Nov 10, 2019
"They're twins, and it's said that the older brother is the weak one whose strong points were all taken by the kid brother" - Kuroki-kun.
Uesugi Tatsuya is forced to grow up. He is perverted, narrow-minded, and a show-off, which often give to us the idea that he is not a good match. For all those reasons, he is proclaimed from his own family to classmates to not have any good points, which, acts as a parallel against the star pitcher and model student Kazuya, his twin brother, who he compares himself to. From start to finish, we see him been treated as a complete idiot,
...
and looked down by most, including himself. During the run-time of Touch we slowly and indirectly look at this considerable character. He often steps his true feelings aside and in the same way prioritizes everyone around him and this, affect his relationships, especially romantic ones, more than he imagines. We see how everyone thinks he doesn’t have any talent, when in fact, he is as good as his brother is. However, despite this, he still is a slacker, never willing to commit any sort of consistent effort to anything and this means that he is unaware of how crucial a role he has in the story. Later in the show, he binds the cast together, as more people come to realise he’s growing up and fulfilling his brother dreams of taking Minami to the Koshien after Katsuya dies in a tragic accident. *throws bad news at you aggressively.
Tatsuya resembles his brother, and that is used as a metaphor for what is unreachable to his grasp; playing off as a joke several times throughout the series. We see in the first episode of Touch that “this face tires him out”. He could never be his brother. And he knew it. We see that and yet, he never showed himself as jealous once. Tatsuya actually is very altruistic and reluctant to compete against others.
His altruistic-self can be seen from early in the show. People just can’t see his altruism towards his own brother. But his unknow and dubious potential lead to a lot of teasing moments - It starts off with playful teasing which he receives from his family and classmates. Although they are stating facts based in what they see and it is not really intentionally spiteful, this nonetheless has a profound effect on Tatsuya. This all accumulates to Tatsuya believing that he isn’t the man for her. Of course, we see that this really is not the case, but the most interesting about people at young age is probably how they believe what is told about them and hence deal with it differently. Some of them would run away, hide somewhere safe and wait for things to finally settle down whereas others would laugh it off.
What may have been the most thorough effect of Tatsuya’s presence in the anime on a personal level, however, was to his brother Katsuya. We are treated with samples of their relationship in their past several times throughout the series, but they all influence Katsuya to become captivated by the baseball. While in the beginning Katsuya is shown to be a rather natural talent, this is purely the results of working extraordinarily hard at pitching and conditioning his body since he was a kid (an early scene shows him running early in the morning while Tatsuya is fast asleep). He looks up to Tatsuya, working to keep up with his older brother and, in a steady pace, the threatens to break this bond and draw the two brothers into conflict with each other, is explored as they both develop feelings for Minami. We are treated with many parallels drawn between the two brothers which acts as a measurement of how much they learn from each other, as well as mature from their mistakes. Thus, Katsuya is the family’s favorite. Katsuya had right away been the apple of everyone’s eyes. It is Katsuya this, Katsuya that - the hard-working boy Katsuya this, the perfect grades Katsuya that. It is always about Katsuya! From his family to classmates, Katsuya is the cutest. The most cherished. Yet, it is not Katsuya who Minami loves. In fact, as the series goes, we take hints that the one Minami is in love is Tatsuya, who may not be able to step in and try to take a girl from his brother.
However, Katsuya and Minami never ended up together. It's not that they weren't in love with each other; they were, but the concept of love is made of so much more than just two people kissing, hugging and etc. Touch isn't a story about love between a person and another, it was always about Kazuya's brother journey of finding himself, finding his heart and voice before giving it completely to somebody else.
Overall, like much of Mitsuru Adachi's work, Touch mix baseball and romance to the point of growing a heart and all that, and not just because I'm a sports nut! Touch, in fact, is less a story about baseball and more a story about growing up. The author uses the main baseball part of the story, as it apparently is in many Japanese works dealing with baseball, the Koshien, as a medium to advance the plot and to develop the set of characters; a set of characters you learn to fond over so much, obsess over, love very much. Touch deals with how we put someone's needs, desires, and ideas, above your own, and the time that comes in each person's life where they grow from an immature individual into a mature begging; an this leads us to the song that represents the series: The final ending song of Touch, titled ‘If You're Not Here’ by Yoshimi Iwasaki.
Even the shine
From twinkling stars straightens tears
If you are not here
Even the small flowerbud sprout by the window
Means nonthin at all
I could say "I love you"
And my heart would be relieved
But when I look at you
I can say nothing
I just turn my eyes away
Nor my blue note
Or my polished shoes
Or my treasures
If you are not here
I feel lonely.
How many summers
Did pass between you and me?
If you are not here
Even we laughed happily
In a monochrome photograph in the beach
Something time has forgotten
Because I just want to say
What I actually feel
Hey, every time I meet you
I become reticent, right?
I am here for so long.
One postcard
I forgot to send
Is sleeping inside my heart
I wrote there
"I love you"
If you are not here
There is nothing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
