Ping Pong the Animation

- NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW - This review was made to make people fully understand this show, which often makes people confused, not because it is hard to understand, but because the show tries to push in 11 episodes as much motives as it takes and the full meaning is not as visible as it is needed to understand it while watching it for the first time. If you didn't like Ping Pong the Animation or didn't really understand what was going on in there i encourage you to read this review. Ping Pong the Animation is an exceptional show, unorthodox in every aspect, at first glancea normal sport show, but turns out to be something more, a strong emotions feel trip about different people struggling with life and finding their definition of happiness. The Ping Pong as a game itself is not really important for the plot, you can swap it with anything you want, even life itself, the game is only an excuse to portray characters motives, represent their state of mind, because Ping Pong the Animation isn’t really much of a sports show, there are no cool techniques, the matches are excitatory and artistic, which is job of an eccentric art and unparalelled animation made by Yuasa Masaaki, who is often praised for his work and the soundtrack which perfectly fits the atmosphere and propel the more tense scenes and make some of them truly epic. The stars of this show are: Tsukimoto, Peco, Kong Wenge, Kazama and Sakuma. What makes this show stand out is the fact, that every character starts with a big lack, something that either limits them or makes them unhappy. In the middle of the show something happens to them that turns their point of view upside down and and eventually every one of them positively changes. Everyone wins in this Kong Wenge is a Chinese player who got kicked out of the national China team and decides to transfer to Japan to make himself a name there which might allow him to go back to his team. He was cocksure and full of himself, disgusted by the way everyone plays and ensured that no one is on his level and no one even deserves to stand on the same table with him. He wanted to return to his homeland so badly, but he knew he's stuck in here. The theme with a plane flying away symbolises moving back to China, every time when he looked up at a flying plane he yearned for homeland and playing for his old team, but he knew he's not able to do so. In the first tournament he barely lost to Tsukimoto, he won only because of Tsukimoto's mercy for him, but eventually got skunked by Kazama later on. That was his biggest lesson of humility in his life. He lost twice to people whom he didn't respect. Now he is forced to reckon with the fact that Japan may now be his home. After the tournament his trainer tolds him that honestly his life only starts and he just have gotten on start line, it doesn't matter if he fails at Table Tennis. He gets offered a job of training a team. Kong turns to be a wonderful trainer, he's sharing useful advices with his students and is encouraging them to train. Even after defeat he's not giving up on playing Ping Pong and still trains to get better. In the second tournament when he played Peco and still lost, the "plane" flied away, but he doesn't care anymore. He's not willing to go back to China, because Japan is now his home, he found something that holds him here and it was his team for which he was a Leader and inspiration. If you cannot reach something you want, then look up to the things you have already got and seek for good things in them. At the end of the show we see that his will to continue training even after constant defeats paid out - he moved out to Europe and started playing on Olympic level. Hoshino Yutaka, alias Peco is a truly gifted player, he even could outplay older players as a child, he was always in the spotlight, but his constants victories and his natural capabilities made him really full of himself and eventually got slothful and lazy. Instead of training and developing his skills he was eating candies and snacks. When he played Kong Wenge in the first episode he got totally skunked, he haven't even scored one point. He never experienced that big defeat before. He celebrated his defeat with tears and despair and eventually he got even more lazy, which made him completely unprepared for the competition ahead of him. In the first tournament he noticed that Smile had almost won with Kong Wenge - the player that he lost to without scoring any point. It was a great shock, because he was always thinking that he is better than Smile. In the same tournament he played Sakuma, who was always worse than him up to this moment, but over time he overcame the difference in skill between them with hard work and dedication to sport and it ended up in lose for Peco. Sakuma laughed down at him telling that he should give up on the sport, because he is no longer good. Constant defeats and his descention in skill made him lost his confidence and eventually ended up on decision to give up on Table Tennis. Peco started eating even more snacks, got fat, adust and started smoking. He got into a relationship that didn't really work out, the girl broke up with him just because he didn't bring up her Christmas Gift. Later on when Peco visits his old Ping Pong club where he mets Sakuma. He tells Peco that he need to go back to Ping Pong, because he loves that sport more than anyone else. Peco after seeing photo featuring him and Tsukimoto holding a trophy, gets reminded of his love for the sport and goals of becoming the greatest and ultimately decides to go back to Table Tennis. He determines to start from the very beginning, trains very hard and develops his skills even further which results in winning the second tournament. Peco is the hero of Ping Pong, and he represents all that the show values and believes in. He does not fear defeat - because he plays for his earnest love of the game, and his earnest love of those he plays with. While playing Kazama and Smile whom are content to remain safe in their own cages, Peco lifts them up with his belief, and they lift him higher in turn. I know and im sure you know too some people who got that kind of passion for their lifes. Sakuma, alias "Devil" is a childhood friend of Peco and Smile. He's got no talent for Table Tennis, because of an eye astigmatism that doesn't allow him to achieve the same response time as other players, which is essential in Table Tennis. Always envious to Peco for his great Ping Pong capabilities, for that he was always in the center of attention unlike him and got so many trophies for winning. He decided to work hard to overcome the obstacle that he met while playng on a higher level and eventually found a place in prestigious Kaio sport club which resulted in winning with Peco. After the first tournament he challenged Smile for a game. It was shocking experience for him since he didn't know that Tsukimoto might become that good. He totally lost, defeat at Smile’s hands forces him to realize that sometimes you just don’t have the aptitude to achieve your dreams, even thought he was a little relieved with that fact. That was the turning point for his life, because he no longer was limited by desire to win. In the second tournament he seems to be happy and in the end of the show it is said that he started a family. If you have no talent in something you shouldn't cry about that, just find something else that you are good in and move on, or focus on something else, life doesn't end on Ping Pong. Then there is this dude, who played Tsukimoto in the first tournament. After he lost, he decided that Table Tennis is not for him and he decided to travel around the world and find his place on Earth. He tried on the beach, on the mountains, on the desert, but every time he felt that this is not what he was looking for. After a year he ended up on the second tournament in Japan. Tears filled his eyes when he realized that it was Ping Pong all along that he loved, but he have given up too easily on it, just because of one defeat. Witnessing the match between Peco and Smile, he rejuvenated his love for Ping Pong and eventually found his way to the Olympic stage (at the end of the show he is sitting on the stands with Japan national team shirt on). "Defeat is death", "The truth lies in victory" - those are the slogans of Kaio, sport club obviously aiming to be the greatest that is never fully pleased with their athletes performance. Sport hall opened 24/7 available for training, trainers from around the world, in-depth analyses of training, highest quality sports equipment available to players for free, the usage of modern medicine to keep athletes bodies in perfect condition. Those are only the few of opportunities that Kaio is providing for their players. The only condition is - if you're not playing well enough, you're getting kicked out. They are even getting cut bald to not let hair distract players while playing. Kaio is a factory of robots playing Table Tennis for the victory. Kazama Ryuuichi is magnificently talented player which is the best player of Kaio sport club and their biggest trump card. He has been taught that the only route to success is victory, believes that the failings of others are definable and surpassable as lack of effort. Not only does he not rely on the strength of others, but he also doesn’t lend others his strength. The amount of stress he used to experience, because of his responsibility everyone are trying to bestow overwhelms him. Ping Pong has become a cage for Kazama - he used to close in the toilet and stand alone in his stall, staring silently down at his purple ping pong shoes before any bigger competitive, because of the fear. While he was playing with Peco in the second tournament he could see him "flying". Though walls of his bathroom are closed, the ceiling is open. Kazama can still look, can still reach, can still dream. The match between Peco and Kazama ends not in dour dramatics, but in laughter, in a shared love of the sport. Kazama's play defined fear, but Peco manages to break through to him and show him through competition and love that there is joy in these exchanges. At the end of the show he's telling that he got kicked out of the professional team, but as the time passed he learned to overcome failures gracefully. He's not afraid anymore, either victory or defeat, he will be able to face it boldly. Makoto Tsukimoto, a friend of Peco that was introduced to Table Tennis by him, called "Smile", because of his lack in expressing any emotions often insulted by his classmated. When he started playing Ping Pong - he was smiling like a madman. Peco gave a lesson to everyone that tried to insult him and pulled him out of a "cage" he was sitting in, because of that Peco has become his role model and "hero", he wanted to be just like him. At the start of the show Tsukimoto wasn't smiling at all. It was because he didn't feel any motivation for playing Table Tennis. It was because Peco was playing bad and behaved pathetic. Smile after years proved to be horribly good player, his overwhelming power becomes evident. He was subconsciously letting Peco him win to not hurt feelings of his "hero", which later on trainer Koizumi noticed. He even gets scouted by Kazama from Kaio, but it was Koizumi who awakened his potential. He starts training under his wings, not because he wanted to, but because he just wanted to win, he truly started behaving like a robot. Even though he got the power to crush every player he faced he couldn't help with loneliness he constantly felt, he spent Christmas Eve alone, even training Table Tennis with Koizumi would be better. Tsukimoto was told since he was very young that he's a "robot", that he is emotionless and incapable of feeling. However, Peco still remembers why Smile is called by that nickname, smiling is an emotion too, Tsukimoto have to feel that human emotion - Smile - again and remind to himself why he started playing. After Peco won with Kazama, he knew that his "hero" is back and he don't need to hold back anymore - it was always Peco’s joyfulness that made Table Tennis so wonderful for him. While playing with Peco he slowly came to realize why he is playing the game. It is because "Blood tastes like Iron", it is the taste of blood in your mouth after a big effort that make it truly worth experiencing (We are alive song). At the end Smile throwns the racket in the air and shows that it no longer have any hold on him, he have to find happiness by his own way now. He can toss the racket free without regrets, because he now knows who he wants to be - a teacher. The scene on the train when Smile says “the one after next” is relevant to just about everything the show discusses. Smile waits for his hero to make it to him at the finals - the match after Peco’s “awakening” vs Kazama. Kong fights to make it to his next match - to find a home for him and his mother. The whole show is really about what comes after what you are doing now. Ping Pong the Animation doesn't show it's characters falling, because of their patheticism, but because they need to fail. Every one of their defeats made them stronger. Failure in Table Tennis is not the end of the world. Making it to the next match is much less difficult when you are passionate about what you are doing. Peco’s love for ping pong is exactly what allows him to get to his next match, because there is always something else waiting for you. The whole point of the show is to not seek for victory. Victory will not give you timeless satisfaction, only seeking seek true passion and joy from what you're doing just like Peco will provide it to you. Thanks for reading. :)

Once finished ping pong the animation the first thing i had to do is write this review to help any person who has the slight thought of watching this anime not to do it. It's awful and THE ONLY REASON someone should see this anime is to fill his own anime list, that's the only thing this anime is worth for. - Story (3/10): Is not that different from others sports anime, both main protagonists smile and peko are pretty good on ping pong, they sign up to the spring tournament in which they both fail, so, they train for several months untilthe next tournament comes up and they win, very standard. - Characters (1/10): Every character is a copy-paste, all of them are extremely cocky and arrogant until of course... they lose a match, suddenly their attitude change to a more pleasant attitude. THIS IS BS, you can't even consider this as character development, happens to literally every important character on the anime so you get tired of this very soon. About the main character smile, he is a kid on an emo phase in which doesn't show any emotions with the catchphrase that he only plays for fun and whenever he's about to lose he just activates the robot mode making him almost impossible to beat... basically his hidden talent but yet, halfway through the anime he realizes how good he is and then he turns as cocky and arrogant as the other characters making really hard to empathize with him. - Dialogues (1/10): First of all, if you going to watch this anime and you have no clue about ping pong whatsoever, I'm sorry for you because only awaits you lot of jargon and technical words about different types of techniques, play styles, serves, types of rubber and rackets... So, you keep watching the anime without any idea of whatever they are saying or pause it and do a research on google about what they are talking about. Separately, the dialogues between characters is very poor and not realistic at all, most of the time they just chit chat no sense, neither plot related. If not, the conversation becomes a bragging competition in a way or another you can easily tell that this is a very low effort to fill because of the short story-plot that this anime has. - Art-style ~ Animation (1/10): This is by far the worst of all, awful, I understand that they wanted to be loyal to the manga art style since it's different, but making something different doesn't mean it's good, even less this type of art-style on a sports anime. In conclusion, what you get left are really poor animated matches since they are not fluid at all, the movement seems very rusty and at the end it feels like watching a PowerPoint with gifs of two guys bouncing a ball for 4-5 times alongside a ping pong ball sound effect. Once someone scores the score-board suddenly raises to 6 so if you somehow managed to enjoy the match it won't last for very long because every match lasts in between 15 seconds (less relevant) to 3-4 minutes as much... only excluding ONE match, the semifinal. And that was the good part, the way they animated the fill training episodes it's way worse. A bunch of really really really low-quality art designed characters as background while seeing just recycled animations and moves episode after episode makes you want to go to sleep and drop the anime instantly. - Overall (2/10): The only good thing I could say about the anime is the fact that I didn't expect who was going to be the winner of the last match on the tournament and caught me by surprise, anything but that it's just legit garbage. This is a bad anime, you can tell instantly, even if you rate it high or low, this is an overrated anime which you will forget in a couple of days. It does not mark or affect you at all like other animes. Even once you finish it you can't really have a discussion or a conversation about this anime... because nothing interesting nor entertaining happens. This is not an anime you want to recommend to someone, even if he's new to anime or someone who has seen 400+ animes, because this anime... It's just a WASTE of time. Poor Story-line, awful characters/dialogues, the art-style and animation it's beyond horrendous... Avoid watching it. Every feedback is very helpful... Thanks!

The anime industry is plagued with generic harems and bad writing. But occasionally a series will appear that stands out. A diamond in the rough. Ping Pong is one of these series. The story of Ping Pong is, on the surface, about ping pong. However, dig a little deeper and you will find a fantastic series about growing up. The series focuses on themes such as insecurity, anxiety and most notably, courage. These themes are explored to the fullest with seemingly insignificant scenes such as those featuring The Hero becoming increasingly relevant as the series progresses. This is not to say ping pong isn't relevantto the story, the competitiveness of the sport plays a large part throughout the series and is sure to appeal to any spots fan. It's the kind of show that requires your full attention. Seemingly minuscule and irrelevant events are important to the overall delivery of the series. These can include the speech of background characters or even the backgrounds. The story is paced exceptionally well with the exception of the last episode which as a manga reader I felt was dragged out and features too many flashbacks. Overall, the story is solid. There are lots of interesting themes that are handled very well throughout the series and the pacing is very good. The art of Ping Pong can be a bit off-putting, but after just one episode it will begin to grow on you. It's unique, and that's a good thing. It makes the series feel very mature (not to say the series isn't) as the art is more realistic than most modern anime. The animation is incredibly fluid. There are some shots of Ping Pong bats that look absolutely fantastic . There are a few scenes with noticeable budget drops, however, and these become increasingly common as the series progresses. Overall, very good animation and art. The OST of Ping Pong is excellent. Every track fits its purpose well. The OST makes the matches feel very tense and overall very interesting. The OP is very fitting with the lyrics reflecting some of the major themes of the series and the genre fitting the tone of the series as a whole. My personal favourite is the ED, which I feel is excellent. It suits the atmosphere of the series and leaves you wanting more. The voice actors are fitting, particularly Katayama Fukujurou (Peco) and Uchiyama Kouki (Smile). I felt their performances were very good. My praise also goes to Yousei Bun (Wenge Kong) for his performance in Chinese, it's rare not to see anime butcher foreign languages and it was nice of the studio to hire an actual Chinese voice actor for the role. The characters in Ping Pong are the best part, in my opinion. They are developed extremely well. I feel Peco's development was handled brilliantly and gives the viewer and in-depth look into his mind and ideologies alongside his emotions. This is not to say other characters are done badly, Smile, Sakuma, Kong and Kazama all receive incredible growth throughout the series and are for the most part likeable. The transition between Kong's initial arrogance and later his kindness was done beautifully. There is not a single pointless character, they all exist for a reason. Even the seemingly insignificant speech of the background characters is important. There's not a single undeveloped character and for this reason, I believe the characters are the best part of Ping Pong. Ping Pong is a very enjoyable series. Every episode leaves you wanting more. The series makes you feel a range of emotions from pity to happiness. It was a very fun series to watch. Ping Pong is an excellent series, a must-see for all anime fans. The themes, the characters, the music; everything is brilliant. I believe the anime to be better than the manga, and by choosing the manga you would be missing out. The series does require the full attention of the viewer however, and for this reason it's not the easiest to marathon because there's a lot to take in. Otherwise though, it's one of the best series of 2014 at the time of writing.

An anime about sports? An anime about ping pong? I would have never thought to ever give a show like this a try, while I do like the occasional play of table tennis in my freetime and during sports at school the idea of watching others playing it in the animated form was somewhat dull but interesting. Having heard from other sources that it is actually quite good and among the best series of this season I decided to check Ping Pong: The Animation out. Today it has ended and now I'm sitting here at midnight writing this review because continuing Ping Pong after a longbreak I took from it after episode 2 might have been the best decision I made regarding anime in a long time. Storywise Ping Pong: The Animation centers around the teenager nicknamed "Smile" and others at the Tamura Table Tennis club. It is a sports anime after all and there is -quite fortunately though - nothing happening which could be considered that much out of the ordinary with like super powers you have seen in other sports series. The series could be called a Coming-of-Age story. It focuses a lot on the relationships between the players, trainers and others and how their passion of table tennis affects them and others around them. And important part to make this work and catch the audiences sympathy are well done characters. And well done characters is something Ping Pong certainly has. The cast ranges from your more introverted main character to his chaotic childhood friend, to the arrogant yet talented but not flawless foreign antagonist, to the caring coach with a moving backstory and lots of other side characters from different schools, teams and nations wanting to make big. But this cannot happen without sacrificies and this is also something this show does well. Table tennis is serious business over there and it portrays it very well. I am not an expert when it comes to foreign tablet tennis but from what I have seen in Ping Pong: The Animation they catched the mood quite well and every anticipated battle felt as exciting and tense as an upcoming showdown in an action series. The atmosphere is really intense and puts shows like Sword Art Online to shame, but not only when it comes to the action. Most of this is achieved by the brilliant cinematography which uses an unique and definetly different art style than other shows ever did before. It is kind of hard to get into at first but the drawing style really grows onto you and actually fits the shows theme of being about a rather unusual sport, very well. In terms of accoustic accompaniment Ping Pong: The Animation offers everything from chilly background tunes to incentive electronic beats to make the rhythm chime and get you into the right mood. Also the voice actors did an immensily great job on expressing how the characters are feeling. Nothing really to complain about in terms of audiovisual arrangement either. Nevertheless one of the best parts are the characters. They are portrayed quite life-like as you could expect people to be participating in competitive sports. Every character feels real as you cheer and root for them to achieve their goal they have set in their lives and struggle with the possibility of defeat and others being better than them. They really undergo a well described development which seems believable and makes you care about them. The interactions between each other comes of as genuine and really natural. As their different personalities and egos clash you can really feel the tenseness. The creators did a fantastic job there. Overall Ping Pong: The Animation is a great show. While it may not be appealing to anyone I can highly recommend it to anyone having the slightest affiliation with table tennis. If you have not this show might not be for you but also if you are just in for something different than you may be welcome here as well since this is a story which can be enjoyed regardless whether you like ping pong or not. It's more about the characters than the actual sport. It is a sweet Coming-of-Age story about young people trying to find their meaning in life and after this a sports anime. Whether it will be the first place at the championships, social interaction or just to take part to find out in the end they aren't even made for table tennis. It's an emotional and unconventional ride and for me personally the best anime of this season.

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