I started watching the new anime MoshiDora, also known as Moshi Nihon no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no ‘Management’ o Yondara or, “What if a Japanese Female Baseball Manager Read Peter Drucker’s ‘Management’? It’s one of the most unlikely anime series ever: riding the wave of moe books that use cute characters and manga art to illustrate everything from economics to atomic theory to cooking, the book the series is based on became a smash hit in 2009. It’s the story of Minami, a high school girl who takes over as manager of a baseball team as a favor to her friend who is in the hospital. Not knowing anything about how to be a baseball team “manager” — a word which in the context of high school sports clubs means “female member of a team who does odd support jobs and washes the team’s uniforms” rather than any kind of guidance role — Minami goes to a bookstore to get help. Confusing the words “manager” and “management,” she accidentally purchases Peter Drucker’s famous tome on how well-run organizations are managed, but decides to see if the ideas in the book can help her bring her team to Koshien, Japan’s national high school championship. It’s certainly one of the more unique ideas to come along, and I might learn something about how to manage J-List from it, too.
“What if Japan’s Light Music club members read Peter Drucker’s ‘Management’?”
