out called Cross Road.

Uesugi Tatsuya and Kazuya are twins with Tatsuya being the oldest for a few minutes or so. Kazuya is the popular one, the one everyone loves, the "knight in shining armor" and an excellent baseball player and Tatsuya is well... the "other" brother... they are friends with Minami who is their next door neighbor. They've known each other since before they can even remember. Then one day, Tatsuya and Kazuya both notice that Minami is a girl... a very pretty girl at that. To everyone, it's so easy to see that Kazuya and Minami are perfect for each other but Minami sees it differently. You see, it seems that she has much affection for that other brother. The one everyone regards as the twin that had all the "left overs". But when tragety happens... it is up to Tatsuya to show the world, the whole universe, that he is not that slacker everyone thought he was. It is all left up to him to show everyone what Minami saw in him from the very beginning.

And now to dig in deeper with a buch of spoilers

There are three seasons to Touch... The First season began when the characters are in their last year of Jr. High and in their first year of high school. It's basically the introductions to the all the characters that would appear throughout the story like Harada, Koutarou and Nitta. It's in this season that really shows the different personalities of the three main characters. Tatsuya, Kazuya and Minami. Although Tatsuya is made to think that Kazuya will always be with Minami, there are clues from the start that Minami likes him better. She even said it herself plenty of times and many can see it especially Harada using words that have this deep dark meaning behind them even though he denies that fact.

    Tatsuya: Why did you sign me up for the boxing club when I don't even want to be in it?
    Harada: You need to get hit more often so you can hit back...
    Tatsuya: Huh?
    Harada: It has no deep meaning or anything...

Sure Harada-kun

This season was also the tragic part of Touch... Where Kazuya died and left Tatsuya and Minami behind. As Minami said in Miss Lonely Yesterday...

    Tacchan and I have been through several seasons after that hot     summer day that Kacchan left us... Maybe our hearts... the most     important part of our hearts stopped that summer day... And not     being able to move on...

The Second season was Tatsuya trying to fit in. When Tatsuya eventually went to the baseball club from the boxing club everyone compared him to Kazuya (a story about him even made it in the newspapers. Though they were talking about Tatsuya, they were showing a picture of Kazuya). One of the only reasons he did join the baseball club was to fulfill the promise Kazuya made to Minami so long ago. To one day take her to Koshien. The second season introduced Tatsuya's rivals. Nitta Akio and Nishimura Isami. The players that will challenge him on his way to Koshien. Nitta Yuka, Akio's fiesty, aggressive, little sister also appears. And boy, does she have a thing for Tatsuya and makes Minami jealous too and not to mention angry.

The Third season... was of course when the real Tatsuya showed us his true character. The one person that needed to believe in himself and trying not to be the shadow of the brother everyone adored. He made his promise to Minami come true and he and the rest of the Meisei team of course went to the famous Koshein and won. They became the best high school baseball team of all Japan in 1986. Pretty cool huh? And this is when Tatsuya finally revealed to Minami that he loves her... Awww... Such a nice ending to a very bittersweet story...