What I Know
Apparently this is a show about a book about a girl who reads a book on management and applies it to baseball.
What The Title Suggests
Well the title doesn’t really suggest anything, as it pretty much literally is “What If The Female Manager Of A High-School Baseball Team Read Drucker’s Management?” That doesn’t really leave a lot of room for suggestion. On the other hand, it merely poses a question without actually answering it. How the hell should I know, show? You’re the one who’s supposed to tell me what happens. Don’t make me guess.
Episode Impressions
In the most Asian New York I’ve ever seen (and I’ve walked through Koreatown), some narrator sucks off Peter Drucker for entirely too long.
This is apparently America because there's a cathedral and an American flag.
The only person in color in the entire world is apparently our heroine. Well, it’s an easy way to figure out who she is, at least. The OP is a bunch of people playing baseball while the girl does nothing whatsoever. Is this what management is? I mean maybe, but still, something just feels off. Don’t you usually have to, like, do something?
Oh, you market. Wait, what does this have to do with baseball?
So far, everyone appears to just be practicing baseball the way one would normally practice baseball. As this is the third episode, my only conclusion is that Minami’s brilliant management strategy was to get them to start practicing baseball, because the only way they could be improving is if they previously were not playing baseball. Given that, I would imagine pretty much anything would have made them better.
Four minutes in and I could swear they’re recycling animation. Not just from the earlier part of the episode, but from the OP. That seems a bit lazy.
Anyway Minami uses the brilliant management strategy of bossily ordering people to do things, which they don’t do. Then she goes around lying to people that nobody cares that they’re colossal incompetents, which also doesn’t work.
You HAVE been trying to do something about it, you're just not any GOOD at it.
Fortunately at some point Minami remembers her magic book of brilliant Austrian-American insights into business and discovers information pertinent to her situation. She concludes that people aren’t coming to practice because they aren’t enjoying it. Well no shit.
Then she trips balls. MANAGEMENT balls.
Naturally no one, myself included, has the slightest idea what Minami is talking about when she comes up with a solution. Or says she has a solution. She might just have a magic book. Oh, I get it, her plan is… to ask the coach for a plan. Is this what management is?
That's not actually practice then. That's playing. That's why it's scored.
With the help of the coach, by which I mean it was all the coach’s idea, Minami manages to turn the team into a World of Warcraft guild by encouraging everyone to compete for points. Except no one asks her what these points are actually good for. Can you spend these points? Does the one who gets the most get to feel up the shy girl in the equipment shed? Can I trade 100 points to rotate from left field to shortstop?
Apparently the only incentive is punishment. Fear will keep the baseball team in line. Fear that if they don’t show up, they will be punished. Wait, if they don’t show up, how can they be punished? They won’t be there. That’s a damn plot hole.
You know, I'm starting to think the problems with this team might run deeper than for your average school team.
Minami proceeds to gloat that she’s instilled responsibility by punishing people arbitrarily for not doing things they don’t want to do. Also, she’s not suffering herself in any appreciable way. Is this what management is?
"How should I know? It's your book."
She also tries to motivate a player to return to the team through bullying and stalking. This doesn’t work. She then tries to explain that his failures are actually successes because, um, something something learning from mistakes. So I guess she wants him back so that everyone will learn from his incompetence how not to be shitty at baseball. Well, I guess everybody needs one. This doesn’t work either by the way.
Some chick slaps the guy. This works. I wonder if Drucker had an opinion on beating employees. Anyway her pimp hand is strong, so Minami recruits her as a manager. I guess the losing team now has additional incentive not to screw up.
Finally, Minami becomes the CEO of School Clubs. Sure, why not.
Show Impressions
I don’t really understand the appeal of this. It’s not particularly exciting and it’s barely even realistic. Also that giant plot hole I pointed out. I mean, any sane person is going to tell her to shove those short shorts even further up her crotch than they already are. If such a thing is possible I guess.
It’s not really funny. It’s not trying to be, I don’t think, but as a drama it doesn’t really make sense. The lead character is supposed to be the one who manages everything, but she’s infinitely worse at it than pretty much everyone else. Hell, the short-haired girl picks up a copy of Management and is a genius statistician so I’m not entirely sure why they even need Minami anymore. She doesn’t seem to contribute anything that can’t be replicated by her friends (being good at management tasks, slapping whiny little bitches) or the coach and team captain (knowing something about baseball).
Did I Miss Something?
She doesn’t even manage anything! She just says random bullshit and somebody else does all the work for her! Then she takes all the credit!
Wait, fuck, she’s an amazing manager.
The First Two Episodes Were…
I assume the team somehow sucked even harder than they already do. Minami discovered Drucker and, um, motivated them to suck slightly less? They still kind of suck.
Keep Watching?
I think I’ll delegate that task.
Rewind or No?
Definitely. The show didn’t even really bother to explain anything and just sort of assumed you’d been watching. It wasn’t impossible to follow, but it didn’t really spare time for recap.
Then again, nothing really happened.
Final Single Episode Coherency Rating
3 (William Faulkner)
Apparently what would happen if a manager of a high-school baseball team read Drucker’s Management, she’d still be a really lousy manager. Maybe Drucker’s message gets lost in translation. Maybe this show’s message does.
I shall watch Ano Hana next. I hear it’s about anal.
