"What if the Girl Manager of a High School Baseball Team read Drucker's Management?" (now commonly abbreviated to "Moshidora") by Natsumi Iwasaki turned into 2010's unexpected best-seller, which spawned an anime series, and now a live-action feature film starring Atsuko Maeda.

She's a member of the fabulously popular girl group AKB48, 2010's best-selling pop group. This is called synergy!

Iwasaki previously worked on the business end of the AKB48 production machine and reportedly patterned his lead character after group member Minami Minegishi. As it turns out, though, "the role was given to Maeda because of her greater visibility and experience as an actress."

In other words, Minegishi had zero acting talent, while Maeda had greater than zero acting talent. Not to mention her other assets.

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Pop chart domination

Labels: baseball, japan, moshidora, movies, pop culture, sports