Actually, I like all heroes and heroines from Adachi Mistsuru’s manga that I’ve read so far. I’ve just finished Katsu! today, it become 4th manga after H2, Touch and Rough. Just like I said in my post about H2, all main male character are actually have similar nature. They are careless and lack of motivation but fortunately have massive talent in the sport they are in. Hiro Kunimi and Tatsuya Uesugi are Koshien Heroes, they are high school baseball star in their era. Both are ace pitcher with super fast ball. Talk about baseball, Mitsuru also has baseball heroes in Rough and Katsu!, but because they aren’t baseball’s manga, the baseball’s athletes never have chance to approach the heroines. Heroines in Mitsuru’s manga are always cute, Japannese always like anything that is ‘kawaii’, and also have wondering talent in sport. They are school idol who strangely fall for the weird hero of the manga. The big ideas are always same, but Mitsuru always find the way to make it unique in every manga.
Ok, let’s just start discussing my favorite hero. Mitsuru indeed make all of them with same basic nature, but he never forget to add something special for each of them. And special things that make me like Keisuke Yamato are maturity and sincerity. His sincerity part is maybe arguably part of him, because none of Mitsuru’s heroes are hypocrite. But his maturity side have me feel that his degree of sincerity is little bit higher from the others. All of them have difficult parent to deal with, but Keisuke’s father is the most difficult. Before Ami Nanomiya, his heroine, met his father, Keisuke had told her that she would be wondering how can man like his father could have normal son like him. Compare to other heroes, I think he’s indeed the normal one. He’s the only one who didn’t like porn regarding his daily activity in sweeming pool, maybe it can’t be help. But having old fox father who likes teasing young girl is quite difficult for male teenager like him. That kind of situation, I think, that have made him more mature than other heroes.
Other thing that make him mature are his good friends in dorm and his idol. He was one of five strong freshmen who are even capable ‘bullying’ the senior in the dorm. All of them aren’t just good in sport but have good competitive mentality. If you were male high school student who had talent in anything, all you need to develop your own self was friends who could encourage you, directly undirectly, instead of dragging you down to a bad habbit. Imagine if you lived with buch of losers who were good for nothing, it’s just matter of time that you would be one of them. Therefore, Mitsuru had made good environment for the young Keisuke to maximize his potential. He had Kitano, a very smart and well builded student, who also had loved swimming since he was in middle school, and he also had Seki, who just started swimming but have fantastic potential. He also had Ogata, the baseball star who taught him about dedication and hard work. But the most wondefull thing is, he knew Nakanishi, his idol who was also Japanese record holder in 100 m crawl stroke, in person. If I was him, I would be so glad to have that nice environment around me in my high school time.
His story inside and outside swimming poll also show us his maturity and sincerity. When he was high school, he always ended up as 3rd in national competition. It had made him frustation and he even decided to change to breast stroke to have a chance becoming national champion. When he heard that Nakanishi praised him about his swimming and said that maybe he would break his record, he turned back to crawl stroke. Lately, Nakanishi turned him down, didn’t admit his admiration, but he was already settle with hiw own path. Ami tried to made everything clear, but I think it didn’t matter anymore, with or without acknowlegding from his idol, Keisuke was already confident with himself.
Let’s try compare him with other heroes. Tatsuya Uesugi and Katsuki Satoyama didn’t know anything about baseball and boxing before they entered high school. They did hardwork and be successfull as they deserved, but in their case, their incredible talent have significant impact so they could beat people who started playing baseball and boxing earlier than them. In other hand, Hiro Kunimi was Kanto champion already in his middle school time. So, Keisuke had longer struggle than them. The number of his failure and he raised again is higher than them. He need years to break the wall as the 3rd. When he finnaly beat the 2nd, he faced obstacle to reach the 1st but in the end, he passed it.
All the Rough’s reader don’t know if he can beat the record holder or not because the manga ended just when their final battle started. But, the he already won their battle outside the swimming pool. Ami had decided to choose him as her lover just before the match started. His love story was kinda unique as well. There were 2 cute talented girl who ended up liking him despite they hated him at the beginning. Ami Nanomiya and Kaori Koyanagi were 2 high school star in high dive, Koyanagi was even the holder of national silver medal. Ami hated him due to their family history but Koyanagi story’s was little bit funny. Keisuke entered girls change room and saw her naked in the middle school, but he though she was man. But, due to his maturity and sincerity, he could deal with their hatred properly, even turned it into liking. His never give up spirit and the way he deal with woman are indeed the best among the heroes.
Now let’s move on to my favorite heroine. Try to guess, I’ve fallen for her since first time I saw her fighting. Yes, my favorite heroine is Katsuki Mizutani of Katsu! All of Mitsuru’s heroines are indeed good at sport, Ami Nanomiya was promising athlete at high dive, Minami Asakura even was interhigh champion at gymnastic and Hikari Amamiya was member of archery club. But only Katsuki Mizutani who can fight, she’s even stronger than any avarage man. She can beat some high school male student easily. In short, she’s the strongest among the heroines.
I love the story about she protected her childhood friend, Kimoto, when they were kid. Kimoto was the weakest among his friends and he always got bullied. Katuski saved his ass again and again until Kimoto made up his mide learning boxing to become stronger. He loved Katsuki and he wanted her to become normal feminine woman instead of manly strong girl. I actually like their story, it was romantic, they look good together. Bad for him, he wasn’t the hero of the manga.
Katsuki loved another man, the hero of the manga, Katsuki Satoyama, and only for him she showed her feminine side. She tried knitting scarf for him for birthday present. For girl who liked punching and kicking, knitting was something weird and also difficult for her. At the end, she couldn’t finish her scarf and buy a new one for the present instead but If it wasn’t for Satoyama, she would’t even try. Satoyama is indeed a lucky bastart. Just like other heroines, Katsuki was an idol, not just in her school but also national idol. She already had chilhood friend who loved her. Someone who had been together with her for years, who knew averything about her, what she like and dislike, but she never gave her heart to him. And then another man came to her life. Sinichi Misaki, a genius sportman, famous and rich, last year Koshien champion, and one of most promising boxer. His name and face were always became newspaper headline and he also had many crazy fans girl, but he chose to love her. He joined her father gym, came over to her mother’s shop whenever he had chance, even waited for her just to see his face and hear her voice. He did everything to set up a date with her. He kept texting her, tried to ask her out, set up the date and place by his own. What a determine man.
Put aside all Misaki’s popularity, achievement, talent and money, he is a great guy who confesed his love properly and did everything in his capability to date the one he loved. Even if Misaki was a mere ordinary student, Katsuki still should be gratefull having a guy who loved her so much, willing sacrifice his life for her. Unfortunately for him, he also wasn’t the main male character. Katsuki Mizutani only loved Katsuki Satoyama and she settled with it. Katsuki is only girl among the heroines who grow up in broken family. His mother divorced his father when she was very young and she never really get along with her father. Those difficult situation had help her becoming mature woman in her teen age. So, just like mature woman, she wouldn’t easly fall for man. But, when she really love someones, she’s very serious with him. What a great girl. If I was I high school student, I would so happy dating girl like her, she’s typical my dream girl when I was teen, strong, cute and faithfull. You can’t ask more than that.
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