While the entire Touch TV series from 1985 has found release on DVD for almost a decade now, it appears that distributor TOHO may be planning a series of Blu-ray boxes this summer. According to a pretty reliable Japanese blog, the first set is due out on July 26th, 2013 for 33,600 yen. There’s no indication of specs and the last release for Touch was the 18 disc DVD set in 2004, so this one could be split into two sets or more.
The popular manga series by Mitsuru Adachi (Cross Game) was adapted into a hundred and one episode series back in 1985, a year before the manga ended, and it ran through 1987 while also spawning a couple of movies and enduring popularity among the sports anime and manga crowd.
Plot concept: The story centers around three characters – Uesugi Kazuya, his twin older brother Tatsuya, and Asakura Minami. Kazuya is the darling of his town as he’s talented, hardworking, and the ace pitcher for his middle school baseball team. Tatsuya is a hopeless slacker who’s been living the life of giving up the spotlight to Kazuya, despite the fact that he may be more gifted than him. Minami is the beautiful childhood girlfriend and for all intents, sister from next door who treats both of them as equals. Society largely assumes Kazuya and Minami will become the perfect couple, including Tatsuya. Yet as time progresses, Tatsuya grows to realize that he’s willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of his brother, except at the expense of giving up Minami to Kazuya. And thus the story is told of Tatsuya trying to prove himself over his established younger brother, how it affects the relationship between the three, and both brothers’ attempts to make Minami’s lifelong dreams come true.
[Source: Touch TV BD-Boxes]
If these new sets come with English subs I think I might actually pay the ridiculous price and import them, since I doubt anybody but maybe Right Stuf would ever touch Touch.