Yesterday, Friday 16 July, a meeting moderated by Paolo Guiducci on “Anime e Sport. Great athletes in reality and in Japanese animation ”attended by Alessandro Bottero, baseball player Alessandro Maestri and Manuel Majoli and Kirio 1984.
“I closely follow the events of NewRimini Baseball and the other Rimini baseball teams and I cheer for them, but by now I have decided and I will not go back“. Alessandro Maestri, the first Rimini to land in the States of batti e corri in three different leagues, declared Alessandro Maestri, who confirmed his retirement from baseball. “The reasons are over“He admitted during the meeting” Anime e sport “, on the occasion of Riminicomix, of which he was one of the protagonists.
In the book “Anime e sport” by Fabio Bartoli, presented yesterday in piazzale Fellini, there is also an interview with Maestri, together with Vezzali and many other sacred monsters of national sport.
Maestri confessed that he had never been a reader of Japanese manga, but that he enjoyed seeing anime (Japanese cartoons) of his generation such as Holly and Benji, and of “be struck by the souls on the beat and run“.
After the adventure in the United States, Maestri played four seasons in Japan. “An exhilarating experience. A different way of playing baseball and understanding sport. For example, you work a lot on quantity rather than quality (as in the US), repeating certain movements over and over“. Masters, however, immediately adapted to the mentality, as a professional. “And in Japan I met my wife, who is Argentina, and there our daughter was born, whom we really wanted to call Asia“.
Manuel Majoli also had a Japanese experience thanks to sport. “In Japan, wrestling is experienced at a very high level”Assures“ Il Maestro ”from Rimini. “Wrestling is a show that thrives on hard training and audiences. Covid has given us a tremendous blow, but I continue to train, to keep myself in shape, I translate manga (Japanese comics, and laughs!) And I look forward to returning to activity in Italy, where many wrestling leagues are active.“.
