Greg (Read About Comics) McElhatton has joined the knot of fervent admirers of Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game (Viz). It’s a title that inspires a bit of evangelical fervor among its admirers, or at least I feel like it is, and that enthusiasm must certainly extend to Adachi himself. Whenever the subject of out-of-print manga comes up, his Short Program (Viz) is always among the bemoaned.
There are plenty more volumes of Cross Game still to come (five of the twelve seventeen have been published in Viz’s two volumes so far), but Adachi is so amazing that it’s impossible to resist wondering which treasure from his catalog might be next in line. Many people might vote for Touch, a 26-volume series from Shogakukan’s Shônen Sunday. I would have no objection to this, but it’s another baseball series, and perhaps some variety might be key in building Adachi’s reputation among English-language readers. So, for a change of pace, why not see what he can do with high-school swimmers?
Yes, I’m talking about Rough, a 12-volume series that also ran in Sunday. It’s about a boy who swims and a girl who dives from feuding families that fell out over owl-shaped cookies. Will Yamato and Ninomiya’s shared love of pool-based athletics help them overcome this great cookie schism? I have no idea, and please don’t spoil it for me. I do know that Adachi has demonstrated a real knack for portraying contentious relationships between sporty teens of the opposite sex, and he can draw anything, so I’m not seeing a down side to Rough. It’s even a reasonable length.
Did you even need to ask if Rough is available in French? Of course it is, courtesy of Glénat, who have also published Touch and Niji-Iro Togarashi. (an 11-volume fantasy series that ran in… wait for it… Sunday). The French are basically all over Adachi, and I dream of a day when the audience for manga in English catches up.
But I’m not so selfish that I’ll only accept Rough. I would love to know what tops your Adachi wish list, assuming you have one. And if you haven’t joined the forces of Adachi advancement, well… there’s this little book called Cross Game…
No doubt, Adachi must enjoy drawing all those girls in bathing suits. He even works those into his non-swimming series.
I think my next order from Amazon.fr is going to have to include some volumes of one of these Adachi series.
I do like that they tend to be proper characters first and that they tend to look sporty and realistically proportioned.
True. And it’s not as prevalant in Cross Game, but in H2 (one of his other baseball mangas) a lot of the chapter title pages are those kind of pin-up-esque images. Though still super tame compared to most, almost… sweet in their innocence.
Exactly. Aside from the fact that they’re girls in bathing suits, there’s nothing particularly cheesecake-y about them, though they’re obviously meant to be admired.
I find this generally to be the case in Shonen Sunday. Like in Cheeky Angel, for example, which stars a tough girl character who is generally regarded as hawt and who has a bevy of male admirers. Even though she’s beautiful, she is always dressed pretty modestly and fanservice is eschewed.
I wonder if Rumiko Takahashi helped set that tone? So many of her series ran in Sunday.
It’s possible, or maybe that kind of… gentler, more wholesome feeling is just the house style for Shonen Sunday. I don’t know much about the manga magazines, but I know that certain ones are known for having certain kinds of series.
Sunday always feels a bit retro to me. Maybe part of it is that its big name stuff tends to be either extremely long-running series (like Meitantei Conan) or series by authors who haven’t really changed their style in decades (like Adachi and Takahashi).
Rough sounds positively terrific. Also, I bet this sentence—”Will Yamato and Ninomiya’s shared love of pool-based athletics help them overcome this great cookie schism?”—has never before been uttered in the history of the English language.
I also want to see Touch, but you’re absolutely right that some variety might be warranted. Many of the stories in Short Program also feature baseball, so we wouldn’t want it to seem monotonous.
That sentence was the result of a stubborn refusal to use a particular phrase that would have filled my spam filter in some deeply uncomfortable ways, but I’m glad you appreciated it!
Hahaha. It took a second, but now I know what phrase you mean!
I am a huge fan of Mitsuru Adachi especially his Touch. I would be happy if more of his works is to get licensed especially my favorite Touch.
Rough sounds like something enjoyable too and I’d be glad to read it. I’m currently collecting Cross Game that VIZ Media is publishing. While I like it a lot, I still like the characters and story for Touch more.
I also own the first book of Short Program and liked the short stories. I think there was supposed to be more but VIZ didn’t release the whole thing?
Let’s all support Mitsuru Adachi by buying Cross Game and hopefully this will help in bringing in more of his works.
I’m 100% behind your strategy.
I think Viz published two volumes of Short Program, at least based on the Amazon listings I linked to above, but I’m not sure how much of the original series those represent.
The Wikipedia article on Short Program lists at least two other compilations that haven’t been released here yet.
I agree with all of this, and want all of this.
I sensed your solidarity even before you voiced it.
I think a nice short series would be Jinbe, a seinen. It’s rare for Adachi to have an adult hero. There is a sensitive approach to the fact that the love story exists between a teenager and the man who raised her, though – so I guess it might not get licensed. It is never prurient, though.
– quoting from Manga Updates
And, because it should surprise absolutely no one, Jinbe was published in French.
All the well-known good ones are already published in French ^^ – I could hit myself for not sticking with my French in school. After all, I live in the country right next to it, and could easily import.
I had Short Programme on my wish list for years and never bought a copy, but got the first Cross Game volume recently and very glad I did!
What do the French have that we don’t have?
It made me laugh a little when you wrote but it’s another baseball series, and perhaps some variety might be key in building Adachi’s reputation among English-language readers. I’ve always thought of Adachi as “that guy who writes baseball dramas.” I didn’t even realize he’d written about other sports!
I think they discovered manga WAY earlier than the rest of the world. In the 60s/70s, I believe.
While I love Adachi Mitsuru, I would have to back down on Rough. I was on a Touch and H2 high when I moved next to Rough. Swimming, bikinis, hi-cut swimsuits sounds amazing for me but the story felt forced as if suddenly things fell into place with no poignant development like the others.
It’s still a good read, but I think once you’ve read this, you’ll think “Even Adachi Mitsuru has his down days.”
I really hope that there will be more Adachi Mitsuru works publish in english, i got viz’s cross game volume 1 to 3, Katsu! volume 1 to 16 (end) in Malay language and H2 volume 1 to 16 in Malay.
Since our market (Malaysia) is not to big, i do hope viz can publish more of Mitsuru Adachi’s work in English!