Moshidora - Episode 6

After a weekend break, we return to Moshidora's adventures in management, and although their last exhibition game ended in a thumping defeat morale is high amongst the team as they continue to work hard towards their goal.

Indeed, morale is only boosted by the sheer number of first year applicants to join the baseball team - over thirty in all, leaving other school clubs to pale in comparison to their might while the baseball club's current membership seem largely unfazed by the thought of additional competition.  However, with so many potential new team members, and with other jobs stacking up for the management team, Minami realises that it's time to give that management team a proper organisational structure by ensuring each of them has specific roles with an assurance that they don't encroach upon one another's decisions.

As for Minami herself, she finds her own role pertaining to human resources - an immediately tough task given all those new members knocking at the club's proverbial door.  Rather than taking them all on and ending up with an organisational nightmare, she instead opts to interview all the newcomers and pick and choose those that will fit into the team's goals, aims and style or play, whittling down those thirty-odd individuals down to just a dozen.  With that done and with practice still going well, it's time to choose a starting line-up as the summer approaches, leading to a team sheet that reveals an interesting (and not to mention surprising) choice of captain.

After a couple of days away from Moshidora, I actually felt somewhat refreshed and ready for more, just like a Monday morning after a weekend away from the office.  Well, okay, not at all like me on a Monday morning, but let's ignore that fact and pretend that my analogy still stands.  Anyhow, after paying almost no attention to Drucker's Management last episode, this instalment gives it plenty of thought, with the trials and tribulations of allowing an organisation to grow in size and employee numbers without losing sight of its core aims and goals, or indeed without allowing morale to drop within the existing core membership.  It's tougher than it sounds, and to be honest it's tougher than it's portrayed as being here (what, nobody in the team was unhappy about the squad selection?), but it still makes for an enjoyable viewing experience and somehow I like the series all the more for not placing Minami up-front and centre as the "genius" behind it all - she is but one cog in the wheel of her management team, and the baseball club as a whole beyond that, which makes things that little bit more satisfying to watch.