After going into extra innings against Toushuu, Meisei’s tournament life ends in anticlimactic fashion. In Adachi’s world of baseball, luck giveth often, but taketh away at critical moments. Touma’s arm failing was bound to happen – Coach Goro predicted it from miles away – but the circumstance of it was a heartbreaker. Meisei was fortunate to have advanced so far in the tournament, relying largely on the talents of their stepbrother battery and preying upon opponent’s mistakes and injuries. It makes sense that they’d bow out at this stage, but we’re still left wanting more, both on the baseball diamond and off. Conventional wisdom says that anime series are just extravagant advertisements for their source materials, but those “to be continued” endings sting every time.

Continue reading “Mix – 23-24 [It’s Only a Matter of Time/Don’t You Think They’re Alike?]” →

It is well and truly baseball season on Mix, as one game leads straight into another in this doubleheader. I often refer to multi-episode posts that way, but this is the first to live up to the name. Meisei’s fluke of a win against Kaiou West paves the way for a pitcher’s duel in their destined semifinal match against Toushuu, where Touma exceeds all expectations (especially those of his brother). The series found some time for humor, parental pride, and extra-diamond rivalries during these two weeks, but baseball was the show’s prolonged focus for the first time in a long while. Overall, I’d say it managed the change-up with aplomb.

Continue reading “Mix – 21-22 [If…/Affection for His Sister]” →

I said in last week’s post that Mix cares about all its characters, but really, these two episodes made that case most strongly. Just about the only member the show couldn’t find time for here was the owner of the ramen place where Haruka works part time. The opening of episode 19 was so focused on Ryou that I felt he might be the series’ new protagonist, before the pivot to a baseball-heavy episode 20 that gave us some of Koma, Imagawa, and Nango’s finest moments. You probably failed to recognize at least one of those names (I had to look up all three), but Mix didn’t forget them for a second. The main cast wasn’t neglected, either – Touma underwent a surprising development, while Otomi’s place in the background gave us another angle from which to appreciate her candid personality. I couldn’t be more pleased, really.

Continue reading “Mix – 19-20 [Do You Envy Them?/In the Hands of a God]” →

We’ve reached the midpoint of the summer season, and while plenty of new shows have started spinning their wheels already, Mix has managed to stay steady. Think of all the sports series that enter tournament mode, and suddenly it’s nonstop matches until the starring team either makes an early exit or wins the whole thing. Now consider Mix’s approach in these two episodes. One of them abbreviates a spectacular no-hitter by focusing on the series’ ensemble cast; the other divorces itself from the summer tournament entirely by dialing in on a middle school romance. This will be uncharted territory for some baseball anime enthusiasts, but even those of us who watch for the character drama could be thrown by these decisions. Mix doesn’t care one whit about expectations, though, having been written by a man with a time-tested formula. Though Adachi’s characters often seem to be mirror images of those from his past works, he clearly cares about all of them, since he’s willing to sacrifice tournament time to shine a light on even minor players in the overall story.

Continue reading “Mix – 17-18” →

How distracted does a middle schooler have to be to forget his own birthday? For adults, birthdays can get lost in the shuffle of occupational challenges, financial woes, and/or parenthood, but for kids they’re like a second Christmas. The gifts, the attention, the perceived bump in social standing – how could a fifteen year old boy forget such an event? And yet, that’s exactly what Ryou Akai does, only recalling the date when an admiring girl gives him a present before class. Prior to this episode, I’d have said that only his fractured relationship with his brother could have pushed something so special as a birthday from his mind. But Mix steadfastly refuses to shed additional light on their feud, opting instead to bring a new distraction into his life: a newly-minted crush on Otomi Tachibana.

Continue reading “Mix – 16 [Full of Fight]” →

I’ve got to lead with a gripe: Mix’s new OP is worse than the first. I haven’t got anything against Porno Graffiti as a band, but Akihito Okano’s vocal performance is too deliberate and modern for a show this committed to naturalism. What’s ironic is that Sumika, who provided “Equal” for the first opening, have a much simpler, more nostalgic sound than a band that predates them by nearly 15 years. It’s the string arrangement in “Equal” that I miss most of all, now that it’s been replaced by Porno Graffiti’s wailing guitars. The visuals are entirely centered around baseball now, as well, with cuts to stunned crowd members stinking up the final leg of the OP. The disappearance of Little Glee Monster’s ED is a disappointment, as well, but the downgrade isn’t anywhere near as large as this one. That’s just one man’s opinion about the very beginning and end of the episodes, though – read on to hear about the juicier bits.

Continue reading “Mix – 14-15 [We’re Losing/I Wanted to See That Expression]” →