I'm done with this. I didn't talk about last scenes or lack of closure per se. I've said all I have to say for it unless someone actually wants to debate it. I'm not going to repeat myself over and over.

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Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

Very interesting argument, in that I don't understand how manga like Touch and H2 can trigger discussions this asinine. It's just one forum user deliberately taking words out of context and misunderstanding what the rest are saying, but still.

First of all, I'm going to assert that Adachi is one of the very few mangaka I trust to write good endings.

Second of all, I'm going to try to define what I think is a good ending which, fyi, no one in this thread has done. I think we're talking about endings, not objectivity versus subjectivity or that kind of thing that the entire Internet is sick of by now.

What's a good ending? IMHO, a good ending resolves the major conflict, whether it is emotional, romantic, thematic, or mystery. In romance manga like Rough and H2 the resolution is often a choice: . Thematically, H2 is about moving on. Moving on is part of the personal journey that is at the heart of sports manga.

When there's nothing left to resolve there's nothing left to write.

In H2 Adachi did leave some story threads open ended or, okay, he did not address some at all. Some are introduced and then left hanging (I think two of the four main cast are caught on paparazzi camera at one point, but that photo never did come back). More importantly, some of these threads have already been resolved elsewhere, and the fact that Adachi decided against revisiting them at the end made some readers feel unsatisfied. (I think he did an amazing job with Hirota and Osamu the runner and a lesser job with Sagawa, Hideo's childhood friend.) None of these had to do with the main conflict which, I must reiterate, he handled very well.

Third of all, dear OP, Touch has a great ending but then again your taste is so different from mine I don't think you'll enjoy it.

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“You know what makes humans different from other animals? We’re the only species on earth that observes shark week. Sharks don’t even observe shark week. But we do. For the same reason, I can pick up this pencil, tell you it’s name is Steve and snap it in half and part of you dies, just a little bit on the inside. Because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil. We can forgive a shark. People can find the good in just about anything but themselves. You are all better than you think you are.”
— Jeff Winger, Community

Huh...? You even said "he can't seem to do a proper closure" in your first post here. Explicitly.

I don't care if you have a differing opinion. Just have an opinion. It's not a debate if you're not standing by your own statements.

Yeah, my argument wasn't necessarily the strongest looking back about it just being a matter of taste, I was just annoyed by the one poster saying it was a fact. But I like your point about resolution, and one of the strongest aspects of Adachi compared to so many other sports mangas is how well-rounded the story is, so that resolution comes from the main characters' real life situations and decisions rather than the result of a baseball game or swimming meet. And yeah, even minor characters get a pretty good arc in most of his mangas, so I can't be too upset if some of them don't get enough screen time in the end.

But yeah, I think it really depends on whether being "destroyed" by H2's ending, as stated by the OP, is really a bad thing. The fact that was what made the ending so powerful to me. Adachi portrays loss, whether sports losses, loves lost, or lives of loved ones lost, better than anyone else in the manga world, showing how each tragedy can occur for such arbitrary, senseless reasons, but can still be devastating and hard to move on from. The moment at the end of H2 was not much different from so many other of these moments, but didn't give us as much time to process it.

But yeah, this is probably the wrong thread for this discussion, oh well...

Well... all that aside. I just finished Touch. It was pretty good. First half was better imho, but oh well. (might have something to do with the translations kind of sucking later in the manga--to the point where it was difficult to discern what was even being said once in a while)... I found it kind of curious how the romance was more prominent earlier than later. Adachi developed it to a certain point and then it basically stagnated until the end where he didn't even want to show the final kiss scene (despite there already being one near the beginning of the manga).

I think Tatsuya's character got kind of muddled towards the end... he's confident, then not, thinking about his brother, being his brother, being himself, worrying, not worrying, being careless, whatever... all without distinct transitions or reasons or revealing glimpses into his head...