Remember Your Powerlessness Well: an Abe/Mihashi (or Mihashi/Abe?) manifesto
Title: Remember Your Powerlessness Well
Fandom: Ookiku Furikabutte/Oofuri/Big Windup
Pairing: Abe Takaya and Mihashi Ren
Spoilers: mostly just for the first three or four episodes.
Wordcount: 9,883
Well, you know. Baseball.
Let's just get this out of the way: Oofuri is a sports anime, specifically, one about baseball, and the anime version includes games that span several episodes, games that are long enough to make you wonder what fucked-up reality you're landed in, anyway. If you hate baseball as hard as the ocean hates oil spills, it's probably best if you move along.
That said, I don't believe it's necessary to come into this series with a pre-existing love of the game. Personally, I have always found baseball to be pretty boring, and the last time I was legitimately excited about a Major League game was back in 1984 when Kirk Gibson the Detroit Tigers won the World Series. That was around the same time when I thought that drawing on driveways in chalk was a perfectly wonderful way to spend a lazy summer afternoon.
The main danger of Oofuri, and the thing which I most feel obliged to warn readers about, is the possibility that watching this series may corrupt you forever. I already was a sports fan of the Jim Rome variety, but even so I've been surprised what Oofuri has done for my sports consumption habits. I'm not back to watching the Tigers play quite yet, but I've found myself wandering off to watch high school baseball games and have started reading detailed baseball analysis in the form of novel-length nonfiction books, and this is a pernicious problem for which all conscientious manifesto readers must be aware.
Just don't go into it expecting a Prince of Tennis style throw-down. Although several TV Tropes apply, and although there's a kind of vague promise implied in the narrative that the characters will eventually attain Japanese baseball's version of the Divine Hand (aka, victory at Koshien, the very real and super hyped high school tournament which happens twice a year in Nishinomiya, located in Hyogo Prefecture), the path of destiny runs neither straight nor smooth. I'm not talking about whether or not there are minor setbacks... all sports anime have those, usually involving a character or team going into a dry spell or even a funk which requires some kind of special circumstance to get them to snap out of it.
No, with Oofuri, there's more.
Boys of Summer: the story.
High school baseball in Japan is a big deal. It's so big that it rivals (and sometimes even outshines) Japanese pro baseball in terms of popularity-- and Japan is a country famous for its love of the sport. Many schools with established, winning programs end up with over a hundred players on the team (most of whom never make it to the bench, let alone out on the field). It's big enough that recruitment to these programs is fierce, with offers of full scholarships. The really good teams will recruit players from all over the region, sometimes even from all over the country.
Not all schools have great programs, however. Nishiura High School, which is the school our heroes hail from, didn't even have a baseball program before the year in which the story begins. Nishiura has just switched over from softball to hardball, and is basically creating a program from scratch. The story opens on the first day the club meets, and to start off with there's only a coach and her dream.
Coach Momoe is a graduate of Nishiura from several years back, and her love of the game (as well as deeper motives, which have been hinted at in the anime and manga but not yet fully explored) is what drives her to gather together a team. A handful of boys show up on this first day, boys with very different levels of past experience, as well as varying degrees of drive. And one of them is Mihashi Ren: Supreme Loser Extraordinaire.
A quivering wet blanket of a human being, Mihashi Ren comes pre-equipped with loads of past experience as well as a complete lack of confidence in his own abilities. When he was in middle school, he was the top pitcher (heretofore, "the ace") at his school, but he was highly resented for this because it was widely perceived by his teammates that he sucked, and more importantly, the general consensus was that the only reason he was allowed to keep the position was because his grandfather was the main owner/trustee of the school.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I thought I was as completely hopeless at pitching as Mihashi considers himself to be, I would have probably quit or, at the very least, shunned the spotlight and sought out a less conspicuous position on the team while I worked on my skills, all supposed favoritism aside. Doesn't that seem like a reasonable approach? But Mihashi was never like that... his tenaciousness despite the fact that he was hated, and despite the fact that he himself felt his skills were absolute crap... serves as the core key to his character, as well as the driving force behind much of the drama of the series. (I use the term "drama" advisedly).
So Mihashi shows up for Coach Momoe's recruitment meeting. Although he has extreme reservations about his abilities, he cannot help but declare his specialty to be pitching, despite immediately qualifying his declaration with the whole aforementioned sob story as well as breaking down into actual tears and claiming that he probably shouldn't be the pitcher and maybe probably he won't be joining the team after all. Although he is not the only one who thinks he might not join despite showing up (there is also Hanai, a power hitter who initially dislikes that the coach is a woman), he is definitely the only one who does so while making a huge scene out of it, which is clearly a cry for help. Or at least, a cry for acceptance.
Fortunately for Mihashi, and for us all (since there wouldn't be a story otherwise), another boy has joined the team, Abe Takaya. His position is catcher, he is very skilled at it, and unlike Mihashi, is determined to stay and to work on making the fledgling team into a success. He has been hoping for someone with pitching skills to show up (training up pitchers from scratch is by definition a very difficult and time-consuming thing to do), and so when Mihashi names himself a pitcher, Abe ignores the entire sob story and insists that Mihashi at least show him his skills, to see just how bad it could be.
But instead of finding someone who sucks so bad it hurts, Abe is knowledgeable and skilled enough on his own to instantly apprehend that Mihashi's pitches, although slow, are supremely well controlled, and that Mihashi has trained himself in four different pitch types, which the story assures us to be remarkable for anyone, let alone a freshman pitcher at the high school level.
Abe is a baseball freak. More importantly, he is a catching freak. For the catcher, who tends to call the types of pitches, Mihashi's skills are of a sort that are most amenable to showing off a catcher's genius. Mihashi is a miraculous get, a super find. Abe does not intend to let this treasure of a pitcher go, Mihashi's annoying personality be damned.
And this is where the story begins.
Manga vs. Anime: fight!
Briefly, before going further into the characters and their personalities and why they make such a great pairing, I believe now would be a good time to address the question most questing readers would want to have answered, should they be interested in actually checking out the source material for themselves. The question is whether or not it would be better to start off with reading the manga or watching the anime. And I'm not going to give some lame copout answer like "it depends."
Because the answer is definitive. Watch the anime first.
This is not because the manga is bad. In fact, the manga is awesome, and makes for a wonderful read. But both tell the exact same story, with only the most minor of adjustments, and so it's more of a question on which is likelier to hook you. For this series, it's the anime all the way. Not only because baseball is a very visually intense, active sport which is best seen in motion, but because the animation quality is absolutely stunning, rendering the manga's vision both faithfully and as an upgrade, primarily because it makes use of music and voice acting in such an effective way. The voice actors are universally well cast, and music is used as a way to intensify the emotional impact of various scenes... the music is not gaudy or overbearing, but rather appropriate and even a bit understated.
So, watch the anime first. The first season is licensed by Funimation and is therefore available to English-speaking audiences with good subtitles (I have not listened to the dub, so cannot attest to its appropriateness or listenability-- but there is a dub, if you prefer that). The second season has just finished airing, and can be torrented via animesuki.com.
And now, back to Persuasive Argument 101.
The Person of Mihashi Ren
Abe (thinking, while grasping Mihashi's hand): He's really stubborn! ... and.... his hand's cold. (begins running his thumb over the fingers) He must be nervous. Ah! His fingertips are hard. The blisters are becoming calluses... slider callus... screwball callus... Until he made these calluses...until he mastered that control, just how many balls did he throw?
I have already given you Mihashi's backstory. Now please allow me to tell you a bit more about who he is, and why you should like him.
Because at first, you probably won't. Believe me when I tell you that he is massively annoying. Do not dismiss as hyperbole my claim that he is, in fact, a loser. Be warned, both early and often, that he is going to get on your last nerve and drive you up the everloving wall, usually simultaneously. He is a reliable trigger for both embarrassment squick and personality scorn, and sometimes he will just seriously piss you off with how frequently he puts himself down, and how impervious he is to kindness and praise.
But he is also charming, and wonderful, and sweet. He works harder than most anyone you probably know in real life, and no one is more cognizant of his flaws than he is. So give him a break already... by the end of the first episode you will have gone through all the stages of grief, from denial to acceptance, but in his case it's not grief you'll be working through, but rather the shallowness of almost irresistible and instantaneous contempt.
Okay, okay. Maybe it's just me. My personality tends more to the Abe Takaya mode, and so I can easily see how someone like Abe is going to find Mihashi epically, galactically annoying.
But the specifics of his appeal can be directly tied to what I mentioned earlier, his tenaciousness. Most people who are of the "loser" type (aka, shy, awkward, frustrating) are also extremely reluctant to put themselves forward in any way, because that means opening themselves up to criticism, criticism they are often ill-equipped to handle. But despite Mihashi's known difficulties communicating, and his many and massive personal tics, the thing he is most known for is his absolute aversion to stepping off the mound, and if you've ever seen even one baseball game, you know that the person on the mound is at the heart of all the action, and that it's basically center stage and an athletic soapbox, all rolled into one. Everyone, and I mean everyone, watches the pitcher, and pitchers undergo unbelievable levels of personal scrutiny, by their teammates and coaches and fans, as well as by their associated rivals in whatever bracket they are competing in.
Have any of you ever been a loser in your life? I have. I was super unpopular in middle school, and had a lot of the same kinds of personality flaws Mihashi exhibits... when you are that degree of awkward, it becomes kind of natural for people to want to avoid being around you, simply because you talk weird and are not comfortable in your own body, and that's a serious downer for everyone around you (not to mention, for yourself). Child losers are usually the prototype format for grown-up geeks, and being a geek these days is hardly uncool, but when you are a loser you are by definition shunned, and it doesn't even really matter if the basis for your loserdom is justified or not... the sheer crushing annihilation of self-esteem that comes with being rejected becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy, and a lot of people who are losers struggle to find a way out.
Honestly, this is why makeover narratives are so popular. You know, stories where some superficial change (such as a cool haircut and an investment in a achingly hip wardrobe) are enough to secure for the hero or heroine some kind of universally desired endpoint: popularity, companionship, success. A makeover narrative doesn't always have to be about looks, however... it can also be about the sudden acquisition of some unearned but desirable power or status, such as magical skills (Harry Potter), an important lineage (Harry Potter), or a prophetic destiny (Harry Potter).
But we are all adults here (or want to be). We all should be able to understand these kind of fairy tales for what they are... fantasies, daydreams without substance, unwinnable lotteries of life. The point is that these kinds of outside or superficial interventions are things no person should passively hope for, because they don't come along for most people.
So even for a character like Harry Potter, who has his free pass out of loserdom handed to him on a golden platter, the reason for his lasting appeal lies not in his stereotypical portkey to destiny, but rather in the fact that he needed to work for it. He had to go to school and learn lots of difficult spells and fight against dangerous foes.
Mihashi works for his success. He works hard. And we see his work in process, and in great detail, and the story is set up to bind you (the viewer, the reader) to him with a spell of empathy, since it's just not fair that someone who works so hard should be down on himself so much. You want to root for him early on, just because his efforts are so naked, so obvious.
Specifically, Mihashi is a boy of average height, with a slight (and scrawny) build, who actively stutters and when he isn't stuttering, is often still tripping over his words and flailing physically. He makes bizarre faces, and although much of this is illustrated in super-deformed anime fashion, it's clear that he is prone to contorting his face in really strange and often unpleasant ways. In conversation he tends to be repetitive and puts himself down a lot, and is way too quick to praise the people around him for the slightest kindness they offer him or even the most mundane evidence of competency. Academically he does poorly, and there is a fair amount of evidence that he not only comes off as dim, but is actually not especially intelligent. When he talks to people, it often seems like he isn't really hearing what they are telling him, because sometimes he isn't paying attention, and sometimes he is running their words through his own personal and ridiculous mental version of Babelfish. He loves baseball, but is very poor at remembering stats: I'm pretty sure that some kind of capital crime in the baseball world.
He does have a few friends. There is Kanou (aka Shu-chan), a boy he grew up with and who was the only person on his previous team who understood that Mihashi has real skill. There is Tajima, one of the members of his Nishiura team who immediately takes a liking to Mihashi, and who is the person who is most capable of translating Mihashi to the world at large. There is Hamada, a boy who is one of his current classmates and who used to know Mihashi when he was little, and before he had developed his present level of weirdness and loserdom-- although Hamada is kind of more like a former friend who he is now getting to know all over again. I think it can be argued that Sakaeguchi, one of his other teammates, is also a friend, although Mihashi doesn't totally understand that yet, and Izumi (teammate AND classmate) ends up developing a good deal of sympathy for Mihashi, and is protective towards him even if they don't ever seem to spend time explicitly bonding one on one.
I'd say that all of the other teammates I've mentioned besides Abe are clearly working towards some kind of real friendship with him, albeit at different speeds and levels of interest.
Important to note is the fact that Abe is not his friend. Abe is his catcher, and although it is to be hoped that they will develop a true friendship someday, their current relationship is both too distant and too intimate to be categorized as such.
And that is Mihashi.
The Person of Abe Takaya
Mihashi (thinking, while bent over in agony contemplating Abe's past): What Abe-kun doesn't forgive Haruna-san for isn't because of what he did as the team's ace, It was because of what he did... as his own ace. Abe-kun wanted Haruna-san... to properly turn his way. He wanted... to be in a proper battery with Haruna-san. He wanted Haruna-san to do so not because he wanted to become a pro, but because he treasured the game of baseball... he was playing with Abe-kun.
If only Abe were real, I would gladly hand this portion of the manifesto over to him, because I'm pretty sure no one would be able to articulate his hit points, combat attacks, special abilities, and specific skill stats better than he. But then again, outside of that he'd probably get everything else totally wrong, so maybe it's best that he's not.
Since I didn't go over much of his background in the introduction, I will do so now. He comes from a normal, middle class family, and as far as I can tell his personal biography would be pretty bland if written from a completely outside perspective: he does well in school, developed an interest in baseball from a young age, discovered he was good at it so went on to play in the Senior League, which is associated with Little League Baseball (a worldwide sporting organization) and which separates itself into age-defined divisions: Junior League (ages 13-14), Senior League (ages 14-16), and Big League (ages 16-18). It's a typical sports trajectory: he started out playing baseball as an extracurricular activity, but went co-curricular as soon as it was the better option... although he may still maintain his Little League status, I don't really know.
Baseball is Abe's only real hobby. Considering how all-consuming it tends to be in Japan, this is not especially unusual, and so outside of baseball I don't think we've been given any insight into possible other interests he might have. However, other players on the team have made at least passing reference to interest in video games and television, not to mention porn. Even Mihashi, aforementioned Loser Extraordinaire, has a normal teenaged boy's interest in porn (he prefers nurse cosplay, thank you very much). Abe's only canonical interest is baseball.
Let me reiterate: he is a teenage boy who has zero interest in porn. Already this hints at the fact that he is not the normal person his superficial bio would imply.
Like Mihashi, Abe had a Defining Experience which colors his entire personality. Unlike Mihashi, his Defining Experience had nothing to do with popularity or assessments of his level of skill. Instead, it was a brutal clash of wills between him and his former pitcher from the Senior League, a power pitcher (the exact opposite type from Mihashi) who always aimed to go pro. This pitcher was Haruna Motoki.
Haruna's main attributes as a pitcher are 1) incredible speed, 2) limited control, and 3) extreme aversion to injury. The most relevant of these attributes is #3, because that directly impacted his gameplay in the most important ways. Abe often likes to claim that Haruna doesn't work hard, but we see from the anime this isn't true: Haruna is extremely devoted to personal training, and does a lot of body work on his own time outside of team practice. But Abe's criticism isn't incorrect in terms of the gist, because Haruna is very parsimonious with how he uses his skills in official games, adhering to a strict limitation on pitch count (he will only throw 80 pitches in a game, never a single pitch over) and refusing to use his highest speed pitches except when he feels it will be personally beneficial to him, in games where his team has a chance to win and in games where his abilities are being assessed by pro scouts.
All that would be bad enough, but even worse in Abe's opinion is the fact that Haruna had no respect for his lead as catcher. The catcher's role is to recommend which type of pitch should be made against every hitter, to indicate the order in which these pitch types should be made, and to provide advice as to where the pitch should "set up," meaning the general location to which it should be thrown. In baseball, this is usually divided into four parts: high and low, inner and outer. Critical to understanding this role are the words "recommend" and "advice," because although the catcher's role is to lead, it is not to command. Ultimately, any pitcher has the right (and many would say, the responsibility) to make the final decision on both pitch type and location, which makes sense since it is the pitcher's arm which is being used to make these defensive plays.
In all my dorky research I came across an important idea that pretty much defines what pitchers do. Everyone on the team throws the ball... everyone needs to be able to have strength and a fair degree of precision to do this. But pitching is a very different skill from throwing, precisely because when a ball is thrown, you are aiming for a target, but when a ball is pitched, you are aiming for it not to be hit. Throwing is straightforward, but pitching needs to be deceptive... the pitcher is trying to trick the batter into swinging at balls thrown to bad locations, and to miss the balls thrown to good ones.
Thus, although control is important, it is not the be-all end-all. A pitcher with a lot of speed but indifferent control can actually be really useful, because batters fear being hit (who wouldn't-- it can kill you!) and if the batter knows that the pitcher has poor control, that is going to make him act more defensively, more cautiously, and can bring about the same end that precisely controlled and sequenced pitching does: the goal is to strike out the batter, not hit any particular mark. Haruna's lack of control is not the big issue that Abe likes to think it is, and this is obvious in the fact that his coaches let him get away with his ridiculously strict pitch count limitations, which they would not allow to a less gifted player. Haruna is effective at what he does. He never especially needed the catcher's support to be good.
Abe's relationship with Haruna was very damaging to him psychologically, I think. In the space of a year Abe went from being physically pummeled by Haruna's pitches, which hurt his body despite his protective gear because they were so fast and so poorly aimed, to being able to follow and catch each of these difficult pitches, a skill no other catcher on their team could achieve (this was why he was exclusively paired up with Haruna, and explained why he was able to play in official games during a year when other boys his age on the same team were benched). But also in the space of that very same year, he went from feeling useful to feeling completely disregarded, despite having done everything required of him, and learning all the skills he needed to work with Haruna.
Initially Abe admired Haruna as a pitcher, even if they always had some level of friction between them due to them both having such strong personalities, but by the end of that year Abe had decided that Haruna was "the worst," and never wanted to work with him again. Abe's admiration for Haruna followed a bell curve... it started out low, peaked extremely high (to the point of hero worship), and then dipped back down to low after one critical game where Haruna laid out the full amount of contempt he held for the catcher's role. Haruna never was contemptuous of Abe as a person, and actually always knew that Abe was a great catcher; the problem was that this didn't matter to him, ultimately. For Haruna, Abe's role was to be "his wall," which is a very dehumanizing position to put anyone in, but especially someone as driven and as hard-working as Abe, who was always putting in time doing research that Haruna never used, making pitch recommendations that Haruna almost never followed, and to whom Haruna refused to throw even one powerful pitch (despite Abe's nearly groveling attempt to convince him to do so) in a game where it could have made a difference between winning and losing.
Out of this experience, Abe developed a strong and pretty much pathological desire for control, coupled with an equally strong (but far less acknowledged) need to be useful, to be important, to matter. Before he ever met Mihashi, his goal was to find a pitcher who could be made completely subservient and obedient to his lead, someone who had (or could be taught) the skills to aim his pitches precisely, and who would use exactly the degree of strength necessary for any given pitch. And since baseball was his only real interest, he was prepared to devote all of his time and energy to achieving this end.
The Perfect Battery?
In a word, no.
In baseball, the term "battery" refers to the pitcher/catcher circuit, the teamwork that is created by the synergy of their skills. Early on, the team's teacher advisor, Shiga-sensei (aka "Shigapo"), tells Abe that the battery is supposed to be "one, in body and soul." Abe is immediately dismissive of this... how can he be "one in body and soul" with someone he just met, he thinks to himself. Moreover, in contemplating Mihashi's tearful, terrible personality, he is highly skeptical of the idea that they ever will be that close.
Setting aside the fact that such language seems custom-designed to cater to slash fangirl/fujoshi sensibilities, the issue of interpersonal compatibility is a crucial one, not just in support of this pairing, but also because their working relationship needs to be close in order to function appropriately, since the true aim of the battery is to have a kind of mindlink, a deep unspoken understanding that goes well beyond the signs that are used to communicate on the field. Every other type of code can be broken, but the sympathetic connection between two people who deeply understand each other cannot: this is a big advantage in baseball, where subterfuge and strategy rule the game.
So, at first, Abe and Mihashi develop an effective working relationship, straight out of the box: but the reason it is effective is not because they have bonded and are so close, but rather because Mihashi's loser tendencies and absolutely lack of self confidence cause him to view Abe as his only hope for becoming a true ace. Abe doesn't hardly have to do anything at all to cultivate this sense of dependence and submissiveness out of him; all he has to do is show Mihashi that his lead works, and that he knows what he's doing, and Mihashi is already pulling out his figurative pen and figuratively signing a contract with whatever demons own his soul, selling himself to Abe at the most bargain basement price. The ink isn't even dry on this imaginary contract before Abe has made his decision to rule Mihashi's life for the next three years.
For Abe's part, he just eats this up. He loves it. Nothing makes him happier then the fact that Mihashi is utterly obedient to him-- at first. But just as quickly as Mihashi gave his allegiance to Abe, Mihashi almost as quickly went to work undermining it, by showing that he had his own ideas of what a "true ace" looks like, wanting to develop power on his own, and not simply continue honing his already fine-tuned control. It doesn't help that Coach Momoe is not buying into this master-slave concept of a battery, and had made several important moves in order to foster confidence and strength for Mihashi: the first such step is arranging for a practice match against Mihashi's former teammates, who are now with the high school division of Mihoshi Academy.
And when the team goes for their first training camp week together, Coach Momoe devises a simple experiment meant to show Mihashi that he is not performing at peak strength by having him hold a free weight dumbbell in his non-dominant hand while he throws one pitch. By adjusting his centrifugal momentum as he pitches, Mihashi lets the ball fly and gains 10 km/hr in his speed... at the cost of pain to his wrist. This is not a training exercise, but rather a demonstration of what real training can do for him, and although Abe tries to convince Mihashi not to listen to her, Mihashi practically ignores him, so intent is he on working on building up his core muscles as the coach recommends.
This. Pisses. Abe. Off. It reminds him of his deeply held conviction that all pitchers are, at heart, egotistical pricks. He storms off, and emotionally he is writing off Mihashi as a person, thinking that if he didn't have to work with Mihashi on the team, he wouldn't really want to know him at all.
Later that evening, Abe is off doing glove maintenance while the rest of the team is having a pillow fight (I'm not even kidding), when Coach Momoe finds him outside. As soon as she shows up, he gets up as if to leave, but she opens up a conversation with him about the intersection between talent and teamwork, talking about how Abe is one of the three players on this newly formed team who have come to them with real talent and leadership ability. Abe scoffs, rejecting her proposition of leadership, and tells her basically it will never happen so long she thinks he doesn't understand the catcher's role. He points out that maybe his style of catching isn't the same thing as what she's aiming for, but that he has his own aims and wants to stick to them. Coach Momoe immediately is all, "no, that's not really what I'm talking about," and then grabs his hand and stares at him earnestly. "I understand," she says. Abe, being a teenaged boy, becomes quickly flustered by this, and looks away, asking what he should do. Coach Momoe tells him that he needs to do what she just did (eg, take Mihashi by the hand) and that when he does, he will understand many things.
For the rest of their week at training camp, Abe feels like he's made a real effort to try to get closer to Mihashi and communicate with him, but by the end of it Mihashi seems just as nervous and difficult as he had at the beginning, and Abe is not feeling any closer to him at all. On the night before the practice match with Mihoshi, Abe finally blows up at Mihashi, irritated because Mihashi continues to try to hide things and basically seems miserable, as if he doesn't enjoy baseball or pitching at all. Abe makes a stab at being patient, but quickly blows up in anger as soon as Mihashi starts crying.
"This seems like I'm bullying you, doesn't it?" Abe stands. "I'll say this right now. Tomorrow, without using full-strength pitches, throw according to the signs." He looks down on Mihashi, grim and with ominous darkness shadowing half his face. "Otherwise, we'll lose."
I find this exchange very interesting. Both Abe and Mihashi tend to dwell on their first meeting when Abe tells Mihashi to follow Abe's lead without shaking his head. They both think of that as the critical moment, the one which cemented the nature of their relationship from that point until after the fourth round match of the summer tournament. But if you look back at that first exchange, you can see that Abe was trying to be nice, and could not have known at the time how seriously Mihashi would take such an admonition. As far as I can tell, Abe's intentions at that point were simply to get Mihashi to follow Abe's lead during the three at-bat challenge with Hanai... I doubt he was thinking much beyond that.
However, this time, Abe knows full well what such a statement will mean for Mihashi, and says it anyway. I'm not sure I'd classify it as cruel, but he definitely knows what he's saying, and doesn't care.
At this point Mihashi has got to be looking like Haruna 2.0 for Abe: despite the fact that Mihashi seems to be Haruna's polar opposite in terms of personality and skills, Abe thinks they are falling into a similar dynamic, that of his giving and giving and giving without getting back an ounce of consideration in return. And here he snaps, and says plainly what he thinks he's wanted all along: do what I say, or else. He doesn't want to give anymore if he's not going to get anything back, and he is falling back on the power of Ultimatum to shoehorn Mihashi into the role Abe sees for him.
For Mihashi, this exchange is devastating. As Abe walks away without waiting to see if Mihashi has any response, Mihashi is locked in despair, thinking to himself that Abe will get fed up with him no matter what. "I'm scared of making Abe-kun hate me," he thinks to himself, half-curled up as he crouches, with tears in his eyes. "If Abe-kun hates me, if he ends up not giving me signs. then... my one big resolution to leave Mihoshi will have no meaning."
Although they both look back on that first exchange as the moment that defined their relationship, I think it is here when their dysfunctional dynamic is set. Each of them has such wrong ideas about the other: Abe cannot fathom why Mihashi even plays baseball, because he cannot see how much Mihashi actually loves it, and Mihashi cannot see that Abe isn't tyrannical so much as he is simply afraid of being used and hurt.
This destroys Mihashi's control. That night, he is completely unable to sleep, and the next day before the game, his warm-up pitches are wild and inept, very unlike what they had been up until this point.
And Abe has no idea, no idea at all, how central he is to this nervousness of Mihashi's. To him, and to everyone else, it looks like Mihashi is simply terrified of having to come up against his old teammates. Although that is undoubtedly true, I don't really feel that is the main problem he is having before the game. When Mihashi used to play for Mihoshi Academy, his team always lost, and a big part of that was that Mihashi would implode psychologically... his catcher never gave him signs, and so Mihashi had to depend on his own abilities to formulate strategy, and Mihashi had never had any guidance or teaching to show him how to do this. He tried coming up with plans, but without any outside perspective, he was always second-guessing himself, and so his wavering and indecisiveness transformed itself into nervous activity, those personal tics which unwittingly communicated his plans to any observant opponent, as well as compromising his control. Mihashi wants to be an ace, but he knows that to do so, he needs to be a part of a battery... that the catcher needs to be on his side, that the catcher wants him to succeed as much as he himself wants to succeed. His previous catcher, Hatake, refused to give him signs and left Mihashi all alone to flounder and fail. Mihashi fears that Abe will abandon him, in much the same way.
And he's convinced it's all his own damned fault.
So, what we've got here isn't a relationship that seems fated to end in glory. This is not a picture of soulmates, who only need a little bit of tweaking to work well together. Nor is this a case of competitive rivalry, where the challenge to best the other ends up being what brings them together. We don't even have a case of "opposites attract," where two people who are extremely different are drawn to each other precisely because of those differences: and it isn't a case of instant revulsion, either, where the power of focused enmity and hatred fuels a passionately compulsive attraction that can turn into something else.
Nope. All we've got are two boys, in some ways alike, in many ways flawed, in all ways alienated. They don't like each other. They don't hate each other. All they have is need, and it is not exactly a need for each other. Both want to be good at baseball, and seemingly, that's it.
And on game day, of the first game they will ever play together, the "perfect battery" they've created out of obedience and control is falling apart.
There is no "I" in Team
I've thought long and hard on the question of why I have come to love this pairing so much, so quickly, and why it seems so special to me. I've never written a pairing manifesto before, even though I've been in fandom forever and have acquired at least 20 OTPs, several of which are extremely dear. It's a small fandom (outside of Japan, anyway), and although this is the number one pairing for Oofuri, it doesn't fit many of my usual patterns for why I end up shipping any given couple. And, it's baseball.
So why? Why do I care? So much, why do I care?
First off, there are the characters themselves. I've already gone into their personalities, but more broadly they are both complicated and broken, which are traits very suited to shipping, since it is not hard to see them each as needing human companionship and support. They both have reasons for why it is hard for them to be close to other people generally (Mihashi has his insecurities and anxiety, Abe has his callous introversion and pushiness), and so it's not like romance or even friendship are things they can simply take for granted... for each of them, their natural state seems to be alone. In fact they are both pretty pathetic, and if it weren't for each other they would probably have nobody.
Their dynamic isn't "I had a world of choices, but I chose you." Instead, it's more desperate and fatalistic: "no one else will have me or put up with me, but you."
That seems like a pretty weird reason to ship a pairing, but it is actually not uncommon, and I like it because it gives a sense of urgency to the proceedings: they are both flawed, so moving on isn't exactly an option, but there is a sense that these two are battling some long, difficult odds, and it's not like there are any guarantees that their love will be anything but doomed to fail. It feels like it should be so tragic, but that just makes me root all the harder for it to work... and because both Abe and Mihashi are such tirelessly hard workers, it seems like they can cheat the odds simply because neither of them are the sorts to easily give up. Attaining victory at Koshien seems nearly impossible, too, but that will make it all the more satisfying when they win it: this relationship gives me that same sense of valuable conquest, because you just know that if it DOES work out, it won't be any kind of ordinary love.
I guess what I'm saying is that together, Abe and Mihashi combine two things that are difficult to combine in real life... the highly romantic ideal of "the one true soulmate" along with the highly realistic Dan Savage-y idea that "all relationships fail, until the one that doesn't." Neither Abe nor Mihashi are naive to the pain of rejection: Mihashi had been systematically erased and neglected during his middle school years, made to feel like a ghostly non-entity haunting his team, a curse. Abe, for his part, is the kind of person who hardly knows how to open his heart to anyone, and so when he tried and failed to create a connection with Haruna, he ended up with all the incentive in the world never to want to try to be close to anyone ever again.
An important thing to point out is that although they clearly come to need each other, in ways I consider deeply codependent, neither actually started out needing anyone. Both were broken, sure, but a big part of their brokenness lay in the complicated defense mechanisms they'd each created, displacing any possible need for intimacy or companionship onto the activity of baseball. They ended up convincing themselves that so long as they were able to play baseball as they liked, they didn't need anything (or anyone) else. I think this is why they initially found it so easy to fall into the regimented mockery of a battery they began with... Mihashi had no problems with being obedient, and Abe had no problems with being controlling, so long as they could both get what they wanted... their endpoint was to create outs together, nothing more.
For Abe, for Mihashi, their one terminal error was in displacing their needs onto a team sport. It's not really baseball if the players aren't all on the same page, working towards the same goal. The battery cannot function like a machine, with one person issuing commands and the other obeying them. Both Abe and Mihashi aren't just in it to play the game, but to win, and in order to win they need to understand each other. After one week of training camp, Abe had tried but failed to get closer to Mihashi, while Mihashi tried but failed to become the emotionless lackey who does what he is told. Without realizing what was happening, they both started to see that winning required a genuine connection, and the frustrations and despair they feel before the game against Mihoshi reflect the fact that each understands that he has fallen far short of the mark.
Let's return to the day of the Mihoshi match.
After seeing his former teammates come onto the field, and after being waved at by Kanou (his childhood friend), Mihashi runs away. Remember that this is the boy who would never give up the mound, no matter what. This is the boy who always clung to his position and his ace number despite feelings that the whole world was against him. This is also the person who cried in front of a group of strangers on his first day with the Nishiura baseball team, and who seemed to be resigned to allowing people to see him in that pathetic, humiliating state. He runs away. Mihashi flees the bullpen, where he had been warming up with Abe, and goes to hide off behind some bushes off on the other side of the school somewhere.
Why does Mihashi run? Is it to escape the scrutiny of his former teammates? This seems to be the obvious conclusion, and I'm sure that's a part of what is going on. But he already ran away from them; they already hate him. Mihashi is not the kind of person who is fazed by the jeers of enemies, and except for Kanou, all of the members of his old team are enemies now. My guess is that Mihashi runs because he doesn't want to face Kanou, and more importantly, because he doesn't want Abe to see him like that. And I think he doesn't want Abe to see him like that because he's convinced that once he does, Abe will finish writing him off. "I'm scared of making Abe-kun hate me," was what he'd said the night before. Because of his love of baseball, and his desire to be a true ace, Mihashi finds himself in a situation that for him is quite novel: more than wanting Abe to approve of him, he wants Abe to like him. This is a pretty damn daring and audacious desire on the part of someone who thinks he is completely unworthy of love, and yet it's there, and it's what he wants.
When Mihashi is off cowering in the bushes, he ends up having a confrontation with Hatake, his former catcher. Hatake has deliberately sought Mihashi out, pissed off that Mihashi was still playing baseball and (in his mind) wanting to do the world a favor by breaking Mihashi emotionally. "Why are you still a pitcher?" he asks. "It's not like you don't know what we think of you, right?" . He tells Mihashi that maybe it would have been better if he had broken Mihashi's arm back then. "If I don't do something that extreme, you won't understand, huh?!"
Things are looking pretty bad. Hatake is working himself up into a dangerous state; I don't think he's a natural bully, but that just makes it worse, because he lets his emotions overtake him and there is the possibility that he'll act out in ways that are beyond what he'd intend. It looks like he could actually hurt Mihashi, that's how pissed and angry he is. Who knows what might have happened, if Abe hadn't shown up.
But Abe does show up, and what happens next is the stuff of legend. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen a gayer bit of slashy subtext in my entire life.
"Mihashi?" Abe finds his way through the bushes, and appears surprised to see Hatake. "Oh, hey," he says, addressing Hatake, in that deceptively bored way he has.
"Hey." Hatake backs off. Turning to Mihashi, who is still cowering at his feet, Hatake says "Later, Mihashi," as if they'd just been having a friendly chat.
Abe watches expressionlessly as Hatake walks off, and then looks down at Mihashi. "Break your arm? What's up with that?" When Mihashi continues to sob, hiding his face in his hands, Abe comes closer, kneeling before Mihashi. He raises his voice. "Hey. If that kind of thing really happened, it's no good to keep quiet about it!"
But Mihashi defends Hatake. Mihashi understands that Hatake was only trying to protect Kanou, Mihashi's childhood friend, who is also the pitcher who wasn't allowed to pitch because of Mihashi's determination never to leave the mound. Mihashi recognizes that Hatake isn't actually a bad person, just a very angry one, and because of Mihashi's own inferiority complex, he's willing to give Hatake a bye.
Abe, however, isn't. He's outraged. "So he said he'd break your arm?!" he shouts.
Mihashi won't hear it. Precisely because he can see that Abe is reaching out to him, Mihashi wants to set the record straight, making it clear to Abe just how worthless he really is (at least, in his own mind). Despite wanting Abe to like him, despite desperately needing Abe to support him, Mihashi can't help but offer rambling, tearful excuses upon excuses, defending Hatake.
And Abe is becoming tense, and although he wants to be irritated, he has seen the wreckage of Mihashi's control from earlier, when they were warming up. He doesn't want to make that worse, because he wants to win, and more importantly, he wants to prove to himself that he can lead, if allowed to, and so he wants to try make things right. But he doesn't know what to do. In this condition, he can't pitch at all, Abe thinks to himself, grimacing. What should he do?
At that moment, he remembers Coach Momoe's advice. He remembers how she had taken his hand, and how that had completely tamed him, and how she told him to try doing the same thing for Mihashi.
So he grabs Mihashi's hand, hard. "It's all right," he says, with conviction. "You're a good pitcher."
Mihashi looks up, astonished. But then his tears begin flowing even harder. "I-It's a lie," he says, breaking down even more.
"You're a good pitcher!" Abe insists. He sounds pretty angry as he says this.
"It's a lie!!!" Mihashi isn't buying it at all.
They go back and forth like this a few more times, Abe becoming more frustrated and insistent, Mihashi sobbing even more loudly and annoyingly.
And this is when Abe notices the calluses on Mihashi's hands, feeling them with his thumb, and he realizes just how hard that Mihashi has been working this entire time.
And then he understands.
Not A One-Way Street
When thinking about how I wanted to present this manifesto, I considered and then quickly discarded the idea of going over all the various proofs of this relationship. Problem is, there are just too damn many of them. This pairing is just about as "canon" as it is possible to be while still remaining technically within the realm of subtext.
Instead, I've decided to focus primarily on the events of the first three episodes, knowing that this is enough for arguing their compatibility while still leaving a whole bunch left for the curious to discover and explore for themselves. I'm not really sure how convincing any manifesto can be, really: most of the time I feel like it's just preaching to the choir, and I'm sure mine is no exception. The best way to find out if this pairing is for you is to watch the anime, and then read the manga, and find out for yourself. Even if you don't end up shipping these two together, it's still a great experience, and if I can recruit even one more person into the Oofuri fandom, I'll consider my mission here a success.
After the hand-holding, and the game that follows, what happens is... seemingly, nothing has changed. Abe still is bossy towards Mihashi, and in fact begins to throw himself enthusiastically and wholeheartedly towards even greater feats of micro-managing Mihashi's life. In return, Mihashi becomes even more creepily devoted and obedient, and his nervousness around Abe seems to be getting worse, not better, as he tries to comply with everything that is asked of him.
And yet. On another level, everything has changed.
Now Abe has devoted himself in earnest to Mihashi. Instead of simply wanting to make him into a great ace, his goal is to make sure Mihashi is happy with the time they spend together, and remains glad to have decided to come to Nishiura. And now, Mihashi has transformed his fear into trust, realizing that inside of all of Abe's harshness and obsessive controlling behavior is a person who genuinely cares, not just about him as a pitcher, but about him as a person.
What makes this pairing great, in my opinion, is the fact that it is an ongoing, never-ending work in progress. A phrase that has long stuck with me is "the key to the treasure is the treasure," which is a quote from John Barth's "Chimera." The idea behind that phrase is that the destination is not nearly as important as the journey; when an adventurer goes off to foreign lands in order to vanquish enemies or find treasure and renown, it is the devotion he pours into achieving his goals that is the real achievement. The boys of Nishiura are working, and working hard, to make it to Koshien. They want to be the national champions. But for Abe and Mihashi and the rest of their team, the work they do is the treasure. It is what's truly important. This doesn't mean that winning has no meaning; winning has a lot of meaning, because without desire, without dreaming for victory and hoping for it, the work that they do would probably not be possible. You need to have a target in order to aim for it.
Similarly, the charm of Abe and Mihashi's relationship is that forming a "true battery" is harder for them than it would be for most people. Both of them have serious levels of baggage that they bring into the partnership from before they even knew each other, and worse, both of them have made it even more difficult by their early misunderstandings and miscommunications, as well as the unrealistically lofty expectations they both end up cultivating because of that fateful hand-holding behind the school on the day of the Mihoshi practice match. They've sabotaged themselves in many ways, and this will come back to cause setbacks on top of progress, as they battle for victory. The setbacks will be very frustrating at times, the work that much harder, but that just means that the value of their goal is raised higher, since the work they do to achieve it will be so much more meaningful and transformative.
For Abe, he will become more and more frustrated with Mihashi, more and more upset as time goes by. But that's because he's learning to invest, and allowing himself to care. It's not easy for him. It's not easy for anyone.
For Mihashi, his behavior towards Abe from here on out will become more nervous, his speech more strained and his stuttering even worse. But that's because he admires Abe so very much, and cares so deeply about not wanting to let him down. Mihashi won't run away. Not anymore.
So let's go back to Abe and Mihashi, who are still holding hands.
Mihashi is still crying, hitched, hiccuping sobs, but pauses as he realizes that Abe's hand, the one that has been gripping his own this whole time, has begun to shake. He looks up, and is surprised (even a bit shocked) to see that Abe has tears in his eyes.
"You are a good pitcher!" Abe says. Abe closes his fingers more tightly around Mihashi's fingers, and swipes off the pooled tears with the side of his free hand. He thinks about how Mihashi pisses him off and irritates him, but... "Even if it's not as a pitcher, I like you!" Abe lowers his head, the way one would do while bowing while seated, but also similar to how boys bow their head inside a huddle. He looks determined, even though he's looking down. "Because you're working hard!"
And now he looks up once more, looking at Mihashi. I want to do something for him, he thinks to himself. I want to become his power.
He looks up in sudden, startled realization. Is that what being a catcher means?
Mihashi is staring at Abe in wonderment, his tears stopped. His fingers have warmed up too, a fact Abe notes easily since they continue to hold hands.
Mihashi: "Y-you think that I'm... working hard?"
Abe: "I do."
Mihashi: "I-- I... l-like being a pitcher."
Abe: "I know."
Mihashi takes a deep breath, amazed. He leans back with wide eyes and is clearly overwhelmed. "Really? Abe-kun, you know?"
Abe: "Yeah, I know!"
Mihashi: "I... and I... want to win."
Abe: "We can win!"
This is all unbelievable for Mihashi, but not in a bad way. Abe-kun isn't tired of me, he realizes. Abe-kun... is really... acknowledging me! His jaw, which had been becoming progressively more slack, his mouth hanging open, finally closes, but only to open again into a goofy smiling expression, eyes sparkling. "I-I... like Abe-kun too!"
Apparently this sounds as wrong to Abe as it does to all of us, because he stiffens, bringing up his lower lip tightly as he is taken aback. But he doesn't seem to hate it, as he offers a faint "T-Thanks," noting to himself that saying it is fine, but having it said back to him feels strange. He stands up, tugging lightly on Mihashi's hand to encourage him to stand as well. "Well, then, let's go."
And then they go.
Resources and Reccs
[general]
oofuri The general Oofuri information comm, where you can get news about the anime and manga, as well as links to official artwork and other related items.
oofuri_etc The main fandom comm, not pairing-specific. Here you'll find links to fanfic and art, as well as discussions and theories.
oofurikink. Oofuri has an active kinkmeme, and some of the stories posted are very hot. Abe/Mihashi is well represented in the responses.
Oofuri Fansite- Go Nishiura Go! DATA. For when you need to know about people's birthdays or whatever.
Manga Scanlations. Links directly to Oofuri's page at MangaHere.
[fic]
In Principle, by thehoyden. A short, wonderful one-shot, with excellent characterizations. It's a get-together fic, and I always love those.
Been Here Once Before, by factorielle (continued in The Road Ahead, which is still a WIP). I CRIED SO HARD READING THIS. It's kind of sad but in a beautiful, beautiful way.
Matchmakers and Misunderstandings, by thatreevesgirl. WIP. Noteworthy for pervy Tajima and an Abe who is unnerved to discover that he and Mihashi have a certain chemistry, which should have been obvious to him a long time ago.
Hopelessly Devoted, by shirono. There is also a sequel, Part II, which is currently in progress. She also wrote The Touch of Leather, a glove fetish fic originally on the kinkmeme. "Hopelessly Devoted" wins the prize for "most re-read fic," at least by me. I keep going back to it, it's just so sweet and sexy.
One Step Back, by longleggedgit. She also wrote the excellent "Guilt Makes the Heart Grow Fonder." which debuted at the Oofuri Kinkmeme and can be found here: Part One, Part Two. I love her writing style so much, and the kinkmeme fic is pure win.
... and I suppose I'm not too proud to mention that I, too, have been writing fic. You can find my in-progress story, You Will Not Fall, here.
ETA: ms_rebellious has written up an amazingly comprehensive listing of fic reccs for this pairing, which can be seen here. I cannot thank her enough; it's a really great listing of fics, pretty much a one-stop shop for this pairing.
[art]
Pixiv tags:
Oofuri general tag: おお振り
Abe: 阿部
Mihashi: 三橋
Abe/Mihashi: アベミハ
Scanlated Abe/Mihashi doujin.
Fujoshi's guide to Abe x Mihashi relationship, by randran
Thank you for reading. ♥
Fandom: Ookiku Furikabutte/Oofuri/Big Windup
Pairing: Abe Takaya and Mihashi Ren
Spoilers: mostly just for the first three or four episodes.
Wordcount: 9,883
Well, you know. Baseball.
Let's just get this out of the way: Oofuri is a sports anime, specifically, one about baseball, and the anime version includes games that span several episodes, games that are long enough to make you wonder what fucked-up reality you're landed in, anyway. If you hate baseball as hard as the ocean hates oil spills, it's probably best if you move along.
That said, I don't believe it's necessary to come into this series with a pre-existing love of the game. Personally, I have always found baseball to be pretty boring, and the last time I was legitimately excited about a Major League game was back in 1984 when Kirk Gibson the Detroit Tigers won the World Series. That was around the same time when I thought that drawing on driveways in chalk was a perfectly wonderful way to spend a lazy summer afternoon.
The main danger of Oofuri, and the thing which I most feel obliged to warn readers about, is the possibility that watching this series may corrupt you forever. I already was a sports fan of the Jim Rome variety, but even so I've been surprised what Oofuri has done for my sports consumption habits. I'm not back to watching the Tigers play quite yet, but I've found myself wandering off to watch high school baseball games and have started reading detailed baseball analysis in the form of novel-length nonfiction books, and this is a pernicious problem for which all conscientious manifesto readers must be aware.
Just don't go into it expecting a Prince of Tennis style throw-down. Although several TV Tropes apply, and although there's a kind of vague promise implied in the narrative that the characters will eventually attain Japanese baseball's version of the Divine Hand (aka, victory at Koshien, the very real and super hyped high school tournament which happens twice a year in Nishinomiya, located in Hyogo Prefecture), the path of destiny runs neither straight nor smooth. I'm not talking about whether or not there are minor setbacks... all sports anime have those, usually involving a character or team going into a dry spell or even a funk which requires some kind of special circumstance to get them to snap out of it.
No, with Oofuri, there's more.
Boys of Summer: the story.
High school baseball in Japan is a big deal. It's so big that it rivals (and sometimes even outshines) Japanese pro baseball in terms of popularity-- and Japan is a country famous for its love of the sport. Many schools with established, winning programs end up with over a hundred players on the team (most of whom never make it to the bench, let alone out on the field). It's big enough that recruitment to these programs is fierce, with offers of full scholarships. The really good teams will recruit players from all over the region, sometimes even from all over the country.
Not all schools have great programs, however. Nishiura High School, which is the school our heroes hail from, didn't even have a baseball program before the year in which the story begins. Nishiura has just switched over from softball to hardball, and is basically creating a program from scratch. The story opens on the first day the club meets, and to start off with there's only a coach and her dream.
Coach Momoe is a graduate of Nishiura from several years back, and her love of the game (as well as deeper motives, which have been hinted at in the anime and manga but not yet fully explored) is what drives her to gather together a team. A handful of boys show up on this first day, boys with very different levels of past experience, as well as varying degrees of drive. And one of them is Mihashi Ren: Supreme Loser Extraordinaire.
A quivering wet blanket of a human being, Mihashi Ren comes pre-equipped with loads of past experience as well as a complete lack of confidence in his own abilities. When he was in middle school, he was the top pitcher (heretofore, "the ace") at his school, but he was highly resented for this because it was widely perceived by his teammates that he sucked, and more importantly, the general consensus was that the only reason he was allowed to keep the position was because his grandfather was the main owner/trustee of the school.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I thought I was as completely hopeless at pitching as Mihashi considers himself to be, I would have probably quit or, at the very least, shunned the spotlight and sought out a less conspicuous position on the team while I worked on my skills, all supposed favoritism aside. Doesn't that seem like a reasonable approach? But Mihashi was never like that... his tenaciousness despite the fact that he was hated, and despite the fact that he himself felt his skills were absolute crap... serves as the core key to his character, as well as the driving force behind much of the drama of the series. (I use the term "drama" advisedly).
So Mihashi shows up for Coach Momoe's recruitment meeting. Although he has extreme reservations about his abilities, he cannot help but declare his specialty to be pitching, despite immediately qualifying his declaration with the whole aforementioned sob story as well as breaking down into actual tears and claiming that he probably shouldn't be the pitcher and maybe probably he won't be joining the team after all. Although he is not the only one who thinks he might not join despite showing up (there is also Hanai, a power hitter who initially dislikes that the coach is a woman), he is definitely the only one who does so while making a huge scene out of it, which is clearly a cry for help. Or at least, a cry for acceptance.
Fortunately for Mihashi, and for us all (since there wouldn't be a story otherwise), another boy has joined the team, Abe Takaya. His position is catcher, he is very skilled at it, and unlike Mihashi, is determined to stay and to work on making the fledgling team into a success. He has been hoping for someone with pitching skills to show up (training up pitchers from scratch is by definition a very difficult and time-consuming thing to do), and so when Mihashi names himself a pitcher, Abe ignores the entire sob story and insists that Mihashi at least show him his skills, to see just how bad it could be.
But instead of finding someone who sucks so bad it hurts, Abe is knowledgeable and skilled enough on his own to instantly apprehend that Mihashi's pitches, although slow, are supremely well controlled, and that Mihashi has trained himself in four different pitch types, which the story assures us to be remarkable for anyone, let alone a freshman pitcher at the high school level.
Abe is a baseball freak. More importantly, he is a catching freak. For the catcher, who tends to call the types of pitches, Mihashi's skills are of a sort that are most amenable to showing off a catcher's genius. Mihashi is a miraculous get, a super find. Abe does not intend to let this treasure of a pitcher go, Mihashi's annoying personality be damned.
And this is where the story begins.
Manga vs. Anime: fight!
Briefly, before going further into the characters and their personalities and why they make such a great pairing, I believe now would be a good time to address the question most questing readers would want to have answered, should they be interested in actually checking out the source material for themselves. The question is whether or not it would be better to start off with reading the manga or watching the anime. And I'm not going to give some lame copout answer like "it depends."
Because the answer is definitive. Watch the anime first.
This is not because the manga is bad. In fact, the manga is awesome, and makes for a wonderful read. But both tell the exact same story, with only the most minor of adjustments, and so it's more of a question on which is likelier to hook you. For this series, it's the anime all the way. Not only because baseball is a very visually intense, active sport which is best seen in motion, but because the animation quality is absolutely stunning, rendering the manga's vision both faithfully and as an upgrade, primarily because it makes use of music and voice acting in such an effective way. The voice actors are universally well cast, and music is used as a way to intensify the emotional impact of various scenes... the music is not gaudy or overbearing, but rather appropriate and even a bit understated.
So, watch the anime first. The first season is licensed by Funimation and is therefore available to English-speaking audiences with good subtitles (I have not listened to the dub, so cannot attest to its appropriateness or listenability-- but there is a dub, if you prefer that). The second season has just finished airing, and can be torrented via animesuki.com.
And now, back to Persuasive Argument 101.
The Person of Mihashi Ren
Abe (thinking, while grasping Mihashi's hand): He's really stubborn! ... and.... his hand's cold. (begins running his thumb over the fingers) He must be nervous. Ah! His fingertips are hard. The blisters are becoming calluses... slider callus... screwball callus... Until he made these calluses...until he mastered that control, just how many balls did he throw?
I have already given you Mihashi's backstory. Now please allow me to tell you a bit more about who he is, and why you should like him.
Because at first, you probably won't. Believe me when I tell you that he is massively annoying. Do not dismiss as hyperbole my claim that he is, in fact, a loser. Be warned, both early and often, that he is going to get on your last nerve and drive you up the everloving wall, usually simultaneously. He is a reliable trigger for both embarrassment squick and personality scorn, and sometimes he will just seriously piss you off with how frequently he puts himself down, and how impervious he is to kindness and praise.
But he is also charming, and wonderful, and sweet. He works harder than most anyone you probably know in real life, and no one is more cognizant of his flaws than he is. So give him a break already... by the end of the first episode you will have gone through all the stages of grief, from denial to acceptance, but in his case it's not grief you'll be working through, but rather the shallowness of almost irresistible and instantaneous contempt.
Okay, okay. Maybe it's just me. My personality tends more to the Abe Takaya mode, and so I can easily see how someone like Abe is going to find Mihashi epically, galactically annoying.
But the specifics of his appeal can be directly tied to what I mentioned earlier, his tenaciousness. Most people who are of the "loser" type (aka, shy, awkward, frustrating) are also extremely reluctant to put themselves forward in any way, because that means opening themselves up to criticism, criticism they are often ill-equipped to handle. But despite Mihashi's known difficulties communicating, and his many and massive personal tics, the thing he is most known for is his absolute aversion to stepping off the mound, and if you've ever seen even one baseball game, you know that the person on the mound is at the heart of all the action, and that it's basically center stage and an athletic soapbox, all rolled into one. Everyone, and I mean everyone, watches the pitcher, and pitchers undergo unbelievable levels of personal scrutiny, by their teammates and coaches and fans, as well as by their associated rivals in whatever bracket they are competing in.
Have any of you ever been a loser in your life? I have. I was super unpopular in middle school, and had a lot of the same kinds of personality flaws Mihashi exhibits... when you are that degree of awkward, it becomes kind of natural for people to want to avoid being around you, simply because you talk weird and are not comfortable in your own body, and that's a serious downer for everyone around you (not to mention, for yourself). Child losers are usually the prototype format for grown-up geeks, and being a geek these days is hardly uncool, but when you are a loser you are by definition shunned, and it doesn't even really matter if the basis for your loserdom is justified or not... the sheer crushing annihilation of self-esteem that comes with being rejected becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy, and a lot of people who are losers struggle to find a way out.
Honestly, this is why makeover narratives are so popular. You know, stories where some superficial change (such as a cool haircut and an investment in a achingly hip wardrobe) are enough to secure for the hero or heroine some kind of universally desired endpoint: popularity, companionship, success. A makeover narrative doesn't always have to be about looks, however... it can also be about the sudden acquisition of some unearned but desirable power or status, such as magical skills (Harry Potter), an important lineage (Harry Potter), or a prophetic destiny (Harry Potter).
But we are all adults here (or want to be). We all should be able to understand these kind of fairy tales for what they are... fantasies, daydreams without substance, unwinnable lotteries of life. The point is that these kinds of outside or superficial interventions are things no person should passively hope for, because they don't come along for most people.
So even for a character like Harry Potter, who has his free pass out of loserdom handed to him on a golden platter, the reason for his lasting appeal lies not in his stereotypical portkey to destiny, but rather in the fact that he needed to work for it. He had to go to school and learn lots of difficult spells and fight against dangerous foes.
Mihashi works for his success. He works hard. And we see his work in process, and in great detail, and the story is set up to bind you (the viewer, the reader) to him with a spell of empathy, since it's just not fair that someone who works so hard should be down on himself so much. You want to root for him early on, just because his efforts are so naked, so obvious.
Specifically, Mihashi is a boy of average height, with a slight (and scrawny) build, who actively stutters and when he isn't stuttering, is often still tripping over his words and flailing physically. He makes bizarre faces, and although much of this is illustrated in super-deformed anime fashion, it's clear that he is prone to contorting his face in really strange and often unpleasant ways. In conversation he tends to be repetitive and puts himself down a lot, and is way too quick to praise the people around him for the slightest kindness they offer him or even the most mundane evidence of competency. Academically he does poorly, and there is a fair amount of evidence that he not only comes off as dim, but is actually not especially intelligent. When he talks to people, it often seems like he isn't really hearing what they are telling him, because sometimes he isn't paying attention, and sometimes he is running their words through his own personal and ridiculous mental version of Babelfish. He loves baseball, but is very poor at remembering stats: I'm pretty sure that some kind of capital crime in the baseball world.
He does have a few friends. There is Kanou (aka Shu-chan), a boy he grew up with and who was the only person on his previous team who understood that Mihashi has real skill. There is Tajima, one of the members of his Nishiura team who immediately takes a liking to Mihashi, and who is the person who is most capable of translating Mihashi to the world at large. There is Hamada, a boy who is one of his current classmates and who used to know Mihashi when he was little, and before he had developed his present level of weirdness and loserdom-- although Hamada is kind of more like a former friend who he is now getting to know all over again. I think it can be argued that Sakaeguchi, one of his other teammates, is also a friend, although Mihashi doesn't totally understand that yet, and Izumi (teammate AND classmate) ends up developing a good deal of sympathy for Mihashi, and is protective towards him even if they don't ever seem to spend time explicitly bonding one on one.
I'd say that all of the other teammates I've mentioned besides Abe are clearly working towards some kind of real friendship with him, albeit at different speeds and levels of interest.
Important to note is the fact that Abe is not his friend. Abe is his catcher, and although it is to be hoped that they will develop a true friendship someday, their current relationship is both too distant and too intimate to be categorized as such.
And that is Mihashi.
The Person of Abe Takaya
Mihashi (thinking, while bent over in agony contemplating Abe's past): What Abe-kun doesn't forgive Haruna-san for isn't because of what he did as the team's ace, It was because of what he did... as his own ace. Abe-kun wanted Haruna-san... to properly turn his way. He wanted... to be in a proper battery with Haruna-san. He wanted Haruna-san to do so not because he wanted to become a pro, but because he treasured the game of baseball... he was playing with Abe-kun.
If only Abe were real, I would gladly hand this portion of the manifesto over to him, because I'm pretty sure no one would be able to articulate his hit points, combat attacks, special abilities, and specific skill stats better than he. But then again, outside of that he'd probably get everything else totally wrong, so maybe it's best that he's not.
Since I didn't go over much of his background in the introduction, I will do so now. He comes from a normal, middle class family, and as far as I can tell his personal biography would be pretty bland if written from a completely outside perspective: he does well in school, developed an interest in baseball from a young age, discovered he was good at it so went on to play in the Senior League, which is associated with Little League Baseball (a worldwide sporting organization) and which separates itself into age-defined divisions: Junior League (ages 13-14), Senior League (ages 14-16), and Big League (ages 16-18). It's a typical sports trajectory: he started out playing baseball as an extracurricular activity, but went co-curricular as soon as it was the better option... although he may still maintain his Little League status, I don't really know.
Baseball is Abe's only real hobby. Considering how all-consuming it tends to be in Japan, this is not especially unusual, and so outside of baseball I don't think we've been given any insight into possible other interests he might have. However, other players on the team have made at least passing reference to interest in video games and television, not to mention porn. Even Mihashi, aforementioned Loser Extraordinaire, has a normal teenaged boy's interest in porn (he prefers nurse cosplay, thank you very much). Abe's only canonical interest is baseball.
Let me reiterate: he is a teenage boy who has zero interest in porn. Already this hints at the fact that he is not the normal person his superficial bio would imply.
Like Mihashi, Abe had a Defining Experience which colors his entire personality. Unlike Mihashi, his Defining Experience had nothing to do with popularity or assessments of his level of skill. Instead, it was a brutal clash of wills between him and his former pitcher from the Senior League, a power pitcher (the exact opposite type from Mihashi) who always aimed to go pro. This pitcher was Haruna Motoki.
Haruna's main attributes as a pitcher are 1) incredible speed, 2) limited control, and 3) extreme aversion to injury. The most relevant of these attributes is #3, because that directly impacted his gameplay in the most important ways. Abe often likes to claim that Haruna doesn't work hard, but we see from the anime this isn't true: Haruna is extremely devoted to personal training, and does a lot of body work on his own time outside of team practice. But Abe's criticism isn't incorrect in terms of the gist, because Haruna is very parsimonious with how he uses his skills in official games, adhering to a strict limitation on pitch count (he will only throw 80 pitches in a game, never a single pitch over) and refusing to use his highest speed pitches except when he feels it will be personally beneficial to him, in games where his team has a chance to win and in games where his abilities are being assessed by pro scouts.
All that would be bad enough, but even worse in Abe's opinion is the fact that Haruna had no respect for his lead as catcher. The catcher's role is to recommend which type of pitch should be made against every hitter, to indicate the order in which these pitch types should be made, and to provide advice as to where the pitch should "set up," meaning the general location to which it should be thrown. In baseball, this is usually divided into four parts: high and low, inner and outer. Critical to understanding this role are the words "recommend" and "advice," because although the catcher's role is to lead, it is not to command. Ultimately, any pitcher has the right (and many would say, the responsibility) to make the final decision on both pitch type and location, which makes sense since it is the pitcher's arm which is being used to make these defensive plays.
In all my dorky research I came across an important idea that pretty much defines what pitchers do. Everyone on the team throws the ball... everyone needs to be able to have strength and a fair degree of precision to do this. But pitching is a very different skill from throwing, precisely because when a ball is thrown, you are aiming for a target, but when a ball is pitched, you are aiming for it not to be hit. Throwing is straightforward, but pitching needs to be deceptive... the pitcher is trying to trick the batter into swinging at balls thrown to bad locations, and to miss the balls thrown to good ones.
Thus, although control is important, it is not the be-all end-all. A pitcher with a lot of speed but indifferent control can actually be really useful, because batters fear being hit (who wouldn't-- it can kill you!) and if the batter knows that the pitcher has poor control, that is going to make him act more defensively, more cautiously, and can bring about the same end that precisely controlled and sequenced pitching does: the goal is to strike out the batter, not hit any particular mark. Haruna's lack of control is not the big issue that Abe likes to think it is, and this is obvious in the fact that his coaches let him get away with his ridiculously strict pitch count limitations, which they would not allow to a less gifted player. Haruna is effective at what he does. He never especially needed the catcher's support to be good.
Abe's relationship with Haruna was very damaging to him psychologically, I think. In the space of a year Abe went from being physically pummeled by Haruna's pitches, which hurt his body despite his protective gear because they were so fast and so poorly aimed, to being able to follow and catch each of these difficult pitches, a skill no other catcher on their team could achieve (this was why he was exclusively paired up with Haruna, and explained why he was able to play in official games during a year when other boys his age on the same team were benched). But also in the space of that very same year, he went from feeling useful to feeling completely disregarded, despite having done everything required of him, and learning all the skills he needed to work with Haruna.
Initially Abe admired Haruna as a pitcher, even if they always had some level of friction between them due to them both having such strong personalities, but by the end of that year Abe had decided that Haruna was "the worst," and never wanted to work with him again. Abe's admiration for Haruna followed a bell curve... it started out low, peaked extremely high (to the point of hero worship), and then dipped back down to low after one critical game where Haruna laid out the full amount of contempt he held for the catcher's role. Haruna never was contemptuous of Abe as a person, and actually always knew that Abe was a great catcher; the problem was that this didn't matter to him, ultimately. For Haruna, Abe's role was to be "his wall," which is a very dehumanizing position to put anyone in, but especially someone as driven and as hard-working as Abe, who was always putting in time doing research that Haruna never used, making pitch recommendations that Haruna almost never followed, and to whom Haruna refused to throw even one powerful pitch (despite Abe's nearly groveling attempt to convince him to do so) in a game where it could have made a difference between winning and losing.
Out of this experience, Abe developed a strong and pretty much pathological desire for control, coupled with an equally strong (but far less acknowledged) need to be useful, to be important, to matter. Before he ever met Mihashi, his goal was to find a pitcher who could be made completely subservient and obedient to his lead, someone who had (or could be taught) the skills to aim his pitches precisely, and who would use exactly the degree of strength necessary for any given pitch. And since baseball was his only real interest, he was prepared to devote all of his time and energy to achieving this end.
The Perfect Battery?
In a word, no.
In baseball, the term "battery" refers to the pitcher/catcher circuit, the teamwork that is created by the synergy of their skills. Early on, the team's teacher advisor, Shiga-sensei (aka "Shigapo"), tells Abe that the battery is supposed to be "one, in body and soul." Abe is immediately dismissive of this... how can he be "one in body and soul" with someone he just met, he thinks to himself. Moreover, in contemplating Mihashi's tearful, terrible personality, he is highly skeptical of the idea that they ever will be that close.
Setting aside the fact that such language seems custom-designed to cater to slash fangirl/fujoshi sensibilities, the issue of interpersonal compatibility is a crucial one, not just in support of this pairing, but also because their working relationship needs to be close in order to function appropriately, since the true aim of the battery is to have a kind of mindlink, a deep unspoken understanding that goes well beyond the signs that are used to communicate on the field. Every other type of code can be broken, but the sympathetic connection between two people who deeply understand each other cannot: this is a big advantage in baseball, where subterfuge and strategy rule the game.
So, at first, Abe and Mihashi develop an effective working relationship, straight out of the box: but the reason it is effective is not because they have bonded and are so close, but rather because Mihashi's loser tendencies and absolutely lack of self confidence cause him to view Abe as his only hope for becoming a true ace. Abe doesn't hardly have to do anything at all to cultivate this sense of dependence and submissiveness out of him; all he has to do is show Mihashi that his lead works, and that he knows what he's doing, and Mihashi is already pulling out his figurative pen and figuratively signing a contract with whatever demons own his soul, selling himself to Abe at the most bargain basement price. The ink isn't even dry on this imaginary contract before Abe has made his decision to rule Mihashi's life for the next three years.
For Abe's part, he just eats this up. He loves it. Nothing makes him happier then the fact that Mihashi is utterly obedient to him-- at first. But just as quickly as Mihashi gave his allegiance to Abe, Mihashi almost as quickly went to work undermining it, by showing that he had his own ideas of what a "true ace" looks like, wanting to develop power on his own, and not simply continue honing his already fine-tuned control. It doesn't help that Coach Momoe is not buying into this master-slave concept of a battery, and had made several important moves in order to foster confidence and strength for Mihashi: the first such step is arranging for a practice match against Mihashi's former teammates, who are now with the high school division of Mihoshi Academy.
And when the team goes for their first training camp week together, Coach Momoe devises a simple experiment meant to show Mihashi that he is not performing at peak strength by having him hold a free weight dumbbell in his non-dominant hand while he throws one pitch. By adjusting his centrifugal momentum as he pitches, Mihashi lets the ball fly and gains 10 km/hr in his speed... at the cost of pain to his wrist. This is not a training exercise, but rather a demonstration of what real training can do for him, and although Abe tries to convince Mihashi not to listen to her, Mihashi practically ignores him, so intent is he on working on building up his core muscles as the coach recommends.
This. Pisses. Abe. Off. It reminds him of his deeply held conviction that all pitchers are, at heart, egotistical pricks. He storms off, and emotionally he is writing off Mihashi as a person, thinking that if he didn't have to work with Mihashi on the team, he wouldn't really want to know him at all.
Later that evening, Abe is off doing glove maintenance while the rest of the team is having a pillow fight (I'm not even kidding), when Coach Momoe finds him outside. As soon as she shows up, he gets up as if to leave, but she opens up a conversation with him about the intersection between talent and teamwork, talking about how Abe is one of the three players on this newly formed team who have come to them with real talent and leadership ability. Abe scoffs, rejecting her proposition of leadership, and tells her basically it will never happen so long she thinks he doesn't understand the catcher's role. He points out that maybe his style of catching isn't the same thing as what she's aiming for, but that he has his own aims and wants to stick to them. Coach Momoe immediately is all, "no, that's not really what I'm talking about," and then grabs his hand and stares at him earnestly. "I understand," she says. Abe, being a teenaged boy, becomes quickly flustered by this, and looks away, asking what he should do. Coach Momoe tells him that he needs to do what she just did (eg, take Mihashi by the hand) and that when he does, he will understand many things.
For the rest of their week at training camp, Abe feels like he's made a real effort to try to get closer to Mihashi and communicate with him, but by the end of it Mihashi seems just as nervous and difficult as he had at the beginning, and Abe is not feeling any closer to him at all. On the night before the practice match with Mihoshi, Abe finally blows up at Mihashi, irritated because Mihashi continues to try to hide things and basically seems miserable, as if he doesn't enjoy baseball or pitching at all. Abe makes a stab at being patient, but quickly blows up in anger as soon as Mihashi starts crying.
"This seems like I'm bullying you, doesn't it?" Abe stands. "I'll say this right now. Tomorrow, without using full-strength pitches, throw according to the signs." He looks down on Mihashi, grim and with ominous darkness shadowing half his face. "Otherwise, we'll lose."
I find this exchange very interesting. Both Abe and Mihashi tend to dwell on their first meeting when Abe tells Mihashi to follow Abe's lead without shaking his head. They both think of that as the critical moment, the one which cemented the nature of their relationship from that point until after the fourth round match of the summer tournament. But if you look back at that first exchange, you can see that Abe was trying to be nice, and could not have known at the time how seriously Mihashi would take such an admonition. As far as I can tell, Abe's intentions at that point were simply to get Mihashi to follow Abe's lead during the three at-bat challenge with Hanai... I doubt he was thinking much beyond that.
However, this time, Abe knows full well what such a statement will mean for Mihashi, and says it anyway. I'm not sure I'd classify it as cruel, but he definitely knows what he's saying, and doesn't care.
At this point Mihashi has got to be looking like Haruna 2.0 for Abe: despite the fact that Mihashi seems to be Haruna's polar opposite in terms of personality and skills, Abe thinks they are falling into a similar dynamic, that of his giving and giving and giving without getting back an ounce of consideration in return. And here he snaps, and says plainly what he thinks he's wanted all along: do what I say, or else. He doesn't want to give anymore if he's not going to get anything back, and he is falling back on the power of Ultimatum to shoehorn Mihashi into the role Abe sees for him.
For Mihashi, this exchange is devastating. As Abe walks away without waiting to see if Mihashi has any response, Mihashi is locked in despair, thinking to himself that Abe will get fed up with him no matter what. "I'm scared of making Abe-kun hate me," he thinks to himself, half-curled up as he crouches, with tears in his eyes. "If Abe-kun hates me, if he ends up not giving me signs. then... my one big resolution to leave Mihoshi will have no meaning."
Although they both look back on that first exchange as the moment that defined their relationship, I think it is here when their dysfunctional dynamic is set. Each of them has such wrong ideas about the other: Abe cannot fathom why Mihashi even plays baseball, because he cannot see how much Mihashi actually loves it, and Mihashi cannot see that Abe isn't tyrannical so much as he is simply afraid of being used and hurt.
This destroys Mihashi's control. That night, he is completely unable to sleep, and the next day before the game, his warm-up pitches are wild and inept, very unlike what they had been up until this point.
And Abe has no idea, no idea at all, how central he is to this nervousness of Mihashi's. To him, and to everyone else, it looks like Mihashi is simply terrified of having to come up against his old teammates. Although that is undoubtedly true, I don't really feel that is the main problem he is having before the game. When Mihashi used to play for Mihoshi Academy, his team always lost, and a big part of that was that Mihashi would implode psychologically... his catcher never gave him signs, and so Mihashi had to depend on his own abilities to formulate strategy, and Mihashi had never had any guidance or teaching to show him how to do this. He tried coming up with plans, but without any outside perspective, he was always second-guessing himself, and so his wavering and indecisiveness transformed itself into nervous activity, those personal tics which unwittingly communicated his plans to any observant opponent, as well as compromising his control. Mihashi wants to be an ace, but he knows that to do so, he needs to be a part of a battery... that the catcher needs to be on his side, that the catcher wants him to succeed as much as he himself wants to succeed. His previous catcher, Hatake, refused to give him signs and left Mihashi all alone to flounder and fail. Mihashi fears that Abe will abandon him, in much the same way.
And he's convinced it's all his own damned fault.
So, what we've got here isn't a relationship that seems fated to end in glory. This is not a picture of soulmates, who only need a little bit of tweaking to work well together. Nor is this a case of competitive rivalry, where the challenge to best the other ends up being what brings them together. We don't even have a case of "opposites attract," where two people who are extremely different are drawn to each other precisely because of those differences: and it isn't a case of instant revulsion, either, where the power of focused enmity and hatred fuels a passionately compulsive attraction that can turn into something else.
Nope. All we've got are two boys, in some ways alike, in many ways flawed, in all ways alienated. They don't like each other. They don't hate each other. All they have is need, and it is not exactly a need for each other. Both want to be good at baseball, and seemingly, that's it.
And on game day, of the first game they will ever play together, the "perfect battery" they've created out of obedience and control is falling apart.
There is no "I" in Team
I've thought long and hard on the question of why I have come to love this pairing so much, so quickly, and why it seems so special to me. I've never written a pairing manifesto before, even though I've been in fandom forever and have acquired at least 20 OTPs, several of which are extremely dear. It's a small fandom (outside of Japan, anyway), and although this is the number one pairing for Oofuri, it doesn't fit many of my usual patterns for why I end up shipping any given couple. And, it's baseball.
So why? Why do I care? So much, why do I care?
First off, there are the characters themselves. I've already gone into their personalities, but more broadly they are both complicated and broken, which are traits very suited to shipping, since it is not hard to see them each as needing human companionship and support. They both have reasons for why it is hard for them to be close to other people generally (Mihashi has his insecurities and anxiety, Abe has his callous introversion and pushiness), and so it's not like romance or even friendship are things they can simply take for granted... for each of them, their natural state seems to be alone. In fact they are both pretty pathetic, and if it weren't for each other they would probably have nobody.
Their dynamic isn't "I had a world of choices, but I chose you." Instead, it's more desperate and fatalistic: "no one else will have me or put up with me, but you."
That seems like a pretty weird reason to ship a pairing, but it is actually not uncommon, and I like it because it gives a sense of urgency to the proceedings: they are both flawed, so moving on isn't exactly an option, but there is a sense that these two are battling some long, difficult odds, and it's not like there are any guarantees that their love will be anything but doomed to fail. It feels like it should be so tragic, but that just makes me root all the harder for it to work... and because both Abe and Mihashi are such tirelessly hard workers, it seems like they can cheat the odds simply because neither of them are the sorts to easily give up. Attaining victory at Koshien seems nearly impossible, too, but that will make it all the more satisfying when they win it: this relationship gives me that same sense of valuable conquest, because you just know that if it DOES work out, it won't be any kind of ordinary love.
I guess what I'm saying is that together, Abe and Mihashi combine two things that are difficult to combine in real life... the highly romantic ideal of "the one true soulmate" along with the highly realistic Dan Savage-y idea that "all relationships fail, until the one that doesn't." Neither Abe nor Mihashi are naive to the pain of rejection: Mihashi had been systematically erased and neglected during his middle school years, made to feel like a ghostly non-entity haunting his team, a curse. Abe, for his part, is the kind of person who hardly knows how to open his heart to anyone, and so when he tried and failed to create a connection with Haruna, he ended up with all the incentive in the world never to want to try to be close to anyone ever again.
An important thing to point out is that although they clearly come to need each other, in ways I consider deeply codependent, neither actually started out needing anyone. Both were broken, sure, but a big part of their brokenness lay in the complicated defense mechanisms they'd each created, displacing any possible need for intimacy or companionship onto the activity of baseball. They ended up convincing themselves that so long as they were able to play baseball as they liked, they didn't need anything (or anyone) else. I think this is why they initially found it so easy to fall into the regimented mockery of a battery they began with... Mihashi had no problems with being obedient, and Abe had no problems with being controlling, so long as they could both get what they wanted... their endpoint was to create outs together, nothing more.
For Abe, for Mihashi, their one terminal error was in displacing their needs onto a team sport. It's not really baseball if the players aren't all on the same page, working towards the same goal. The battery cannot function like a machine, with one person issuing commands and the other obeying them. Both Abe and Mihashi aren't just in it to play the game, but to win, and in order to win they need to understand each other. After one week of training camp, Abe had tried but failed to get closer to Mihashi, while Mihashi tried but failed to become the emotionless lackey who does what he is told. Without realizing what was happening, they both started to see that winning required a genuine connection, and the frustrations and despair they feel before the game against Mihoshi reflect the fact that each understands that he has fallen far short of the mark.
Let's return to the day of the Mihoshi match.
After seeing his former teammates come onto the field, and after being waved at by Kanou (his childhood friend), Mihashi runs away. Remember that this is the boy who would never give up the mound, no matter what. This is the boy who always clung to his position and his ace number despite feelings that the whole world was against him. This is also the person who cried in front of a group of strangers on his first day with the Nishiura baseball team, and who seemed to be resigned to allowing people to see him in that pathetic, humiliating state. He runs away. Mihashi flees the bullpen, where he had been warming up with Abe, and goes to hide off behind some bushes off on the other side of the school somewhere.
Why does Mihashi run? Is it to escape the scrutiny of his former teammates? This seems to be the obvious conclusion, and I'm sure that's a part of what is going on. But he already ran away from them; they already hate him. Mihashi is not the kind of person who is fazed by the jeers of enemies, and except for Kanou, all of the members of his old team are enemies now. My guess is that Mihashi runs because he doesn't want to face Kanou, and more importantly, because he doesn't want Abe to see him like that. And I think he doesn't want Abe to see him like that because he's convinced that once he does, Abe will finish writing him off. "I'm scared of making Abe-kun hate me," was what he'd said the night before. Because of his love of baseball, and his desire to be a true ace, Mihashi finds himself in a situation that for him is quite novel: more than wanting Abe to approve of him, he wants Abe to like him. This is a pretty damn daring and audacious desire on the part of someone who thinks he is completely unworthy of love, and yet it's there, and it's what he wants.
When Mihashi is off cowering in the bushes, he ends up having a confrontation with Hatake, his former catcher. Hatake has deliberately sought Mihashi out, pissed off that Mihashi was still playing baseball and (in his mind) wanting to do the world a favor by breaking Mihashi emotionally. "Why are you still a pitcher?" he asks. "It's not like you don't know what we think of you, right?" . He tells Mihashi that maybe it would have been better if he had broken Mihashi's arm back then. "If I don't do something that extreme, you won't understand, huh?!"
Things are looking pretty bad. Hatake is working himself up into a dangerous state; I don't think he's a natural bully, but that just makes it worse, because he lets his emotions overtake him and there is the possibility that he'll act out in ways that are beyond what he'd intend. It looks like he could actually hurt Mihashi, that's how pissed and angry he is. Who knows what might have happened, if Abe hadn't shown up.
But Abe does show up, and what happens next is the stuff of legend. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen a gayer bit of slashy subtext in my entire life.
"Mihashi?" Abe finds his way through the bushes, and appears surprised to see Hatake. "Oh, hey," he says, addressing Hatake, in that deceptively bored way he has.
"Hey." Hatake backs off. Turning to Mihashi, who is still cowering at his feet, Hatake says "Later, Mihashi," as if they'd just been having a friendly chat.
Abe watches expressionlessly as Hatake walks off, and then looks down at Mihashi. "Break your arm? What's up with that?" When Mihashi continues to sob, hiding his face in his hands, Abe comes closer, kneeling before Mihashi. He raises his voice. "Hey. If that kind of thing really happened, it's no good to keep quiet about it!"
But Mihashi defends Hatake. Mihashi understands that Hatake was only trying to protect Kanou, Mihashi's childhood friend, who is also the pitcher who wasn't allowed to pitch because of Mihashi's determination never to leave the mound. Mihashi recognizes that Hatake isn't actually a bad person, just a very angry one, and because of Mihashi's own inferiority complex, he's willing to give Hatake a bye.
Abe, however, isn't. He's outraged. "So he said he'd break your arm?!" he shouts.
Mihashi won't hear it. Precisely because he can see that Abe is reaching out to him, Mihashi wants to set the record straight, making it clear to Abe just how worthless he really is (at least, in his own mind). Despite wanting Abe to like him, despite desperately needing Abe to support him, Mihashi can't help but offer rambling, tearful excuses upon excuses, defending Hatake.
And Abe is becoming tense, and although he wants to be irritated, he has seen the wreckage of Mihashi's control from earlier, when they were warming up. He doesn't want to make that worse, because he wants to win, and more importantly, he wants to prove to himself that he can lead, if allowed to, and so he wants to try make things right. But he doesn't know what to do. In this condition, he can't pitch at all, Abe thinks to himself, grimacing. What should he do?
At that moment, he remembers Coach Momoe's advice. He remembers how she had taken his hand, and how that had completely tamed him, and how she told him to try doing the same thing for Mihashi.
So he grabs Mihashi's hand, hard. "It's all right," he says, with conviction. "You're a good pitcher."
Mihashi looks up, astonished. But then his tears begin flowing even harder. "I-It's a lie," he says, breaking down even more.
"You're a good pitcher!" Abe insists. He sounds pretty angry as he says this.
"It's a lie!!!" Mihashi isn't buying it at all.
They go back and forth like this a few more times, Abe becoming more frustrated and insistent, Mihashi sobbing even more loudly and annoyingly.
And this is when Abe notices the calluses on Mihashi's hands, feeling them with his thumb, and he realizes just how hard that Mihashi has been working this entire time.
And then he understands.
Not A One-Way Street
When thinking about how I wanted to present this manifesto, I considered and then quickly discarded the idea of going over all the various proofs of this relationship. Problem is, there are just too damn many of them. This pairing is just about as "canon" as it is possible to be while still remaining technically within the realm of subtext.
Instead, I've decided to focus primarily on the events of the first three episodes, knowing that this is enough for arguing their compatibility while still leaving a whole bunch left for the curious to discover and explore for themselves. I'm not really sure how convincing any manifesto can be, really: most of the time I feel like it's just preaching to the choir, and I'm sure mine is no exception. The best way to find out if this pairing is for you is to watch the anime, and then read the manga, and find out for yourself. Even if you don't end up shipping these two together, it's still a great experience, and if I can recruit even one more person into the Oofuri fandom, I'll consider my mission here a success.
After the hand-holding, and the game that follows, what happens is... seemingly, nothing has changed. Abe still is bossy towards Mihashi, and in fact begins to throw himself enthusiastically and wholeheartedly towards even greater feats of micro-managing Mihashi's life. In return, Mihashi becomes even more creepily devoted and obedient, and his nervousness around Abe seems to be getting worse, not better, as he tries to comply with everything that is asked of him.
And yet. On another level, everything has changed.
Now Abe has devoted himself in earnest to Mihashi. Instead of simply wanting to make him into a great ace, his goal is to make sure Mihashi is happy with the time they spend together, and remains glad to have decided to come to Nishiura. And now, Mihashi has transformed his fear into trust, realizing that inside of all of Abe's harshness and obsessive controlling behavior is a person who genuinely cares, not just about him as a pitcher, but about him as a person.
What makes this pairing great, in my opinion, is the fact that it is an ongoing, never-ending work in progress. A phrase that has long stuck with me is "the key to the treasure is the treasure," which is a quote from John Barth's "Chimera." The idea behind that phrase is that the destination is not nearly as important as the journey; when an adventurer goes off to foreign lands in order to vanquish enemies or find treasure and renown, it is the devotion he pours into achieving his goals that is the real achievement. The boys of Nishiura are working, and working hard, to make it to Koshien. They want to be the national champions. But for Abe and Mihashi and the rest of their team, the work they do is the treasure. It is what's truly important. This doesn't mean that winning has no meaning; winning has a lot of meaning, because without desire, without dreaming for victory and hoping for it, the work that they do would probably not be possible. You need to have a target in order to aim for it.
Similarly, the charm of Abe and Mihashi's relationship is that forming a "true battery" is harder for them than it would be for most people. Both of them have serious levels of baggage that they bring into the partnership from before they even knew each other, and worse, both of them have made it even more difficult by their early misunderstandings and miscommunications, as well as the unrealistically lofty expectations they both end up cultivating because of that fateful hand-holding behind the school on the day of the Mihoshi practice match. They've sabotaged themselves in many ways, and this will come back to cause setbacks on top of progress, as they battle for victory. The setbacks will be very frustrating at times, the work that much harder, but that just means that the value of their goal is raised higher, since the work they do to achieve it will be so much more meaningful and transformative.
For Abe, he will become more and more frustrated with Mihashi, more and more upset as time goes by. But that's because he's learning to invest, and allowing himself to care. It's not easy for him. It's not easy for anyone.
For Mihashi, his behavior towards Abe from here on out will become more nervous, his speech more strained and his stuttering even worse. But that's because he admires Abe so very much, and cares so deeply about not wanting to let him down. Mihashi won't run away. Not anymore.
So let's go back to Abe and Mihashi, who are still holding hands.
Mihashi is still crying, hitched, hiccuping sobs, but pauses as he realizes that Abe's hand, the one that has been gripping his own this whole time, has begun to shake. He looks up, and is surprised (even a bit shocked) to see that Abe has tears in his eyes.
"You are a good pitcher!" Abe says. Abe closes his fingers more tightly around Mihashi's fingers, and swipes off the pooled tears with the side of his free hand. He thinks about how Mihashi pisses him off and irritates him, but... "Even if it's not as a pitcher, I like you!" Abe lowers his head, the way one would do while bowing while seated, but also similar to how boys bow their head inside a huddle. He looks determined, even though he's looking down. "Because you're working hard!"
And now he looks up once more, looking at Mihashi. I want to do something for him, he thinks to himself. I want to become his power.
He looks up in sudden, startled realization. Is that what being a catcher means?
Mihashi is staring at Abe in wonderment, his tears stopped. His fingers have warmed up too, a fact Abe notes easily since they continue to hold hands.
Mihashi: "Y-you think that I'm... working hard?"
Abe: "I do."
Mihashi: "I-- I... l-like being a pitcher."
Abe: "I know."
Mihashi takes a deep breath, amazed. He leans back with wide eyes and is clearly overwhelmed. "Really? Abe-kun, you know?"
Abe: "Yeah, I know!"
Mihashi: "I... and I... want to win."
Abe: "We can win!"
This is all unbelievable for Mihashi, but not in a bad way. Abe-kun isn't tired of me, he realizes. Abe-kun... is really... acknowledging me! His jaw, which had been becoming progressively more slack, his mouth hanging open, finally closes, but only to open again into a goofy smiling expression, eyes sparkling. "I-I... like Abe-kun too!"
Apparently this sounds as wrong to Abe as it does to all of us, because he stiffens, bringing up his lower lip tightly as he is taken aback. But he doesn't seem to hate it, as he offers a faint "T-Thanks," noting to himself that saying it is fine, but having it said back to him feels strange. He stands up, tugging lightly on Mihashi's hand to encourage him to stand as well. "Well, then, let's go."
And then they go.
Resources and Reccs
[general]
oofuri The general Oofuri information comm, where you can get news about the anime and manga, as well as links to official artwork and other related items.
oofuri_etc The main fandom comm, not pairing-specific. Here you'll find links to fanfic and art, as well as discussions and theories.
oofurikink. Oofuri has an active kinkmeme, and some of the stories posted are very hot. Abe/Mihashi is well represented in the responses.
Oofuri Fansite- Go Nishiura Go! DATA. For when you need to know about people's birthdays or whatever.
Manga Scanlations. Links directly to Oofuri's page at MangaHere.
[fic]
In Principle, by thehoyden. A short, wonderful one-shot, with excellent characterizations. It's a get-together fic, and I always love those.
Been Here Once Before, by factorielle (continued in The Road Ahead, which is still a WIP). I CRIED SO HARD READING THIS. It's kind of sad but in a beautiful, beautiful way.
Matchmakers and Misunderstandings, by thatreevesgirl. WIP. Noteworthy for pervy Tajima and an Abe who is unnerved to discover that he and Mihashi have a certain chemistry, which should have been obvious to him a long time ago.
Hopelessly Devoted, by shirono. There is also a sequel, Part II, which is currently in progress. She also wrote The Touch of Leather, a glove fetish fic originally on the kinkmeme. "Hopelessly Devoted" wins the prize for "most re-read fic," at least by me. I keep going back to it, it's just so sweet and sexy.
One Step Back, by longleggedgit. She also wrote the excellent "Guilt Makes the Heart Grow Fonder." which debuted at the Oofuri Kinkmeme and can be found here: Part One, Part Two. I love her writing style so much, and the kinkmeme fic is pure win.
... and I suppose I'm not too proud to mention that I, too, have been writing fic. You can find my in-progress story, You Will Not Fall, here.
ETA: ms_rebellious has written up an amazingly comprehensive listing of fic reccs for this pairing, which can be seen here. I cannot thank her enough; it's a really great listing of fics, pretty much a one-stop shop for this pairing.
[art]
Pixiv tags:
Oofuri general tag: おお振り
Abe: 阿部
Mihashi: 三橋
Abe/Mihashi: アベミハ
Scanlated Abe/Mihashi doujin.
Fujoshi's guide to Abe x Mihashi relationship, by randran
Thank you for reading. ♥