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02/27/2004 Archived Entry: "Adachi Manga"

Lately, I've been reading alot of Adachi Mitsuru's manga. I've downloaded everything that's available which to my knowledge almost all of his works, except for the stuff earlier than Nine, has been scanslated albeit slowly by many scanslation groups.

Of course, being that I have a Touch site, of all his works, Touch is the most well known and the most acclaimed. I love Touch. The character developements, the relationships, the artisitic style and basically, I like the writing. Adachi Mitsuru has this great writing ability that no matter what subject he writes about, they are always so interesting, with just this touch of sarcasm in it that you just keep wanting to read on and on.

Anyway, I'm just going to write about some of his manga and the anime that followed some of them. So this entry is about...

Miyuki... Miyuki is basically one of the only manga of Adachi's that doesn't at all feature some kind of sport. This is an old manga written way back in 1980 and the anime based on it began in 1983. I have yet to watch all of the anime yet (the fansubbers have so far only subbed up to episode 8) but I did read the manga in it's entirety. And my opinion of this is that although I really do like this story... so much so that when I read the ending I was so completely happy. This story is somewhat disturbing to me. Not because of the main character's love and attraction for his adopted sister but because of the other characters that surround his adopted sister whom one can call now as 3 pedofiles that stalk, harrass, and just do anything for her. I know Adachi has written them for the comic relief but these characters are just strange and not to my liking. I know I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill but I just didn't like that whole aspect of the story. Maybe it could have been written differently but
I don't really know. Adachi somehow makes it work though but the fact is everytime one of them appears to "want" Miyuki I shiver.

Then there's Masato, the main character. Masato has this fetish of grabing female underwear. He even recieved a slap from his classmate that he is/was in love with (who is also named Miyuki) because he accidentally "stole" her bikini bottom. But that's another story. This isn't really a review anyway so I'm not going to write about what the story is about so much as I'm just going to write about my opinion of it. Masato is a nice guy. He has good intentions. He's been living alone since he was ten and before his sister ever came into the picture, was taken care of my a neighbor. From Masato's character, you can immediately see that although he seems ok with his situation he is terribly lonely and he is disturbed and sadded by the deaths of his 2 mothers. Though he's overtly perverted and even admits it (but hey, some guys are like that. Adachi even commented once about him wanting to be a hentai manga artist) there's something about him that makes you like him and feel sympathy for him and you can understand why both Miyukis, his sister and his classmate, are in love with him. It's made clear that he's not exactly smart, not exactly athletic, isn't really that good looking but there's this thing with Masato. I don't really know what it is but even I was rooting for him. And the leading ladies are all good. One is basically the soft spoken and shy one and the other is more bold and straight forward.

The anime is almost the same as the manga although some scenes were changed from manga to anime which is normal. I sympathize more with the anime Masato than his manga counterpart only because I can hear his voice and the reactions of those situations. Masato's seiyuu along with both Miyuki's are excellent. I really like them and they fit perfectly with the characters. I also love the opening and ending songs. Especially the ending song.

Miyuki is very heart felt. Although there is a lot of underwear humor in it (which is basically the inside joke throughout the manga)... the feelings, the heart of this manga is just so touching. Ahhh... I only wish Adachi will write more dramas like this in the future. I would love to read more. So PLEASE read Miyuki. Watch Miyuki and You'll know what I mean about this story being heartfelt. Ah.

Posted by aaa @ 04/04/2004 11:33 AM CST

ssssss

Posted by aaa @ 04/04/2004 11:32 AM CST