anime

[Twig]

I think what I'm trying to say, more than anything else, is that the "sports anime" subgenre I'm always talking about is... a very specific thing, and Ping Pong is very different from that very specific thing. When I call it my anime junk food, I mean that it's basically all the same stuff - bunch of people get super excited about playing the sport and bond as teammates and etc. From there, the anime makes a name for itself by having good characters or presenting that theme of comradery and growth in a particularly good way. Yowapeda is another recent good example (even though it ended its season at an incredibly awkward point right in the middle of a race).

 

It's not that I think Ping Pong is bad in any way (even if I think the story is largely forgettable); it's more that it's just incomparable to the rest of the junk. Ping Pong is about how even when you've got talent, you still need to work hard. Like, if I had to pick one theme from the anime, that'd be it. Which is why I said it could basically be about anything. (Barakamon, from this season, is another example of this theme, actually! It's not a sport, though, it's calligraphy!)

 

Also suddenly I want a golf anime, and golf is pretty much one of my least favorite sports. I think I want it because sports anime are typically incredibly kinetic. Golf... wouldn't be. I'd like to see if I would even enjoy it.

 

EDIT: Turns out there are THREE golf manga. Only one has been anime-ized. And one of them has 62 volumes and is still going.

[Codicier]

Hmmm I think you have a point about the hard work thing to a extent, it was definitely a big part of Peco's arc, & he was the notional 'winner' but for Smile, Kazuma, and Kong it's was to one extent or another their eventual rejection of the concept of 'working to win' that defined their stories for me.

I guess perhaps as you sorta implied there may be was something about the kind of competition you get in individual vs team sports which makes it not quite fit within the typical template of a sports anime.

Also would Chihayafuru fit in that particular sub genre? (If you've seen that one)

[Twig]

I guess I should spoiler-tag this for people who haven't seen Ping Pong...

 

Even Smile had to work hard to get to where he was, with the coach always pushing him to work more and more. All this despite his being "too nice". Kazuma was always motivated to work, too, although it was on his own. And he was brought down by his dad (or uncle? I forget) using him for marketing. Kong just thought he was hot shit and wouldn't have to work hard in Japan, until he got shut down by Smile.

 

I think Smile's story resolution was because he never cared about winning - he just wanted to play to have fun, and was waiting for Peco to take it seriously again. That carried through to the ending when he was just teaching kids how to enjoy the game that he fell in love with. Kong learned his lesson after losing and came back in a big way, even if it wasn't right away. Kazuma... well, I guess he just dropped out entirely? I actually completely forget what his resolution was, besides the conversation he had with Smile at the end. I think he just continued to be a marketing gimmick?

 

I think hard work played a huge part in all of their stories, and it was said hard work, or lack thereof, that contributed to their successes and failures.

 

I've never seen or heard of Chihayafuru!

[Gormongous]

I'm watching what is supposedly the "best" Adachi Mitsuru sports anime, Cross Game, and it's pretty good. People warned me over and over that the first episode would make me want to quit, but maybe I'm just immune to childhood trauma in anime, because I barely noticed it and the rest of the anime, up to the twentieth episode where I am, is paced impeccably. Watching it, I have to remind myself that real baseball doesn't have this immaculately tuned sequence of highs and lows.

 

I also just finished Kuragehime, which was great but so short! I think I've only watched one or two other anime that struggled so hard to fit basic plot and character elements into a half-cour structure. It was still a fully fun anime, but I felt like I was watching it at 1.5x speed. Thank heavens that shoujo plots tend to take kinder to abridgment than shounen and seinen plots, which are much more about the payoff at the end, but it still felt like it wanted to be at least sixteen if not twenty-four episodes. Who knows, maybe when the manga is finally finished, they'll make a sequel... but probably not. Also, best OP in a while:

 

 

I also also finished Legend of Galactic Heroes, the longest OVA ever made at one hundred and ten episodes, and have virtually nothing to say that hasn't been said better elsewhere. Suffice enough, it's probably the biggest and best example of "pure" space opera in anime, and surprisingly well-written and well-paced for its vintage. Two space empires fighting a centuries-long war until two military geniuses come onto the scene sounds boring and formulaic as hell, but LoGH probably invented every single one of the tropes you've fooled yourself into believing you're tired of. And don't worry, if you love the show and hate to see it go, there are two spinoffs with episodes in the double digits and four movies. Christ, I'll never be completely done!

[Twig]

My favorite anime space opera is actually a parody: The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. I really enjoyed it.

 

This season is coming to an end. Hmm.

 

Hunter x Hunter only has one episode left! Dang! It's finished up the last arc before the current manga arc, and wisely decided to just stop. That's good. It's also a good time to end, I feel. Or, well, at least so far. The one last episode may make me hate things.

 

Hamatora continues to be stereotypical serious anime that I enjoy on the surface level. Only one episode left of that, but I feel like I know how it's going to end. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I did enjoy it for what it was.

 

Haiyku!! ALSO has one episode left and it's already ending well. It's a nice different ending. I like it a lot. I assume there will be more later, but for now... Yes. Yes.

 

Sabagebu! ALSO has one episode left and also I don't think I've mentioned it here before? Mainly because I watched most of it in this past week. Wow it's some funny shit. Doesn't do anything new or groundbreaking, I think, but the high school girl survival game club wacky over-active imagination thing is doing it for me.

 

I've, unfortunately, not kept up well with things outside of CR. I'll probably amend that once I finish rewatching Trigun, which, if you didn't know, is still good!! Wow I forgot how much I love Trigun. Didn't expect this, to be honest. Though we're now approaching SERIOUS STORY TIME, so I may change my mind if that ends up not being great.

[Codicier]

I've never seen or heard of Chihayafuru!

I don't think its that well known it's just it kinda fits perfectly with the sort of thing you describe here

I think what I'm trying to say, more than anything else, is that the "sports anime" subgenre I'm always talking about is... a very specific thing.

When I call it my anime junk food, I mean that it's basically all the same stuff - bunch of people get super excited about playing the sport and bond as teammates and etc. From there, the anime makes a name for itself by having good characters or presenting that theme of comradery and growth in a particularly good way. Yowapeda is another recent good example (even though it ended its season at an incredibly awkward point right in the middle of a race).

It certainly doesn't do anything particularly original but it's strongest point is that the 'sport' it picks is quite unique and so as a viewer your growing understanding mirrors that of the protagonists.

It's on CR so if you need something to see you through the transition between seasons watch a couple of episodes and let us know if you like/dislike it.

[Twig]

Yeah, I looked it up eventually but forgot to post about it. It would probably certainly fit the qualifications of the sports anime as I described them! Of course every sport is unique to me because I don't play sports.

 

Shit I need a hockey sports anime.

[Codicier]

I also just finished Kuragehime, which was great but so short! I think I've only watched one or two other anime that struggled so hard to fit basic plot and character elements into a half-cour structure. It was still a fully fun anime, but I felt like I was watching it at 1.5x speed. Thank heavens that shoujo plots tend to take kinder to abridgment than shounen and seinen plots, which are much more about the payoff at the end, but it still felt like it wanted to be at least sixteen if not twenty-four episodes. Who knows, maybe when the manga is finally finished, they'll make a sequel... but probably not.

I do occasionally get a little frustrated when there's a anime which seems to do a lot well, appears to be reasonable popular & then disappears off the face of the earth.

I guess sometimes it's as you say, that a series is produced to capitalise on the Popularity of a manga when the manga itself hasn't yet concluded its story, but other times there's just no clear reason why

[Gormongous]

I do occasionally get a little frustrated when there's a anime which seems to do a lot well, appears to be reasonable popular & then disappears off the face of the earth.

I guess sometimes it's as you say, that a series is produced to capitalise on the Popularity of a manga when the manga itself hasn't yet concluded its story, but other times there's just no clear reason why

 

Yeah... I mean, that's really it. The nature of the Japanese anime market, at least as the companies there perceive it, seems to be such that simply being an existing property with a successful sales history as a light novel, manga, or anime isn't enough for it to be adapted. There has to be ongoing growth potential in multiple simultaneous media to make it worth their while. For instance, and this is one of the most frustrating examples for me, even though The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has at least three seasons' worth of material to be adapted from the light novels, there is literally no chance of any more anime being made, because Tanigawa Nagaru (who apparently created the execrable Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan Desu, what the fuck) took forever to finish the last novel and isn't making any more for the foreseeable future. Clearly there's no point in making a sequel to one of the most commercially and critically successful anime of the past decade, because there's no possibility of a knock-on effect with music CDs or manga spinoffs.

 

Wait, no...

 

That's right. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya line is dead because the author's on haitus, but the (somewhat crappy and very moe) manga spinoff The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato-chan is getting an anime adaptation in spring 2015, because that manga is currently running and will just go on forever thanks to shy protagonists and memory loss. So yeah, if you want to see everything interesting about those characters thrown out in favor of traditional shoujo dynamics, be sure to tune in!

 

I know I will.

[Twig]

I wish there was more original anime!

I mean I guess I shouldn't really complain because in most cases I don't even know the manga or light novel or whatever exists before I watch the anime, but I dunno it somehow seems less... genuine once I learn it's not original. Which is dumb, of course. What does it matter. But it does? Even though it doesn't.

[Gormongous]

I wish there was more original anime!

I mean I guess I shouldn't really complain because in most cases I don't even know the manga or light novel or whatever exists before I watch the anime, but I dunno it somehow seems less... genuine once I learn it's not original. Which is dumb, of course. What does it matter. But it does? Even though it doesn't.

 

Sadly, the only production houses that make "original" anime anymore are the ones big enough to have their own publisher for tie-in print media, thus big enough to be as risk-adverse with their "original" works as smaller companies are with their adaptations. It's a post-bubble industry, like everything else these days.

 

I don't know, I'm probably too cynical. There are still guys like Shinkai Makoto out there, making movies and OVAs out of their own pockets using their own equipment. They just don't always jump the Pacific like whatever Crunchyroll turns its Sauron-like eye on. Does anyone have an opinion on Shinkai? Five Centimeters per Second is one of my favorite anime movies, but I kinda hate that all the other ones are the same basic story with a different setting...

[Mangela Lansbury]

Everything I've seen from Shinkai has been really well animated and well written and just... good in general? They're all kind of similar, but I've watched them far enough apart and that's a thing that I like enough that I have a generally positive opinion of him. I've only seen 4 things from him, though.

 

I think mostly it's just the gorgeous animation that maybe makes me more forgiving.

[Twig]

Five Centimeters per Second was really pretty but I was honestly kind of bored by the story. Maybe I've seen that kind of thing too much. It was pretty typical and didn't do much for me.

[Twig]

I've decided Trigun

gets a whole lot less interesting once Vash's origin is (semi-)revealed. Villain-wise, both Legato and Knives are boring, but at least Legato was just a bad guy. Knives is all "lol i'm better than you dumb humans" which is such a boring trope. Also Vash just turns on the perma-angst, which okay makes since given his situation and who he is but that doesn't mean I have to like it. ):<

 

I hope Badlands Rumble is more like the earlier monster-of-the-week type episodes.

 

That said I have 2.5 episodes left. Maybe the ending I don't remember will save things for me.

 

EDIT: Oh sick, the dude who fights by playing sax, though! Besides Legato and Knives, the bad guys are pretty rad.

 

EDIT EDIT: Further thoughts: I think the reason I like earlier Vash is because he's a superhuman fighting normal people who refuses to use his full power to solve problems because he doesn't want to kill people. But in the later episodes he's a superhuman fighitng other superhumans while still refusing to use his full power to solve problems because he doesn't want to kill people. Except the people he doesn't want to kill are killing other people the whole time.

 

ALSO WHAT HOW DOES A SAXOPHONE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS TO PLAY MUSIC THEN TURN INTO A FUNCTIONING GUN (that isn't functioning because Vash disabled it and it exploded when he tried to fire)

 

 

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Whoa I forgot he actually ended up killing someone.

 

ANIME

 

realized i was spoiling a bunch of shit for people who somehow haven't seen trigun even though they might want to

[Gormongous]

I've decided Trigun

gets a whole lot less interesting once Vash's origin is (semi-)revealed. Villain-wise, both Legato and Knives are boring, but at least Legato was just a bad guy. Knives is all "lol i'm better than you dumb humans" which is such a boring trope. Also Vash just turns on the perma-angst, which okay makes since given his situation and who he is but that doesn't mean I have to like it. ):<

 

I hope Badlands Rumble is more like the earlier monster-of-the-week type episodes.

 

That said I have 2.5 episodes left. Maybe the ending I don't remember will save things for me.

 

EDIT: Oh sick, the dude who fights by playing sax, though! Besides Legato and Knives, the bad guys are pretty rad.

 

EDIT EDIT: Further thoughts: I think the reason I like earlier Vash is because he's a superhuman fighting normal people who refuses to use his full power to solve problems because he doesn't want to kill people. But in the later episodes he's a superhuman fighitng other superhumans while still refusing to use his full power to solve problems because he doesn't want to kill people. Except the people he doesn't want to kill are killing other people the whole time.

 

ALSO WHAT HOW DOES A SAXOPHONE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS TO PLAY MUSIC THEN TURN INTO A FUNCTIONING GUN (that isn't functioning because Vash disabled it and it exploded when he tried to fire)

 

 

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Whoa I forgot he actually ended up killing someone.

 

I think the entire thought process represented by your repeated edits is why I like Trigun still.

Vash's character arc is someone who makes a moral stance against killing and is presented with increasingly compelling reasons to abandon it until finally one is found. The fact that it catalyzes his ultimate decision to defeat and reform Knives is what makes the final act of the anime work.

[Twig]

Yeah I watched the last of Trigun immediately after making that post and the ending does pretty much save it. It's good. Definitely still good. I completely agree with you!

 

Started up Badlands Rumble (which I read takes place after Vash meets Wolfwood but before Legato), and so far it's good, if a little slow. Seems like it could end up being one of those "shouldn't really be more than the length of an episode", because it's taking a while to reintroduce characters. Wonder if Wolfwood will even show up. (15 minutes in it's only just finishing up Meryl and Milly's intro.)

 

Also the world is a pretty cool one and I would to explore it outside of Vash's arc in some fashion. Not that it's like necessary or anything, 'cause the story is enough as it is. Just sort of "hey that'd be cool".

[N1njaSquirrel]

For instance, and this is one of the most frustrating examples for me, even though The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has at least three seasons' worth of material to be adapted from the light novels, there is literally no chance of any more anime being made, because Tanigawa Nagaru (who apparently created the execrable Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan Desu, what the fuck) took forever to finish the last novel and isn't making any more for the foreseeable future. Clearly there's no point in making a sequel to one of the most commercially and critically successful anime of the past decade, because there's no possibility of a knock-on effect with music CDs or manga spinoffs.

 

I was under the impression that Haruhi's demise was more brought about by the seiyuu of Haruhi (Aya Hirano? I think) being caught in a huge scandal because she had sex with her band mates. Idol's having a relationship or sex is tantamount to treason in the eyes of their fans, (Like that AKB Head-shaving incident last year) so that meant there were people burning haruhi related goods for no real reason, tarnishing the series. Likewise I guess having another season of Haruhi would be hard without the main seiyuu. Having her take part in it is probably not going to please the fans, and this all just shows how mental Japan's idol culture is.

 

I'm guessing the Nagato spin-off is happening because it's going to have little to no Haruhi in it. I guess this confirms my theory? idk.

 

 

I wish there was more original anime!

 

Zankyou no Terror and Suisei no gargantia are both original anime over the last year or 2 that are pretty good.

[Twig]

Terror has some amazingly boring main characters.

Gargantia was really good though.

 

I watched Trigun: Badlands Rumble last night after finishing the series. It's quite good and worth watching if you're a fan of earlier episodes of Trigun. Lots of sci-fi western with big city-destroying fights.

[Gormongous]

I was under the impression that Haruhi's demise was more brought about by the seiyuu of Haruhi (Aya Hirano? I think) being caught in a huge scandal because she had sex with her band mates. Idol's having a relationship or sex is tantamount to treason in the eyes of their fans, (Like that AKB Head-shaving incident last year) so that meant there were people burning haruhi related goods for no real reason, tarnishing the series. Likewise I guess having another season of Haruhi would be hard without the main seiyuu. Having her take part in it is probably not going to please the fans, and this all just shows how mental Japan's idol culture is.

 

I'm guessing the Nagato spin-off is happening because it's going to have little to no Haruhi in it. I guess this confirms my theory? idk.

 

Well, there are a lot of problems with the seiyuu cast of Haruhi. Hirano Aya also has a benign tumor on her throat that caused her to stop taking new roles for a year, right before the sex scandal and Lantis' dismissal, and Goto Yuko has the autoimmune thing that's slowed her down a lot in recent years. Still, I've always seen most people agree that those are just justifications for shelving a franchise that is no longer "ongoing" in novel form despite being unfinished and having seven more volumes left to adapt.

 

And no, Haruhi's not the main character in The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato-chan, but she's still a character. She has a role in every major plot point of the manga through volume thirty-four and appears onscreen as much as, say, Kyon's little sister does in the original series. Maybe that's enough of a difference for the fans not to rage or for the seiyuu to be changed, but I don't know. I think it really is just transitioning from source material on indefinite hiatus to source material that's still getting published, albeit ironically on a much slower basis since the announcement of the anime adaptation.

[Merus]

Well, either way the story isn't reaching any kind of conclusion any time soon, so.

[Gormongous]

Well, either way the story isn't reaching any kind of conclusion any time soon, so.

 

Yeah, I know I've drifted quite a bit from my original point by now, but I really can't wrap my head around a a bunch of important people in the anime industry agreeing that the main light novel series is out of juice and that the smart choice is to spend millions to adapt one of several vastly inferior manga spinoffs instead (possibly with the same cast and crew). Franchises in Japan might appear to conform to Western experience in media sales, but they clearly play by very different rules sometimes.

 

And just to harp a little bit more, The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato-chan is really not good at all. It reads like a slash doujin, in which Yuki has no personality because she's not an alien but is otherwise unchanged from the flat-affect bookworm of the main series. Of course, Kyon is incredibly kind and patient to everyone, which isn't even remotely like his character in the main series, yet he's inexplicably attracted to the inert and boring Yuki, upon whom he waits hand and foot alongside every other character from the main series. Not to mention there have been forty-one volumes of the manga to date, the characters have been dating for at least a year, and they have only ever held hands. They said," I love you," but only when Yuki had extremely convenient one-week amnesia from being hit by a car. If I'm making it sound like a second-rate soap opera involving the Haruhi characters, yeah... I have seen no one express any interest in watching this anime except to see more Haruhi, which makes me question the fact that the spinoff manga's being adapted even more. The only spinoff that would be weirder for them to adapt would be There Is No Haruhi in My Classroom, a light novel that takes place in the universe of the main series but absent all the established characters and plotlines.

 

And like I said, I'm already committed to watching the whole thing and probably hating it, because the possibility that it will be as surprisingly good as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan is still somehow there.

[Twig]

I need to decide what to watch next!

 

My options (at least insofar as I've specifically chosen to eventually watch them at some point, and these are probably at the top of my list in the mood I'm in right now):

• the entire Monogatari series (or just Bake for now and then go to something else after (already seen Bake, but I remember so little I'm going to have to rewatch it anyway)),
• finish up Gankutsuou which I've watched three episodes of so far
• actually finally watch Space Dandy since it's finishing up (or is finished?) now
• get back to watching Red Jacket Lupin ehehehe yeah okay.

 

Or suggest something else entirely! I demand someone tell me what to do!

 

---

 

In other news, the last episode of Haikyu!! was very sad but hopeful and quite good DANG IT'S STILL THE BEST SPORTS ANIME THERE IS!

---

Related question: Does there exist a sports anime that is ladies instead of chaps? Finished up Sabagebu! today, as well, and it's probably the closest I've personally seen, but its survival game club antics are played up for laughs. It's done very well! But it's still laughs. I'm curious if there's a lady equivalent of... Eyeshield 21, Slam Dunk, Koroko's Basketball, Hajime no Ippo (starring Danielle, heehee), Ping Pong, or Haiyku!!

 

Codicier's Chihayafuru recommendation sorta fits the profile, but it's not a physical sport and I wonder if that plays some part in why it even exists.

 

EDIT: Quick Googling gave me Codi's rec as well as a few others in the first result, and also this: http://www.crunchyroll.com/wanna-be-the-strongest-in-the-world which lol okay yeah sure bud

 

EDIT EDIT: Also http://myanimelist.net/anime/5141/Taishou_Yakyuu_Musume. looks kinda interesting. Takes place in 1925, it's about a bunch of girls who start a baseball team to combat the idea that women should only be housewives. Also looking at that title image just wow those sailor uniforms are old as fuck I can't believe they're still standard. School unofirms there seem to be a whole hell of a lot more formal and strict than what I experienced growing up (Catholic schools), but still. Are girls allowed to just wear pants uniforms if they want to?

 

That's literally the only result I've found so far that isn't http://myanimelist.net/anime/10572/Ro-Kyu-Bu! ugh look at that art or that wrestling thing or about a female sports club MANAGER which bleh. CONTINUING THE SEARCH.

 

SOOO in the end I found quite a few exist. Some sound legit, some sound like an excuse for harem, some are like those I linked above, some are about managers. A lot more exist than I expected, but definitely seems to be fewer in number than dude sports. Still, cool! Taisho Yakyuu Musume, Princess Nine, and Chihayafuru are the only ones that I've added to my list, though. The first because it sounds interesting, the second because it seems to be pretty popular, and the third because Codi recommended it!

 

And that's the end of my 2am awkward self-rambling. FOR NOW.

[Gormongous]

I need to decide what to watch next!

 

My options (at least insofar as I've specifically chosen to eventually watch them at some point, and these are probably at the top of my list in the mood I'm in right now):

• the entire Monogatari series (or just Bake for now and then go to something else after (already seen Bake, but I remember so little I'm going to have to rewatch it anyway)),
• finish up Gankutsuou which I've watched three episodes of so far
• actually finally watch Space Dandy since it's finishing up (or is finished?) now
• get back to watching Red Jacket Lupin ehehehe yeah okay.

Or suggest something else entirely! I demand someone tell me what to do!

 

I probably shouldn't give suggestions because I went from Princess Jellyfish, which was great but way too short, to Honey & Clover, which I despise after three episodes and has thirty-seven more to go. Nisemonogatari and Chihayafuru are high on my list, but I probably will need to watch something as different from Honey & Clover as possible after it.

 

Related question: Does there exist a sports anime that is ladies instead of chaps? Finished up Sabagebu! today, as well, and it's probably the closest I've personally seen, but its survival game club antics are played up for laughs. It's done very well! But it's still laughs. I'm curious if there's a lady equivalent of... Eyeshield 21, Slam Dunk, Koroko's Basketball, Hajime no Ippo (starring Danielle, heehee), Ping Pong, or Haiyku!!

 

Codicier's Chihayafuru recommendation sorta fits the profile, but it's not a physical sport and I wonder if that plays some part in why it even exists.

 

EDIT: Quick Googling gave me Codi's rec as well as a few others in the first result, and also this: http://www.crunchyroll.com/wanna-be-the-strongest-in-the-world which lol okay yeah sure bud

 

EDIT EDIT: Also http://myanimelist.net/anime/5141/Taishou_Yakyuu_Musume. looks kinda interesting. Takes place in 1925, it's about a bunch of girls who start a baseball team to combat the idea that women should only be housewives. Also looking at that title image just wow those sailor uniforms are old as fuck I can't believe they're still standard. School unofirms there seem to be a whole hell of a lot more formal and strict than what I experienced growing up (Catholic schools), but still. Are girls allowed to just wear pants uniforms if they want to?

 

That's literally the only result I've found so far that isn't http://myanimelist.net/anime/10572/Ro-Kyu-Bu! ugh look at that art or that wrestling thing or about a female sports club MANAGER which bleh. CONTINUING THE SEARCH.

 

Taisho Baseball Girls is good enough but really average in terms of... well, everything. It's more about moe and in-period jokes than sports, really. Chihayafuru is a better candidate than it if you want girls actually playing sports.

 

I didn't know Crunchyroll streamed soft ecchi, but okay. That's cool.

 

If the idea of a management-focused sports anime doesn't turn you off, there's Moshidora. I'm not going to look up the full title, because I know that pisses Tegan off, but it's about a high-school baseball manager who hates baseball and uses a book by Peter Drucker to coach team to the nationals. It's really short, but I hear it's really good, even if it's more about building and coaching a good team than the actual play of the game. Oh, the full title is Moshi Koukou Yakyuu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no Management wo Yondara (What If a Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker's Management). That's cool, too.

[Twig]

I continued editing because I'm a horrible person. That's a shame about Taisho. I... think I won't watch it, then. Oh well. What about Princess Nine? It's apparently basically the same plot, based on what little I know, but I guess not set in 1925 probably.

 

I did find Moshidora, but had decided to pass on it because it was a manager instead of an actual sports player, but what you described actually sounds interesting, so... I'll fill the Taisho hole with that? Being super short certainly helps.

 

EDIT: Also keep forgetting to add Princess Jellyfish to my list. I have literally no idea what it is but you all seem to love it. Looked it up. So it's there now.

[Gormongous]

That's a shame about Taisho. I... think I won't watch it, then. Oh well. What about Princess Nine? It's apparently basically the same plot, based on what little I know, but I guess not set in 1925 probably.

 

I've never seen it, but they appear to be almost exactly the same. They even have practically the same user rating, within 0.1 points, on MyAnimeList and AniDB. Flip a coin, I guess.