Review of Touch

Original manga: Adachi Mitsuru

Cast:
Asakura Minami (Nagasawa Masami)
Uesugi Tatsuya (Saito Shota)
Uesgui Kazuya (Saito Keita)
Harada Shohei (RIKIYA)
Matsuhira Kotaro (Hirazuka Shinsuke)
Kuroki Takeshi (Uehara Kazama)
Hyuga Sayuri (Ando Nozomi)
Arata Akio (Fukushi Seiji)
Yabe Sonoko (Wakatsuki Chinatsu)
Okamoto-sensei (Tokui Yu)
Bucchou-sensei (Yamazaki Hajime)
Taiiku-sensei (Takasugi Wataru)
Asakura Shinobu (Ikuta Tomoko)
Tsuda Eiji (Honda Hakutaro)
Uesugi Shingo (Kohinata Fumio)
Asakura Toshio (Takuma Nobu)

To be frank, my only reason for watching this is for Nagasawa Masami. (Now that I come to think of it, my interest in her has died down considerably over the years. :-P)

And the reasons why I have a lack of enthusiasm to watch this:
- I don't understand and dislike baseball.

- My first encounter with an Adachi Mitsuru comic, "H2" made me worry whether this would be as bad as that. I couldn't even finish the first volume of H2 because I got so irritated by the constant monologue by the lead character Hiro and I knew nuts about baseball.

- The male leads didn't really appeal to me.

After watching this, I have only one word to say: BORING.

I won't go into details about my lack of knowledge and interest in baseball again.

The story is rather slow-moving and I found it too idealistic which is typical of stories about teenagers. The elder twin brother suddenly joins the baseball team and becomes the ace player, brings the whole team to the desired Koushien?! That's really too predictable.

Besides that, the triangle relationship between the twin brothers and Asakura Minami (Nagasawa) wasn't very interesting. First of all, it was easy to see whom Minami loved in the first place so there wasn't any competition between the brothers so as to speak. In addition, the way of showing their feelings was so subtle that I don't think the teenagers of these days would behave in this manner. Maybe it's because the comic was published years ago so if the whole structure was adapted faithfully in this movie, some developments may seem to be very different from the current society trends. That type of puppy love just doesn't look like what even junior high students would get involved...

Although the lead actress is supposed to be Nagasawa, I get the idea that Saito Shota has a meatier role because his character has more emotional developments. Nagasawa's performance is fine on the whole and she looks quite good in this movie. Only suggestion to her is to avoid one-piece dresses which do not show off the flattering side of her tall and slender figure. Frankly speaking, she's considered tall among the younger female actresses but in this case, the balance on screen seems quite weird because the twins do not have a huge height difference with Nagasawa. It's probably best to get a taller guy next time.

I would rate this 4 out of 10. If you are in this for Nagasawa, this might be worth a watch though but don't expect too much from the story.