Hello there. This is review number thirteen of a thousand. I was ecstatic reaching my tenth review and tragedy happened. My laptop died on me and I wasn’t able to fix it right away. My anime viewing pace was compromised and so was my review. I would take a bunch of Malware viruses over a hardware error.
Anyways, I will review a sports anime this time. A baseball anime titled “Moshidora”. Its real title is “What If a Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker’s?” Pretty interesting, isn’t it? Well I sincerely hope you like it as much as I didn’t. That’s right. I wasn’t impressed with this anime. Let’s read on.
Story
The story of Moshidora revolves around Minami Kawashima who decided to manage her school’s baseball team in place of her bedridden friend. Minami has no idea how to manage a baseball team so she decided to read about it. She accidentally bought a management book of Peter Drucker’s called “Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices”. It’s a book about managing your own business.
Minami uses this book and apply it to managing the baseball team. She believes the theories are applicable and she manages the team more effectively with it. Using this unorthodox approach, Minami aims for the team to reach the Nationals and win.
Taking the Pants Off
In paper, the anime actually sounds brilliant. A girl using business ideals to baseball is something I’ve never seen before and something that’ll keep me intrigued all throughout the anime. Yes, it’s a brilliant set up but the anime failed on one of its simple basics: execution. I haven’t tried the novel and I bet it’s a brilliant novel but the anime falls short on so much that it’s really disappointing. I have high hopes for Moshidora and the anime couldn’t deliver. Let’s point it out one by one.
The anime is of the sports genre. It is also a drama anime. It’s a proven point that once a sports anime doesn’t focus on the sport then the anime fails. I’ve seen some pretty good sports anime with added genres. Baseball and Psychological genre equals One Outs. Baseball and Moe equals Taisho Baseball Girls. These anime works brilliantly because it focuses on the sports but still utilizes the other genre. Moshidora couldn’t focus on a single thing. The baseball aspects were short and anticlimactic. The drama aspects were predictable and laughable at best. You couldn’t get into the anime. There was nothing to root for or to focus on.
Normally a baseball anime would focus on the team’s training, a bit of unruly players and their underdog rise to glory. The anime established these parts. There was a team development, some standout characters, and an underdog climb to the Nationals. The anime just couldn’t make it worth the watch. It wasn’t interesting. The anime focused on nothing. The strong bond of the team was rushed. The trainings were rushed and the character development was brutally hastened. How can you enjoy a baseball anime that doesn’t focus on baseball?
Oh yeah, it’s also drama. I am a fan of drama anime. I’ve been hit with some of the best from Grave of the Fireflies to Eve no Jikan. I know what to look for in a drama anime. Basically, you establish the setting. What is there to cry about? The anime points out that Minami was once a great baseball player when she was young but boys outgrew her and she hated the sports from then on. Her bedridden friend, Yuuki Miyata, supports her and comforts her all throughout. That is why Minami decided to be a manager, for Yuuki’s sake.
Okay. So there is the set up for the drama part. Good friend with a sickness helps friend who hate baseball to love the sport again. The anime couldn’t establish a strong connection to the viewers about this crucial detail. You basically can predict that the bedridden girl will take a turn for the worse. Will it make you cry? Are the drama aspects strong enough to move your heart? Doubtful.
The anime is ten episodes long so that itself was a hurdle. How the hell can you make something worthwhile with such a short time to establish anything? However, it’s not really an excuse. You could’ve fixed the anime if the execution was properly done. For godsakes, a twelve minute short anime made me cry. The whole culprit that ruined the anime, in this humble reviewer’s opinion, is the premise of Peter Drucker’s management book helping a baseball team out. It’s main premise that ruined the anime. Minami wasn’t this genius girl who amazingly used the management book to convince other people of how to effectively strengthen the team. Minami would just read something from the book and tell the actual geniuses that such a method exists. Now the entire idea of the management book helping the team wasn’t really explained in detail by the anime. They simply used it and expected the viewers that the method was super effective and we should all be convinced of how brilliant Minami is. No, it wasn’t that way. The whole premise was confusing and uninteresting. They should’ve downplayed the damn book and focused on baseball and the drama.
You can’t tell me a viewer can’t learn from an anime. I learned the basics of baseball watching Taisho Baseball Girls so there is no excuse. The anime was just crappy and uninteresting. It wasn’t the brilliant management meets sport type of thing I was expecting. Its short episodes, lack of focus, undeveloped characters and butchered plot was super offensive.
This anime needed twenty five episodes to work. Maybe even longer because the anime had a lot of potential but even the basics wasn’t done properly. This anime is loaded with good stuff but it wasn’t allowed to develop. *sigh* Such a shame.
Well on to the positive parts. I’ve enjoyed beating this anime up but there are some good parts. Minami herself was quite an effective lead. She was friendly, endearing and caring. Even when her friend took a turn for the worst, the viewers could feel her determination. She was very likeable and although her personality isn’t that new, she still shines. It’s a good thing because the other characters were one dimensional and clichéd.
Sight and Sound
The animation was pretty nice. Even though the sports aspect wasn’t fully detailed, the anime does keep the baseball games smooth. The animations during the bouts were pretty smooth and something really worth noting.
The anime uses a light palette for the overall feel of it. It has a very nice color template. It’s very light and refreshing to look at.
The opening song was really nice. It’s “Yume Note” by azusa. I think it’s too good for this anime. It has a big fight feel that perfectly fits a sports anime. The ending song was brilliantly done as well. This time, it amplifies the drama aspect pretty nicely. Both songs where very pleasant to listen to and I find them more worthwhile than the anime. It’s like the only thing that’s really well done in the anime.
Overall Score
3/10 “It’s short and underdeveloped.”
Ten episodes of an anime lacking crucial elements aren’t really that big of a crime. Some people might like the animation despite its poor plot and pacing. It’s down to earth feel and simple approach may appeal to some people who aren’t picky with their anime. I wouldn’t recommend this anime but it wouldn’t hurt you to watch it. So enjoy.
The Pantless Anime Blogger 
Thank you! Finally someone agrees with me! The anime…it was almost..well, bland. Like you said there was no one to root for, and no underdog rise to glory. Those kinds of anime work if your doing a sports multigenerational, however others that don’t utilize those things properly fail miserably, just like Moshidora
oh god, finally agreed with me. a lot of people sing praises for this anime and i actually wondered if it was good or maybe i got a badly subbed version but i still feel that the anime isn’t good.
it has potential to be good but it’s far from it. 🙂
I won’t waste your time because I’m another one of the many who loved this show a lot. I’m actually surprised you said a lot of people liked it. I dunno. I don’t pay attention to what the majority thinks most of the time. In short, loved this show.