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| THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE. ---------------------------------------- Some serious timeline rearrangement went on. Instead of Tatsuya getting knocked out by Nishimura, he went all the way to the final in his first year as a baseball player, ending up getting beaten by Nitta. And, I have to say, it worked out wonderfully - setting up the third movie perfectly. Y'see, one of my (numerous) problems with the full story is the way Tatsuya suddenly decided he was Kazuya 2... after only a few episodes before expressing his annoyance at people thinking he's Kazuya incarnate. The timing of his Kazuya>Tatsuya complex didn't feel right - it occurring at the very end of the series - and the way only a few words from the filler coach (PLZ DON'T APPEAR IN THE LAST MOVIE!!!) managed to free him of his mental issues, allowing him to beat Nitta, made the issue seem insignificant. By rearranging the timing so that the issue is dealt with much earlier, it makes more sense and allows for Tatsuya to truly grow as a character in the final film - coming out from under his brother's shadow and taking Minami to Koshien as himself; not as a clone of his deceased brother. (Plus, he didn't splash water over Minami in this version of events; looking like less of a prat in the process. Yay!) I have no real complaints about the baseball side. Even Nitta getting inserted at the back-end of the first movie and then getting introduced into the story at Kazuya's grave, at the start of the sequel, pleased me. The problems lie elsewhere; away from the baseball... What made me love Touch was the interactions between the characters, and the small moments that helped me understand them. Tatsuya's laziness, requiring Minami to put a silly amount of alarm clocks around him; Minami almost mothering Tatsuya by making him food, helping him with homework, and always supporting him; Tatsuya's struggles with Kazuya's daily routine; the jealousy the two felt when one of them got close to someone else. All of these things, and many others, got cut from the movies - leading to the differences between the twins not being clear and Minami's feelings for Tatsuya also remaining rather 'muddy', in comparison to the full story. I think the second movie suffers from a combination of Minami x Tatsuya cuts from the first movie, where nearly all of their meaningful interactions occurred in the full version, and there only being silly/ultimately pointless time shared between the two after that. With very little of value in terms of the advancement of the main relationship to include, Minami got pushed aside; rarely appearing together with Tatsuya. There were two nice original story scenes - one where the two maturely discussed the gymnastic/baseball manager issue (unlike in the full story) and the other being where Tatsuya promised to take her to Koshien - but apart from those scenes there was basically nothing in terms of Minami. And, no matter how I look at it, that's a major negative since the best aspect of Touch BY FAR is the childhood friendship/love - NOT the baseball. It'd probably be very unfair to score it 6/10 when the order of events was rearranged in a way that makes the final film unpredictable in the best way possible... but Touch without much Minami-time isn't what I enjoy. In fact, ignoring the filler, what made the TV series fail in its last half was Minami appearing far less than in the first half. The episodic content involving her in the 40-50-something stretch made me enjoy those episodes; even without anything advancing/changing. ...Anyway, time for me to have a looksee at the final film, methinks. I've enjoyed going through a very different version of events up to yet, and seeing new art/animation makes even the reused content seem brand new. I'm glad I decided to watch them, rather than judging them in advance! |
| I was totally disappointed with this movie, but now that I think about it... it follows most of the bad parts of the original, well may be not bad but boring-er. The last match was actually pretty good though with Tatsuya losing to Nitta. Where is Yuka though... |
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| Very interesting, the changes that were made. As I said about the first movie, this is by no means a substitute for the series itself, but it's neat to watch as a fan of the show. Crazy to see no Yuka. Also, what the heck was with that thing with Koutarou's ears? XD |
| So in this version they won against nishimura but lost against Nitta. I kinda missed the annoyingly cute yuka though. |
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| "Farewell Gift" for some reason is even shorter than the last movie. Anyways I thought they already went to Koushien in the last movie's finale? So it wasn't the preliminaries like it was in the original series but a random game? Looks like I made a massive mistake. And judging by the ending of this movie we won't see Koushien in the next movie either. Hold on. THEY WERE STILL IN THE 1ST YEAR?! I thought they at least moved on to 2nd year or something but I was wrong about that too. At the first half of the movie it felt like it moved from Part 1 of the series straight to Part 4 which was a bit jarring but I agree with AironicallyHuman that the "Tatsuya thinking he's possessed by Kazuya" thing should've been dealt with earlier in the series which is what happened here. Lots of characters got cut, most notably Nitta Yuka. I guess Nitta Akio's sister doesn't exist in this timeline. So she's replaced by an original 1st year student who calls Minami "sempai". I'd say this was an upgrade cos Yuka's annoying but we barely saw anything of the new character. Speaking of Minami, her gymnastic sections looked amazing in this movie. Ig this time the movie does benefit from the higher budget because the scenes actually look like fluid animation instead of freeze frame slideshows in the original. The characters that are in the movie feel different. Nishimura is kind of less of a creep I guess? Hard to tell. He didn't annoy the hell out of Minami by only asking for a date after Koushien. He'll be back next year in the next movie. Nitta is also somewhat different in the movie. In the series he was obsessed about fighting Kazuya again through Tatsuya. But since he lost against Tatsuya in the last movie he wants to face that Tatsuya again which makes sense. And also not having a crazy sister probably also affected him. This version of Tatsuya also seems less of a dickhead than the original. A lot of scenes were cut but I can assume that he was much more cooperative to his baseball teammates in training as none of them seem to hold some sort of grudge against Tatsuya. While it's nice to see it also negatively impacts the storytelling by changing too much of what made the original great. I really wish the Demon Coach Kashiwaba isn't cut in the next movie but MAL synopsis and speculation on my part seem to say so. Mainly cos the next movie most likely will take place in 2nd year and coach Nishio wouldn't be sick enough to call in a interim coach. Kashiwaba really spiced things up in the last half of Touch series whereas otherwise it would've mainly been more of the same. |
