I've had a very busy past three days, surprisingly enough. I saw Drag Me To Hell last night, which was... entertaining, but not amazing or anything. I'm a little curious as to how it got the rating it did on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm guessing the horrid trailer convinced critics to prepare for the worst, but instead they all were pleasantly surprised by its watch-ability?
I haven't been able to watch more than a few episodes of Touch lately because of how unexpectedly busy I've been, but I'm currently around episode 32. I find the baseball differences between Touch and Cross Game really worth noting; I feel like the differences in baseball, though seemingly superficial at first, connect to different themes of the respective series.
EDIT: (Those of you unfamiliar with the storyline of Touch might want to check out the quick, but excellent summary of the series over at ANN. Kudos to the writer for not giving anything away, as many others are much more careless when introducing Touch to others.)
For example, in Cross Game, most of the significant teams have a remarkable ace pitcher as well as a defined slugger, whereas so far in Touch, the pitcher gets all the attention. And this makes sense in the context of each series: Touch is almost entirely centered on the individual development of both Kazuya and especially Tatsuya, whereas Cross Game is more team-oriented. (ex. Wakaba's Koshien dream wasn't only centered on Kou, whereas Minami's Koshien dream really did only involve Kazuya.)
Also, Cross Game focuses a LOT on the speed of Kou's pitches (which makes sense b/c of the whole 160 km/h landmark that they keep bringing up), whereas in Touch, it's just generally acknowledged that Kazuya and Tatsuya throw fast pitches. The latter series (at the point I'm at) has a much bigger focus on the control of the pitches. This is logical as Tatsuya is such an inexperienced pitcher, but it could also be seen in a figurative sense: Tatsuya is only just now starting to have direction and take "control" of his life, despite all of his raw talent (as shown through the velocity of his pitches). After all, why is it that Kou of Cross Game has very few issues with control even though he, too, has little experience pitching during the first few episodes? Looking at it from this angle, the series' focus on Tatsuya's issues with control might have to do with the fact that, unlike Kou, Tatsuya doesn't really have his shit together in regards to his personal life, and so he doesn't have his shit together when it comes to baseball either.
Also, I must say I'm VERY impressed that, despite being a Tatsuya sympathizer, Touch makes me care about both him and Kazuya, even though their situation pits the two against each other in pretty much everything. I was all prepared to resent Kazuya... but then I couldn't. Because when Tatsuya himself loves Kazuya so much, how in the world could I feel any differently? :(
And all this baseball anime has so gotten to me that I read an article in the newspaper about the recent Cubs vs Sox game. What have I become!
