【TOUCH】Super popular rom-com/sports manga series by Mitsuru Adachi!!!

Touch is a baseball manga series written and illustrated by Mitsuru Adachi. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday by Shogakukan from 1981 to 1986, with a total of 26 volumes. Touch was hugely popular and sold over 100 million copies since its release in 1981, thus becoming one of the best-selling manga series in Japan. In 1983, it won the Shogakukan Manga Award for the shonen and shojo category, along with “Miyuki” – Adachi’s other work.

The manga was adapted into a 101-episode anime TV series by Group TAC and ran from March 1985 to March 1987 on Fuji TV. Touch’s anime adaptation was one of the highest-rated anime TV series ever made in Japan, with several of its episodes consistently rated high during its run. In a 2005 poll by TV Asahi of the top 100 animated TV series, Touch was ranked 9th overall.

Three theatrical anime movies which summarized the TV series were also created. On April 1986, the first film titled “Touch: The Ace Without a Number on His Back” was released by Toho. The film earned a whooping ¥900 million at the box office and both of its theme songs were highly ranked on Oricon annual chart of that year. On December 1986, the second film titled “Touch 2: Goodbye Gift” was directed by Hiroko Tokita and written by Tomoko Konbaru. On April 1987, the final film in the trilogy titled “Touch 3: Long After You’ve Passed Me By” was also released by Toho. Both of its theme songs ranked #5 on the Oricon charts and #7 on The Best Ten music show.

Two anime TV specials were also released, which took place after the events in the TV series. The first special titled “Touch: Miss Lonely Yesterday: From There to You......” was released in 1998 on Nippon TV. Just over two years later, the second special titled “Touch Cross Road: The Whereabouts of the Wind” was released on NTV. A live-action movie of Touch was released on September 2005, starring Keita Saito as Kazuya Uesugi, Masami Nagasawa as Minami Asakura, and Syota Saito as Tatsuya Uesugi.

Minami Asakura was a student at Meisei Junior High, alongside her neighbor and childhood friends – the Uesugi brothers. Even though Tatsuya Uesugi (often called Tat-chan) and Kazuya Uesugi (often called Kat-chan) were twins, the only thing that they had in common was their face.

Minami would walk to school with the younger twin Kazuya while the older twin Tatsuya would often run late. This morning, all three of them met up at the shoe locker as Tatsuya barely made it in time. He asked his brother Kazuya about his torn up shoes, unlike his brand-new one, even though their parents bought them those shoes at the same time. Minami said it was because Kazuya would run 10km every morning and evening to train for his baseball club.

Right then, Kazuya opened his locker and a pile of love letters fell out. Kazuya was serious, good looking and was great at both academic and athletic fields, which made him popular with the girls at school.

Tatsuya playfully picked up the letters and handed them over to his brother. While he was picking them up, Tatsuya realized that one of the letters was from a pretty girl in their grade named Takizawa Youko, so he hid that for himself.

After class, Tatsuya went to the restroom and tried to comb his hair to mimic his brother. With that look and a fake-serious face just like his brother, Tatsuya confidently headed to the bench where Youko was waiting to confess her love for Kazuya.

While Tatsuya was pretending to be Kazuya to flirt with Youko, Minami passed by and caught him red-handed. On their way home, when Tatsuya asked how did she know it was him, Minami replied that no matter how he changed his look, she would always know.

Back at home, Tatsuya got scolded by his parents for lazing around instead of preparing for the upcoming exam like his brother and Minami.

It turned out that ever since the three of them were little, they were really energetic and would always get into trouble. In order to kept them well-behave, both families built a small play room for the children. As they got older, the room had gradually been turned into a study room, much to Tatsuya’s frustration.

Tatsuya walked by the room and looked through the window to see his brother together with Minami. As they slowly entered adulthood, Tatsuya realized his feelings for Minami but kept quite because he suspected that his brother might felt the same.

The final exam results were finally announced at the end of exam season. The genius Kazuya ranked first in his year while Minami ranked third. Back in class, Tatsuya could be seen doing his class clean up duty as punishment for bad grades. The distance between them grew further and further......

How will Tatsuya, Minami and Kazuya handle their feelings as they slowly step into adulthood? Will they be able to pursue their dream and be with the one they love? Read on to find out!