2011-04-27, 12:13 | Link #66 |
Yuuki Aoi
Join Date: Jul 2004
|
Another aspect of management this anime is showing us is "leading from below." The student manager has no authority. That belongs to the coach. Minami has to figure out not only what should be done, but how to get people to do it when she has no real way of forcing them to.
__________________
Last edited by Kaoru Chujo; 2011-04-27 at 13:10. |
2011-04-27, 16:17 | Link #67 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Neo-Venezia...I wish!
|
More about management rather than baseball, just what I expected. A bit slow and bland but interesting for those looking for a documentary!
Reading the death flag posts on this forum actually made me do some hard googling, thanks!
__________________
|
2011-04-27, 18:31 | Link #68 | |
Seishu's Ace
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kyoto, Japan
|
Quote:
This is interesting as an academic exercise, still a work in progress as a dramatic one. Other than Asano the players are pretty much all ciphers and it wasn't until the second part of the second episode that things got somewhat interesting in terms of plot. Minami did make the correct call when she figured out that the boys are actually the customers. Now she's realizing that the coach is an expert, but he's not a leader - so she has to step up and take on that role.
__________________
|
|
2011-04-27, 19:16 | Link #69 |
Crossdressing Menmatic
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Where you live... the question is, do you see me?
Age: 31
|
I usually steer away from obscure anime, but sometimes I get curious about premises that seem doomed to fail. So when I read the premise of Moshidora - a baseball girl learning business management from a book - I couldn't help but stare at my screen for a bit. This looks like what the intellectual fanbase of C wanted to see, only with less fantasy and more implausibility. I'm wondering if Japan has finally run out of good ideas and just decided to go with whatever just hasn't been done yet. Yeah, this certainly hasn't been done yet. Then I looked down at how many copies of the original novel were sold in Japan... 1.8 million. Eh?! Another part of the Wikipedia article catches my interest: it's a daily anime. Okay, maybe I'll give it a watch.
|
2011-04-27, 21:21 | Link #70 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
|
Quote:
As I mentioned in my earlier post, management theories are applicable to everyday life (e.g., setting objectives; integrity; not selling what you want to sale but knowing what people need). The book and this anime series captured this point extremely well. |
|
2011-04-27, 22:54 | Link #71 | |
Crossdressing Menmatic
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Where you live... the question is, do you see me?
Age: 31
|
Quote:
My implausibility stems in the level of success of such management. I have the feeling our main character will be quite successful in her ventures, but realistically speaking, a baseball player turned baseball manager usually doesn't find success by reading business management books. Managers are more concerned with sports strategy and tactics - which I admit business management may address. I can easily see business management helping the team, but I don't see it being a deciding factor which leads an already unsuccessful team into the next champions. Seriously, how many high school girls have business management books in their library? Beyond the success aspect, there's the disbelief of a schoolgirl actually wanting to apply management theory. Attaining the book is not my problem here. It's the main character actually having an interest in management theory. I admit my own bias: If the premise seems so unlikely, then I want the entire world to be set in fantasy. Yet Moshidora has a very unlikely premise, but it's completely possible. In spite of my last paragraph, I am willing to accept a high school girl following business practices only actual businesses would be concerned with. Every anime needs something special to be special. Ultimately, I hope this anime doesn't go the route of "management theory solves every problem, even failing baseball teams can win." I'm pretty ruthless with educational anime, so bear with me. I see the novel was published after Drucker's death; I wonder if the novelist got the okay from whoever is in charge of Drucker's books. |
|
2011-04-28, 00:47 | Link #73 |
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
|
Ep3 was quite a gem, I feel. The show's starting to turn a corner at last.
It's clear by now that the team, as Anh_Minh observed, indeed suffer from a wide range of management issues, so first principles do apply here. You can't begin to discuss more advanced matters like specialised baseball tactics when you can't even get the basics right. What's more, a great deal of the processes initiated by Minami and Ayano in this episode do in fact have real-world applications that are not limited to business management. There's the need, for example, for objective and transparent tracking of performance. By so doing, work becomes quantifiable and goal-setting becomes a lot easier. This tends also to encourage stronger buy-in, as individuals take ownership of setting and meeting their own targets. And, yes, this does work in real life — I've had the great privilege of working under the best supervisor in my entire career for the past three years, and I've seen how his methodical approach to management makes a great difference in spurring personal motivation. And there was one point that Minami stumbled upon that I wished the show/novel explored further, and that's the one about playing to each individual's strengths. That may sound like common sense, but you'd be surprised how very hard it is to actually practise this principle. You don't make people improve by harping on their weaknesses, but rather by spotting and building on their strengths. I suppose that was what Drucker meant when he argued for the specialisation of labour. The "educational" aspects aside, the characters are finally turning out to be more than just "props" in a documentary. It has become easier to identify with their personal and relationship issues and that's a critical success factor for any drama. And, oh, I chuckled at Minami's fate a the end of the episode. She's unwittingly become a management consultant. |
2011-04-28, 00:54 | Link #74 | ||
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
2011-04-28, 02:06 | Link #75 |
Yuuki Aoi
Join Date: Jul 2004
|
I was a bit disappointed in ep3, but not because it didn't do what it set out to do, which was to illustrate how management ideas can be effective even in an area distant from a real company. I thought it did that brilliantly, and I thought the characters were beginning to be fleshed out and to grow.
What I was disappointed in was the anime as anime. Perhaps specifically the storyboarding and direction of this episode. Things just seemed clunky to me. The standard shot in the standard place, held for just a little too long. And the animation -- the way the characters move, especially the ballplayers -- has always seemed too stiff to me. As for Deconstructor's feeling that this is all unrealistic, the unusual situation is part of why this book sold, but I don't think it is really all that far-fetched. Management techniques may seem abstruse and even ridiculous -- I thought so when I was first being introduced to them -- but they do work and they are fascinating when you start to work with them. I've often wished I was more willing to apply them in my own life, not just at work. Of course very few high school girls read Drucker, but I'm sure a few do. And in baseball, if more ex-players studied management when they started to manage ball teams, they would definitely have more success. Maybe not as miraculous as the success in this anime will be, but it is often a small distance from the bottom to the top, if you can mobilize the talents people have but do not use well.
__________________
|
2011-04-28, 03:38 | Link #76 |
Banned
|
That's what managers are taught these days, no wonder they'll be applicable only to kids and sports
Anyway, has the redeeming quality that they use their technical jargon a lot in the anime... so cool new vocabulary, well that and soft-yuri XD Last edited by Malkuth; 2011-04-28 at 05:46. |
2011-04-28, 05:39 | Link #77 | ||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
|
Quote:
Quote:
Then again, how much specialized can you get in baseball? Everyone's got to field, and everyone's got to bat and run bases. |
||
2011-04-28, 07:00 | Link #78 |
Kana Hanazawa ♥
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: France
Age: 37
|
The system they put in place is smart. Giving the players a sense of responsibility and adding a competitive aspect to the training sessions help increase their motivation. Without responsibility or objectives, people tend to slack off and do the minimum.
Character interactions are still good as well. I enjoyed the pseudo-yuri scene~ As for this series being implausible, only the basic premise is. The author is fully aware of that, after all the title is "What if a female manager of a high school baseball team read Drucker's Management?". It's not something that would usually happen, and that's what makes it so interesting. And you know, it's not impossible that some girls decided to try using management methods after reading Moshidora (it was a very popular novel featuring a highschool girl as the heroine, so I assume some did read it). "What if a female manager of a high school baseball team read what if a female manager of a high school baseball team read Drucker's Management?"
__________________
|
2011-04-28, 07:49 | Link #79 | ||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
2011-04-28, 08:38 | Link #80 | ||
Moving in circles
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 49
|
Quote:
Nah, the joke got lame even as I thought of it. Quote:
To be sure, I felt the episode was a better example of scientific management than general management per se. It's surprising to find the team sitting on Ayano's data for so long without putting it to better use but, then, I can think of any number of real-life cases where bean counters dutifully collect data without thinking further about turning all the numbers into useful information. |
||
Tags |
baseball, drama, production i.g. |
Thread Tools | |
|
|