Moshidora - Reviews

Keep in mind this is just based on my opinion. Everyone's got different tastes.

I didn't like it at the beginning. I wasn't impressed with the games they were playing and how their fielding was full of errors. But it was to be expected since the anime is about the management and not about the actual games played in the tournament. 

As the episodes went on it was okay to watch but it's not worth being rewatched. The ending was not a surprise. The whole setup of the story was going in that direction.

My scoring may seem low but having watched other anime and comparing them this was my conclusion. This one scored a 5, which to me means its average.

First off the story. It evolves around a Highschool Baseball Team and Minami, a Highschool Girl who overtakes the manager duties for her ill friend Yuki (whom is bedridden in the hospital). Minami has not all too much knowledge about a managers job, therefore she bought a book named "Management" (I don't know the original title) written by Peter Ferdinand Drucker (He died 5 years ago, a world renowned economist).

In the storyline Minami uses this book as reference and applies the tactics of economic to managing the Baseball Club, intending to lead them to the nationals.

I really enjoyed watching this, the story was really interesting. The mainfocus is not on Baseballs vast posibilites, tactics and rules (it was moderately handled, even if you have no clue about Baseball you can enjoy this show). And most of all.. the whole 10 episodes aired in just two weeks. I suppose you all know how annoying it can be if you have to wait a week untill the next episode airs..

The story had few twists and turns (well it's short..) but a wonderfully built climax. I wished for some romance scence but it did well even without them.

As for the Animation and Sound, in my opinion it was great. The charakter disgn was beautiful (Minami, suki dayo!), the movements were smoth and the sound.. ah, brings back memories. I played Baseball for about 5 years when I was 12, maybe I should start again.. (by the way, I come from Germany, Bavaria). If you know Baseball you might know as well the nice sound the bats make when you hit the ball.

There were quite some different types of charakters. Of course the two main heroines were my favourites, the energetic Minami and fragile Yuki. More or less all of the charakters developed in some way, what is obviously necessary if they want to go to the nationals. As my personal preference, I think I mentioned it all ready somewhere, I missed the romance-part Highschool Animes normally have, but that's no must, so it's okay.

Overall a really enjoyable and recommendable Anime. You will enjoy it.

Personally, I find baseball, by and large, to be incredebly boring. This leads me to steer clear of baseball anime, but, in this case, I heard taht this is more of a "management" series than a baseball one, persay. Also, the idea that they were releasing an episode a day (although being during finals time, thus making it impossible for me to keep up) was very intriguing. Anyways, on to the review proper~

Story: 9/10

Although the ending wasn't exactly something that was unexpected or particularly, to quote them, "innovative," it was extremely well done. In just 10 episodes, they managed to make more characters develop and get the viewer more emotionally attached than many long series I have seen. The premise, aptly stated by the title, is unique and allows for several unexpected things to happen throughout the series.

Animation: 8/10

The motion, character designs, etc. are all decent, but nothing beautiful. They could have done a bit more detail here and there, but it doesn't really detract from the series and a whole.

Sound: 9/10

They make good use of the idea of having a band play songs (convently, they play the OP as a pep song). The themes themselves are well done. The characters have great voice actors, doing a good job matching the character they have to play.

Charcters: 7/10

The series does a good job developing a lot of characters in a short period of time. Unfortunately, an important character doesn't get much development, nor screen time. Quite a few of the characters seemed to be developed then just ignored after that as well.

Overall: 8.25/10

This is definetly worth watching if you have some free time and enjoy seeing odd concepts collide.

I really liked this anime. I was interesting at first because I honestly thought I would not watch the whole series because I really do not like baseball. BUT when I saw that Minami was applying actual Management skills to help improve the team, I started to get interested. It showed a way in which Mangement can be applied in life and not just in theory. I saw it being applied in ways I did not think would work. I honestly never though about how the rules could be applied in sports. I also really liked Yuuki and I even cried towards the end. I am not much of a crier but I guess it just hit a little close to home.

Anyway, it was really interesting and I would recomend it to any type of business majors out there.

Moshidora has an interesting concept; that of applying business and management methods to school sports teams in order to improve their performance. In theory this can work, since both a firm and a team require the same elements to be successful; trust, motivation, innovation, planning, and so on. The difference is that firms are in for the money while teams are mostly for the fame and glory but let’s not get into that. If I am to stretch it, it is not a secret how parents in Japan motivate their kids to take part in sports and other activities. I mean, which other country has made THAT many sports series? It is means to learn how to cooperate and antagonize; useful assets for when they later become workers and business men. Thus Moshidora is probably the first to almost directly admitting the ulterior motive of all those sports anime out there.

One must not make the mistake of considering this a sports anime. This is not really about a bunch of guys clubbing other peoples’ balls and then running home so they can be safe (joking). Although it does concern training, and matches, and championships, down to it it’s closer to a slice of life with lots of interesting life messages around teamwork, hard work, goals in life and so on. It can even be seen as a fighting shonen … without the fighting.

On the other hand this is not a highly realistic show. I know many who were fooled to like the show because it didn’t have superpowers or huge robots for a change and that it also dealt with existing issues in daily school life. Well sorry boys and girls but you were trolled. Although it attempts to be down to earth and deal with existing problems all teams face, it is still presenting everything as WAY too simple to be overcome. My father is a member of board in the local football team and I see first hand many of the problems he faces daily. Some of them escalate to very violent and even friendship-shredding situations. Moshidora is going way too light in the issue and despite its linguistic sophistication at times, it is still only good in theory. People don’t solve their issues so simple.

Another thing that further shows its light nature is the obvious fact that all the main characters are cute girls. Not moe material but close. I mean, jeez, first episode and we are already introduced to the naive girl with high ideals and its sick frail female friend. And they all wear cute school uniforms or gym clothes; I could almost picture a date sim in my mind with so much material. And although women are part of every sport today, very few would actually choose to have a teenage female manager in a male team. It is very… distracting if you know what I mean. Especially when all the girls are drawn cute. And let’s face it, the story is about a girl reading a book and applying its simplistic context in an existing team. When was that ever practical?

But it’s ok, I understand how this can work for most people even if it’s not realistic although it supposed to be. Just a month ago the same fuss was done in Bakuman, which was supposed to be about cartoonists yet the plot was hardly realistic there as well. How many noticed or even cared about that? Not that many. Moshidora is like that; it can be good at fooling you to thing it is real.

Even if realism is not an issue, that still does not take away the fact that the story is quite simple and there isn’t much going in it. I mean, it is just 10 episodes and it still felt slow and simple to me in terms of story. And the characters, as realistically as they seem to act, they are still average anime characters bordering moe and date sims you will forget right away, exactly because there are no superpowers, some important plot twist, or anything worthy of standing out from the lot. Same for the production values, both artwork and soundtrack are not doing a great job in any way; they are just average looking character models and backgrounds with lots of stills and a few hints at good, while the music score is forgettable pop songs. This show is so simple you just get over it fast even if you liked it. 

So is it a good show? No, unless you fool yourself to think it is realistic and you expect to see something light and simple for a change.