The Touch manga finished on an ambivalent note, as is customary for an Adachi series. Yes, Tatsuya declared his love to Minami, but they weren’t really an item. So there was room for a sequel, and I was certainly curious to peek into their lives down the line.
Luckily in 1998 they produced a TV movie called Miss Lovely Yesterday, taking place 5 years after the end of the manga. Tatsuya is in college, studying hard but he has left baseball. Meanwhile Minami is still in gymnastics. This time out the love triangle was a bit more cliche’, slightly different than what Adachi did in the manga.
Minami sees Kaori kissing Tatsuya on his cheek, as well as them going to watch a movie together. Kaori even lies to her about Tatsuya, but Minami believes her without doubts (she didn’t fall for this kind of thing in the manga, she knew Tatsuya too well). Then she confronts Tatsuya, but she doesn’t really tell him what Kaori said. So she storms out and by chance meets Nitta, who consoles her. All this is obviously seen by Tatsuya. Just too predictable.
I also knew how it would end. They don’t really explain to each other all the misunderstandings, they just realize by themselves they still love each other, and everything goes back to normal. The role of Kaori was very annoying. On one hand we’re supposed to feel for her, since she’s in a similar situation as Tatsuya (having lost her own twin sister), but she also acts like a bitch to Minami, so there’s no way I am sympathetic towards her. Nitta is just too gentle, and doesn’t even fight for Minami. When he realizes she still loves Tatsuya, he has no reaction. It seems as though he doesn’t care about her.
I can understand about Minami wanting to quit gymnastics, because she never really wanted to do it in the first place. I also appreciate Tatsuya’s struggle to play baseball after having achieved Koushien. Going to US to play his own baseball, instead of his brother’s makes sense.
Even other secondary characters get their own conclusions, like Nishimura’s career, or Harada coming back from his long travels, after winning the lottery.
Overall I was glad to watch this, but it really felt too predictable.
A few years later another TV movie was produced, called Cross Road. This one sees Tatsuya starting his career in US, while Minami is starting her own career in photography. After the ridiculously exaggerated love triangle in the previous movie, the love triangle is downplayed in this story. There’s still a love interest for Tatsuya, though she just has a teenage crush on him (she’s only 16!!), while he’s oblivious to her feelings, only caring about Minami.
This time out baseball is back at the center of the story, and though we never get too tense during game play (not like in the manga), there is an interesting final game.
Unfortunately that’s about the only good thing I can say about this movie. I didn’t much care about the new characters, and the fact that Americans spoke Japanese irritated me a little bit. Minami’s struggle to find herself is an ok concept, but I didn’t feel any passion from her towards photography. It just didn’t work for me.
The long distance relationship wasn’t explored at all, I think it could have been interesting. Even when Tatsuya accidentally ruins another player’s career, it just wasn’t handled well. He struggles for 3 minutes in the movie, then all is forgotten once he calls Minami. He doens’t even tell her about it at all!!
This last movie really didn’t do it for me, at least I could enjoy catching up with familiar characters in the previous one. Here I just don’t care much about anything. I think we’ve seen enough about Tatsuya and Minami’s relationship, at this point they should just get married and have kids. I would be more interested in watching that, them finally getting married.