Anime review: Moshidora

Title: Moshidora (the acronym for Moshi Koukou Yakyuu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no "Management" wo Yondara). This is certainly a competent contender for the anime with the longest title in the world!

Year: 2011

What is it about: A girl, who is unconsciously gifted with creativity, patience, and spirit mistakenly bought a book entitled "Management" by Peter F. Drucker which describes the management of a business company. Watch as she derive the fundamental principles from Management and apply them to managing a high school baseball team. I swear this is pretty damn cool! XD

My review: I just love a decent anime with a character voiced by Hanazawa Kana, and this anime is one of Kana at her best. In case you don't know who Hanazawa is, she voiced Kanade a.k.a. Angel or Tenshi in Angel Beats. Starring also are Hikasa Yoko who voiced Mio in K-ON, and also Tsuda Kenjiro who voiced Kaiba in Yu-Gi-Oh!. This is indeed rather surprising in terms of the characters in this anime.

Anyway, I had but one thing in mind when it comes to this anime: Perfect. This has got to be my favorite anime of all times. In many anime which are in my list of very nice anime, there will be at least something, just one tiny particular part, which just kills it. In this, however, I could not find any.

For a 10-episode anime, this anime is really appealing with its blend of creativity and drama. Until now, I really had no knowledge whatsoever about baseball. I don't know how it works, what are the objectives and so on. Even so, I find this anime very interesting. I am truly amazed by how a young girl is able to apply the principles in Management, principles to manage business companies and definitely not baseball, to manage a baseball club. I had personally glanced through Drucker's Management (I can tell you it's one heck of a thick book) and I could hardly understand anything.

That's what Minami, the main character, thought in the first place. It's dense. Fortunately she does have what it takes to decipher Management's contents. And it didn't take long before she could figure out how whatever she is reading could possibly save a baseball club from falling apart, and eventually take the team to what they called Nationals, sort of like an Olympic sports event for baseball in Japan.

The characters in this anime are quite well-designed, with each individual have their own personalities. The ratio of boys to girls in this anime is about 3 to 1, but (to all guys :P) don't give up on this anime just yet. You will definitely love those characters very much. Often the entire team works together really well, and every character plays a critical part in the development of their sports team. This includes Yuuki, a friend of Minami, who is hospitalized in the entire series. 

And what is a good anime without conflict? Once a while, characters does get into misunderstandings with each other adn conflict arises. But in this anime, these conflicts are resolved in a different way rather what you would normally expect in this kind of sports anime: guys punching and/or screaming at each other. Mind you, there are such scenes in the anime but it's all under control, so no worries. In fact, the characters in this anime are highly tolerant and friendly (Of course, they are Japanese after all), and they are great team-players. Most conflicts, though not many in this anime, are resolved through reason, rather than violence.

In terms of logic, this anime is quite well-researched. And whoever wrote the story of this anime did a good job in bringing in situations where Drucker's principles can be applied to not only save the team, but to bring improvement to them. Speaking of creativity, the coach of the baseball team devised a strategy (called the "No bunt, no ball" strategy) that apparently is very effective in consideration of not only the opponents, but environmental factors as well. If you know how to play baseball, maybe you should give this strategy a try. In this anime though, this strategy does not work immediately. In fact, the first time this strategy was implemented, the team loses badly to the opponent. But that is exactly how it should be. It's an experiment after all. In the end, after constant refinement throughout the series, this strategy has proven work. Much like the case of Thomas Edison (Google him).

If this anime is anything, it's a tearjerker. A very good one at that. As such, I advise you watch this anime alone. Towards the anime, you will receive a great surprise that I don't quite know how to describe. Unlike many anime where the final episode is a complete letdown, this anime has a truly amazing one. You won't expect who the 'hero' who saved the team at the last minute turn out to be. This anime is also worth watching with your headsets on, because the soundtrack in this anime is just amazing. Not just the opening and ending theme, but the background music as well. In fact, I have a folder in my mp3 player dedicated to just Moshidora's BGM itself.

In conclusion, this anime is a must-watch. This is one anime where you can actually learn something. I have to admit. This anime is, at the very least, live-changing.

Also I had been wondering, what if Minami happens to pick up Sun Tzu's The Art of War? :D

Rating (out of 10): 10