If I had to describe Ping Pong the Animation in one word, it would be "sincere". It's a show without the pretence of presenting itself in the extremes of anything in the spectrum of positive and negative. Rather, it's more like an extract of several people's lives practicing the sport ping pong. While this sounds incredibly dull, there's no way I meant that as critique to the show. If anything, it's one of the biggest plus of this particular story. It simply doesn't waver to not please biggest denominator. It's not scared to compete with other shows with a low threshold, because it's not even
...
trying to participate in the same league. It just does whatever it's supposed to do in the first place: being true to the writer's intentions and stealing the viewers' hearts while doing so. All this goodness packed in a mere sports theme that is incredibly attractive to your average viewer.
The following paragraph doesn't do the show any justice, but it's a short description to have a grasp on the story.
A young man called Makoto Tsukimoto and his best friend Yutaka Hoshino participate in their local high school ping pong club. Due to certain circumstances, their coach discovers an unlimited amount of potential in Tsukimoto, in spite of his lack of the desire to win. In order to awaken this desire, the coach focuses his attention on this ping pong prodigy. In doing so, Tsukimoto gained famed in the competitive scene. Meanwhile, his friend Hoshino witnesses how he loses his place as the former best player in the district. As a prodigy himself, it's undoubtedly a hard pill to swallow. As the story progresses, he tries to find new ways to deal with this defeat.
As for the presentation, the one thing that immediately stood out is, without a doubt, the unusual style. The amount of critique on the net is palpable, but doesn't that just show how extraordinary Ping Pong the Animation is? By deviating from the normal standards, it chooses an unconventional style that is by no means bad. No, the apt word would be "different". One of the most common critique would be the deformation and the anatomical "incorrectness" of the characters, which is simply negligible. The problem does not so much lie within the graphical capabilities of the artist. No, it's the human inability to accept anything that is different. Truth be told, anime is -ironically- already a style heavily based on deformation. This particular show's aesthetics is not based on how beautiful a person should look (as opposed to the anime cliché), rather the interpretation of the artist of said characters.
Worth mentioning is the animation. The action scenes are astonishing. The expressive interpretation of personalities lead to some interesting stylistic choices. From the exaggeration of one's physique, to the portrayal of one's mental state, it all looks rather fresh and epic. There's always something happening on screen, even if it is just splitting the screen in multiple section to enhance the dynamic from still shots.
As mentioned before, sincerity is a big feat in Ping Pong. This anime does not feature deus ex machina, nor doomsday scenarios, it's just life as it is: coping with the ups and downs. It doesn't feel like the script is being manufactured in order to manipulate our feelings, or to elevate the scale of the plot. It just flows like water and takes us to a destination unknown; though you might have some clue to where it's leading. Isn't that the same reason why life is so interesting?
It's remarkable how the motivation of the protagonists come before their achievements. Understandably; because who cares about any topic if there's no good motivation behind them? In this particular case, how can the viewer be interested in ping pong if there's nothing meaning behind it? This story shows us how different kinds of people look for different meanings in life. It just happen to be so that their way to comprehend life is through ping pong. A mere coincidence, if you will.
The insignificance of the physical deed being ping pong is reflected in the editing as well. Whenever there's a match going on, only the essence of said match would be shown. There's hardly any real-time footage of the game, with points being scored individually each time and all that. Instead, some relevant flashbacks would be shown in between the games and only the decisive moments of the match are being shown. Peculiarly, sometimes the match point isn't even shown. This kind of narrative leads the viewer to focus more on the internal conflicts than the physical hardships. It's a fascinating tour for a sports anime to take. A functioning one, that is.
The emotions are eerily convincing in this show. The balance of being blatantly obvious and being subtle is a very hard feat to achieve in film. Conceal too much from the viewers and you'll lose them. Show too much, you'll risk being blatantly literal, not to mention that we're back to the usual anime trope. Just like normal human beings, they show their emotions in a way that's acceptable, noticeable, yet subtle at the same time. That's because people are inconsistent, we change throughout our lives, we do hide our emotions every now and then. That's how social interaction in real life is, and that's how the writer approached the scenario. The result is the credibility of the personalities.
A noteworthy mention is the implementation of side characters. Some of them don't do anything significant at all, which again, feels incredibly sincere. They are not just some throw-away characters, they are not inferior to the main character in any single aspect, they weren't brought to life just to do the protagonist a service, to be a stepping stone. No, in fact, they're people, just like the our main protagonists Hoshino and Tsukimoto. The only difference is the focus, which doesn't necessarily mean they're less fleshed out. In fact, they are sufficiently fleshed out, but they just don't happen to have screen-time to show their growth.
After finishing this series, I realized how much of a rut the entertainment industry is in. It's been a long time since I felt real fascination in watching a show, simply because it has became a routine for me. Ping Pong the Animation dragged me out of this routine and showed me that there are no boundaries in animation. This medium is still maturing and we shouldn't hold this process by stigmatizing unusual shows like Ping Pong. If anything, it's our responsibility to prove originality is appreciated. Believe in heroes!
!!!Don't read this last paragraph if you haven't finished the show!!!
[spoilers]
The ending got me thinking. While I rooted for Tsukimoto during the entire show, Hoshino actually won the championship. The surprising thing is, I realized I was, and should feel happy for Tsukimoto. The anime isn't so much about ping pong, but finding happiness in ping pong. Tsukimoto openly stated how he admires unremarkable players and how he admired Hoshino and his alter-ego, the Hero. He found his happiness in -not necessarily winning the finals, but in retrieving a long lost friend and a significant rival.
[/spoilers]
Jul 12, 2014
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If I had to describe Ping Pong the Animation in one word, it would be "sincere". It's a show without the pretence of presenting itself in the extremes of anything in the spectrum of positive and negative. Rather, it's more like an extract of several people's lives practicing the sport ping pong. While this sounds incredibly dull, there's no way I meant that as critique to the show. If anything, it's one of the biggest plus of this particular story. It simply doesn't waver to not please biggest denominator. It's not scared to compete with other shows with a low threshold, because it's not even
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