Moshidora 3 – a walk over glass and fire
April 28, 2011
Fall comes and the team seems to lose it's motivation. But, hey, check out those ginkgo leaves!
Episode 3 of Moshidora (What if a female manager of a high school baseball team read Drucker’s Management?) sees the team struggling against complacency. The Summer is gone, and with it the excitement of the baseball season. Without games to play in, attendance at practice drops off. In short, the team is having motivation problems. Is there a solution to this problem? “Huh? Well … yes.”
Sometimes people just need a little push.
I won’t go into details about the plot this time. Instead this very seasonal episode is a good opportunity to admire some of the nice art work this show has to offer. The one comment I would make is that the sudden gathering of all the clubs to ask Minami for help was ridiculous. One example of how ridiculous it was: all of the clubs appeared at exactly the same time; that couldn’t happen without planned coordination. Another example of how ridiculous it was: each club had representatives who were wearing some appropriate item (an apron for the Home Ec. club, goggles for the Swim club, and so on), which is convenient, but unrealistic. I’m going to assume this was just intended as a bit of humor, and to show that people recognize what a great job Minami is doing with the baseball club. In my mind, it didn’t really happen, and Moshidora will continue on the mostly realistic path it had been pursuing previously. (I hope).
The coach's office has a lot of cool stuff in it.
The coach works in the Social Sciences Library. In addition to the full book cases we saw in episode 2, we can see maps on the wall, rolled up charts of some sort, different kinds of cabinets, and a collection of fine ceramics. It is a very detailed and particular setting, and we get to see it from a variety of angles. It certainly is believable as a work environment.
Awesome color choice!
I just love this color! I don’t know if this is a realistic color for how Fall evenings looks in Japan, but it is the color I want them to be! This reddish-orange is sometimes called vermilion, and has a curious history. It comes naturally from mercury ore (called cinnabar, or sindoor in India), and the manufacture of synthetic vermilion was one of the true successes of the Renaissance alchemists, in that it made an otherwise prohibitively expensive material available for wide-spread use by artists. Regardless, it looks awesome, so hats off to the color designer, who managed to convey a feeling of a warm, happy Fall in the scene where the team starts getting its groove back.
Abandoned Factory Anime Review 
April 28, 2011 at 2:48 pm
I remember from your discussion on episode one how you make a clear distinction between art style and animation, which I think is important to make. I originally talked about how I didn’t like the animation in my own blog entry, but I have to agree with you as well that some of the art truly surprises and pleases me. Example: those occasional scenes where we get a still image that almost looks like some type of folk art (makes me think of the folk-art in Kemono no Souja Erin). Though I’m not sure if it really fits into the show, I still appreciate the attempt.
April 28, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Yeah, they also have included a lot of images of bugs, including several different kinds. I think you are referring to the dream-like images of her walking through a distorted landscape, and such. There is some interesting ideas being played out in the way they adapted the novel, that’s for sure.