Sam Halford reviews Ping Pong The Animation…
The first thing that becomes most notable about Ping Pong The Animation is the art style; in the era of silk smooth computer animation coming from both the West and the East, something that strives away from the norm is certainly visually distinctive. This series resembles more Korean animation than it does of current Japanese anime; however, this doesn’t necessarily come across as a bad thing, as the rough sketching and darker shading give a refreshing break to what we’ve seen many times before and add more of a hand-drawn charm to the mix. Some people aren’t always a fan of this style, yet I think a few minutes in and you’ll stop noticing the difference.
The art style isn’t the only thing that different with this series however; I try to avoid sport anime shows as for one thing I’m not a sports fan, and secondly most anime is already filled with tropes. Sports anime tend to be tropes within tropes until they become quite formulaic. Despite this, after having many people rave about Ping Pong The Animation I decided to give it a go, and to my delight found a series that is both unique and enjoyable.
Set during their coming of age years, the series focuses on two polar opposite high school students, Yutaka Hoshino (aka Peco) and Makoto Tsuimoto (who has been ironically named Smile), both of whom are the best ping pong players in their school and they know it. Peco is determined to become world champion whereas Smile isn’t motivated to win, even letting players with lower skill beat him because it meant more to them. After a crushing defeat at the championships, Peco drops the sport, only to discover why he plays and finds the strength to retrain himself into a better player. Meanwhile Smile has become of the most infamous ping pong players around, described as cold and calculating like a robot. Together Peco and Smile take on Kaio High School, the Goliath of ping pong players.
The show isn’t really about the sport but more what the sport means to these characters. Despite only being 11 episodes the series explores these characters, who they are, what they’re capable of and most importantly, what drives them. It’s not just Peco and Smile who get the deep backstory and motivation treatment – we also learn about other players, the rival school and the coaches. It never feels like too much or too little is being said. Having all those characters explored, two championships to go through and for it to feel like the right length of time really is impressive story telling.
I really loved the visual metaphors that were being used. Smile keeps referring to a hero, a winged man/alien who saved him after some bullies locked him a closet; throughout the series this is constantly referred to and by the end, it wraps up beautifully. Not only that, but during matches the players would often transform into a dragon or a robot and it works so well to show how the character plays. It never feels silly or overdramatised, just the right amount to make it exciting.
It’s strange to think of Ping Pong matches to be exciting (providing you don’t play the sport or already find it exciting, then you probably don’t consider it strange), yet the matches were fun and continuously left me on the edge of my seat. Before watching I didn’t have a clue about ping pong and was fairly sceptical, however I found that I didn’t need to know anything and that the sport was a lot more complicated than I originally thought. It’s always the mark of a great director to take something that most people would be clueless about and make it seem fantastic, to make the audience want to know and make them want to know the end result.
This is a series that mixes interesting characters, great story telling and fun exciting matches, at only 11 episodes long I do recommended you give it a try.
Sam Halford – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published June 25, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
