Touch (manga)

Our family, the Uesugis, and our next-door neighbors, the Asakuras, had three kids born in the same year. This cute kid is Uesugi Tatsuya. that's me. This is my younger brother, Kazuya. We're twins. and this is our neighbor, Minami. We've always been good friends...but one day we noticed that one of us was a girl...

A baseball/romance/Slice of Life Manga by Mitsuru Adachi, which follows the lives of twins Tatsuya and Kazuya Uesugi and their neighbor Minami Asakura, as they experience triumph and tragedy both on and off the baseball field.

Tatsuya, the elder twin, is a lazy, perverted kid with no apparent ambitions or goals in his life. Younger twin Kazuya, on the other hand, is mature, intelligent, and a brilliant athlete, from whom everyone expects wonderful things. Their neighbor, Minami, is a bright and spirited girl, whom both brothers have known and loved their whole lives. Everyone, especially Tatsuya, believes that Kazuya and Minami would make a perfect couple, and that they're destined for each other - though he may not be the one that she is in love with...

And then, things change. And everyone will have to deal with it.

The manga ran in Shonen Sunday from 1981 to 1986, and was recopilated in 26 volumes. The Anime adaptation, which ran for 101 episodes through 1985 to 1987, set viewership ratings records when it first aired in the 1980s (and launched the voice-acting careers of Yuji Mitsuya and Noriko Hidaka, who played Tatsuya and Minami respectively). There were also three theatrical anime movies which summarized the TV series, two anime television specials which take place after the events in the TV series, a live-action TV drama special, and a live-action movie released in 2005.

Aaaand last but not least, Adachi won the 1983 Shogakukan Manga Award for Shounen or Shoujo Manga thanks to it (and even more, he had won it already in 1982 with his Romantic Comedy manga Miyuki)

Tropes used in Touch (manga) include:

• The Ace: Kazuya Uesugi is kind, polite, hard-working, a sports star, makes good grades, and is popular with girls.
  • Akio Nitta is cut from the same mold.
  • Minami Asakura seems to be a female version.
• Adaptation Expansion: As might be expected from turning a 26-volume manga into a 101-episode TV series, three theatrical movies and two TV-movies. i.e, the scenes that immediately follow Kazuya's death offer some more detail on Tatsuya's behavior and grief and follow it with a Really Dead Montage framed as Minami's memories of him.
• Almost Kiss: Minami and Kazuya. He moves close to kiss her, but when he sees that she's hesitant he stops himself.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Shingo and Haruko. Their very first scenes has them as this: first they indulge in Lap Pillow and Ear Cleaning, then act like highschoolers in love, when Tatsuya is embarrassed Shingo tries to make himself look serious via scolding him for not studying... and once he's out, they're back to their highschool-kids-in-love antics.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Tatsuya and Minami, though more so at the start.
• Be Yourself: Tatsuya eventually learns to step out of his younger twin brother's shadow, and also learns to favor his own unpredictable pitching style, rather than imitating him.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Yuuka Nitta.
• Brilliant but Lazy: Tatsuya, at the start.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Yes.
• Career-Ending Injury: Tatsuya is all but stated to have one on his shoulder at the end. Not everything is lost, however: the doctors say that he might recover, but not before he takes a year out of sports.
• Cool Big Sis: Sachiko Nishio.
• Crack! Oh, My Back!: An early Running Gag regarding Tatsuya.
• Cute Sports Club Manager: Sachiko, Minami and later Yuuka are this to the baseball club. The second has to leave the team and then joins the gymnastics club, which lets the third take over.
• Death of the Hypotenuse Poor Kazuya! Made worse because he was about to ask Minami out when he got hit by a truck.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Sasaki, to Yuka. He even changes schools and joins the baseball team in spite of a lack of talent just to be around her. By the end of the manga, she's willing to give him the time of day, but not much else.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: On top of everything that's gone wrong in life, Coach Kashiwaba's going blind. . But he's not going to let anyone else know it.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Coach Kashiwaba. Due to his bitterness at being unfairly kicked off the Meisei team over 20 years ago, he seeks to break his former sempais' hearts by breaking the current team's spirit.
• Dub Name Change: Tatsuya, Kazuya and Minami became Theo, Kim and Debbie in the French dub. And to drive home the fact that they're twins, the boys even have the same voice actor in French. Also, in Spanish, the twins are Cesar and Carlos and Minami is renamed Barbara. In Italian, Minami retained her name, but the boys were renamed Tom and Kim.
• Due to the Dead: In the manga, Kazuya's wake and funeral are Buddhist style. The first is celebrated at his family home with the students in their school uniforms, the adult men in suits and his mother in a mofuku (black kimonos only used in funerals), etc.
• The Dutiful Son: Akio will have to take over the Nitta company sooner or later, so he cannot keep playing baseball at the end.
• Family Business: The Asakura family's coffee shop. Toshio once in a while employs Tatsuya part-time there.
• Flashback Effects: In the anime, flashbacks to childhood have backgrounds done in the style of a child's crayon drawings.
• Friendly Enemy: Akio Nitta isn't a bad guy at all, he just happens to be The Rival.
• Gecko Ending: Just barely, and there's nothing all that different.
• Gender Flip: Punch the dog is a girl in the manga, and a boy in the anime. She has puppies in the first, whereas in the second his family adopts the pooches.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Minami's father Toshio smokes in a pipe, and he's clearly a good guy.
• Happily Married: Shingo and Haruko Uesugi. When they first appear, Shingo is laying on Haruko's lap while she cleans his ears.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Averted in Tatsuya's case. Although he is an amazing natural athlete, even better than Kazuya, years without exercising or practicing mean that when he eventually joins the baseball team after Kazuya's death he has to train hard to even come close to his brother's standard, let alone surpass him. Played straight, however, with Minami, who goes from not being particularly interested in gymnastics to winning a championship very quickly.
• Hidden Eyes
• Image Song: Several!
• Insecure Love Interest: Tatsuya, to Minami. And so was Kazuya, in other ways.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: All Tatsuya wants is for he, Kazuya and Minami to be happy together, even if it means letting Kazuya have Minami. Even after his tragic death, Kazuya still remains the elephant in the room, as Tatsuya continues to think himself unworthy of Minami. He still feels guilty about "taking" Minami from his brother, too; probably even moreso because Kazuya is dead and unable to compete with him.
• Japanese School Club: Meisei Junior High and Meisei High School's baseball clubs aren't the only ones in the spotlight: Tatsuya joins Harada's boxing club in high school, and later Minami does pretty well in the gymnastics club.
• Jerkass: Coach Kashiwaba.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Early on in the story, Kazuya dies saving a kid from being hit by a truck. And for even worse luck, he would've pulled through if not for him being hit in a specific vital spot...
• Kissing Discretion Shot: Played straight in both anime and manga. Averted when Minami kisses Tatsuya on the mouth in the early manga, however.
• The Lancer: Koutarou Matsudaira (to Kazuya and later Tatsuya), arguably Shohei Harada (to Tatsuya).
• Lethal Chef: After taking Minami's place as team manager, Yuka Nitta's cooking is like this, due to being too exotic. She eventually tones it down, though.
• Love Dodecahedron: Tatsuya and Kazuya love Minami. Many girls, like Kaori, crush on Kazuya. Several guys crush on Minami, including Akio and Isami. Yuuka pursues Tatsuya, while Sakata crushes on her. Despite loving Minami, Tatsuya finds Sachiko hot; Sachiko and Kuroki turn out to be very in love with each other, however. Kazuya's best friend Kotaro envies how Kazuya is a Chick Magnet, but at times seems to be a bit in love with Kazuya too. As for Minami, she loves both Kazuya and Tatsuya - but only is in love with Tatsuya.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The first OP is an upbeat and poppy song... about how much Love Hurts.
• Mega Manning: Takeshi Yoshida is able to learn how to imitate a person's pitches perfectly just by watching them. Unfortunately, he lacks in physical and mental endurance.
• Missing Mom: Minami's mother died very young. According to Minami herself, her father Toshio is still in love with his late wife and doesn't even seem to think of remarrying.
• Mistaken Identity: Partway through the manga the baseball team's coach fall ill and hires a replacement. Rather than Eichiro Kashiwaba, a kind man with a deep love for baseball, he accidentally hires Eijiro Kashiwaba, his Jerkass younger brother with a Dark and Troubled Past.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Tatsuya doesn't even want to bother trying to compete with his brother in any respect, so he hides his own considerable talents under a bushel and gives the impression that he has no ambition in life.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Shingo and Haruko outlive Kazuya
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We never actually see the Koshien match in the manga or the anime, and only Tatsuya's trophy in the manga.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: A fairly common trope in Adachi's works.
• Panty Shot: Another common Adachi trope.
• Parents as People: Shingo and Haruko may favor Kazuya, but they do love Tatsuya as well. They're pretty irresponsible with both boys at times, however, and sometimes go out in travels together and leave them alone.
• Passionate Sports Girl: Subverted with Minami. In junior high she's seen playing volleyball, but in high school she becomes one of the local Cute Sports Club Managers instead. And later she joins a rhythm gymnastics club.
  • Kaori Shinozuka from the gymnastics team plays it more or less straight from the beginning, however. Her first actual apparition has her training.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Episode 22 of the anime has Tatsuya helping out at the coffee shop during one of Kazuya's matches. Then two guys from the rival school arrive as customers. This takes place.
• Pet the Dog: Kashiwaba never even touches the poor thing on-panel, but still...
• Really Dead Montage: For Kazuya
• Revenge by Proxy: Coach Kashibawa is an asshole to the Meisei team because he once was in it, but was unfairly expulsed. So now he'll break the new Meisei baseball players after what he went through.
• The Rival: Akio Nitta to Kazuya Uesugi and later Tatsuya Uesugi. Isumi Nishimura to Nitta (One-sided), Takeshi Yoshida to Tatsuya Uesugi, also one-sided.
• Romantic False Lead: Yuka Nitta would like to be this, but Tatsuya ain't biting.
• Scary Asian Man: Shohei Harada. He's actually an uncommonly perceptive and wise Gentle Giant however.
• Shipper on Deck: The twins's parents and Miami's dad really want to Kazuya to marry Minami. While Kazuya loves Minami and she thinks the world of him, she thinks the two should decide it by themselves and that she might marry another man in the future.
  • Kaori, on the other hand, notices Tatsuya's feelings for Minami early on, tells him that liking someone isn't useless after all, and seems to really mean it rather than encouraging Tatsuya solely so he'll take Minami away from Kazuya. Harada also seems to support Tatsuya/Minami at times. At the end, Toshio has joined them — in the anime, he straight-up asks Tatsuya to marry her!
• Ship Tease: Harada and Terashima's little sister Tomoko.
• Shower of Angst: Tatsuya has one in the anime, after Kazuya's corpse is brought to the Uesugi home for the wake.
• Sibling Rivalry: Played with: the twins are quite close, but Tatsuya always lets Kazuya be the "better" one since he doesn't want to compete with him. Kazuya was not exactly happy about it.
• Sibling Triangle: The twins and Minami. Not even Kazuya's death fully solves it.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Deliberate on Tatsuya's part.
• The Spartan Way: Coach Kashiwaba's training methods are cruel and even outright criminal. But they work, whether he likes it or not.
• Spoiler Opening: The first OP spoils Tatsuya taking up boxing and Minami becoming a gym practitioner. There's also a BIG yet subtle one there: it shows Minami screaming and crying under a bridge — which happens after she learns about Kazuya's death.
  • It also shows the boxer Harada from the very start, even when it takes him a short while to join the cast.
• Speech-Impaired Animal: "Punch" the dog, though technically the closest thing he/she does to speech is snickering.
• Stepford Smiler: There's the heavy implication that Kazuya is or is in his way to become one. He's a genuinely kind person, but he keeps his insecurities regarding Tatsuya and himself hidden.
• Strong Family Resemblance: The twins resemble their mother Haruko, rather than their father Shingo.
• Triang Relations: Type 9. Both Tatsuya and Kazuya are in love with Minami, who loves both of them in return. She's in love with Tatsuya, however.
• Twin Switch: Tatsuya often pretends to be Kazuya for laughs, as seen at the very start when he pretends to be Kazuya towards a girl about to confess to "him". It's done a bit more seriously when Kazuya gets hurt before a game and Tatsuya goes to the team's bench in Kazuya's baseball uniform, while Kazuya poses as Tatsuya in the crowds with Minami's help. And he pulls this once again on Kotaro... after Kazuya dies.
• Weddings in Japan: Kazuya and Minami have to pose as groom and bride for a wedding ad, which follows the Western example.
• Women Are Wiser: Both Minami and Sachiko have glimpses of Tatsuya's potential sooner than near anyone non-named Kazuya does.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Tatsuya and Minami's relationship starts out this way. She treats him somewhat harshly because she knows he's being lazy and immature on purpose.
• Wham! Episode: Chapters 64-67 of the manga, and episodes 24-26 of the anime.
• Wham! Line: One from chapter 64, and it's direct reply in chapter 65:

Nakamura General Hospital's Doctor: "You are Uesugi-san, right? (...) I'm sorry I have to tell you... but..." —Tatsuya: "You're... sorry...?"