A 59-minute anime where a little league shortstop becomes an accidental loan shark to school delinquents.
Based on the children's book by Sunada Hiroshi. Musuke "Shorty" Sato is a shortstop for the local junior baseball team, the Eggs, who is asked by his mother to look after some money for her. He foolishly lends it to Tower and Dump, the school bad-boys, and must enlist the help of the pitcher's pretty little sister.
Direction
Shibayama's snappy comedic timing in limited runtime
Production
Charming economical animation typical of 1982 TV movies
Director
Tsutomu Shibayama
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on Sunada Hiroshi's popular children's books that normalized kids navigating adult problems with minimal parental intervention — a hallmark of 1970s-80s Japanese children's media.
Director Tsutomu Shibayama would later become famous for Doraemon films; this early TV movie shows his gift for making scrappy kids sympathetic despite genuinely bad decisions.
JP
