Review of Ping Pong the Animation

Ping Pong The Animation on paper looks like a standard sports anime centered around the themes exploring rivalry, friendship, dreams, failure, success and hard work presented through long matches and overstretched tournaments. To a certain extent it is exactly that sans the long matches and longer tournament albeit at this stage is where the anime draws a line of differentiation as opposed to its contemporaries. If you approach Ping Pong as a sports anime you would never enjoy the anime. It is not about Ping Pong but rather about two students who play the game and the people they cross paths with. There isn't alinear and set story line in the anime which would dictate the paths and goals the plot must take, rather, it is a character study of two boys namely Peko and Smile. Both the MC's are immensely talented at Ping Pong but what differs is their attitude towards the game which also acts as their biggest assets and flaws. Peko is an over enthusiastic fellow and believes that he doesn't need practice as long as he can defeat his opponents. He skips practice, ridicules others and keep going off the diet and eating junk food. He doesn't believe in hard work and claims that talent trumps hard work. He doesn't develop his techniques and plays solely on instincts and basics. While his talents helps defeat weaker opponents although when matched against tougher opponents and when the going gets tough, Peko is defeated with ease. Peko also gets easily down when he is beaten and when upon being beaten by opponents he had defeated earlier, Peko becomes depressed and goes to the extent of quitting the sport.

Smile is the polar opposite of Peko. Smile is calculative and intelligent. His play style is exactly that. He too is extremely talented and he mixes his brain with his talents to beat his opponents. Despite all his talents Smile is restricted by his anxious personality. Despite the fact that he acts tough, Smile gets extremely scared of the ground reality he is faced against. This results him in intentionally giving away matches and not playing to his full potential forcefully when faced against opponents who devote their lives to the game and who have a lot to lose if they are unable to win the game.
The anime deals with trails and retribution faced by the contrasting protagonists and their eventual growth. All of this is triggered when they each come across people who believe in their talents and encourage them to explore the same.

The characters are the most important aspect of this anime and Director Maasaki has handled it with such finesse and grace which in itself is a testament to the man's sheer brilliance and talent. Each character gets his own set of ambitions, motivations, sadness and happiness and ample screen time to express and act upon the same which really fleshes out detailed and real characters. Even side characters like Kong, Kazama, Manabou, their coaches all are explored in the span of 11 episodes. You might think that 11 episodes are not ample to all this, even I thought the same before watching the anime but the depth of my wrongness cannot be explored by submarines.Smile and Peko both start as two boys who play the sport while having contrasting attitude towards the sport but their experiences and trials help them to come out as a changed and more focused characters by the end of anime. A supporting character named Kong comes to the team from China feels ostracized in the a new country with new culture and people. But his character progression is one of the best anime as a medium can offer. He starts as an arrogant person and ends being one of the best characters of all time. This does not happen in one episode it was done with giving Kong constant screen time across the episodes which showcased his journey and struggle as a character. This is not just true for Kong but nearly all the important side characters. The screen time was divided between many characters to highlight their progress.

Often I have discussed how most anime totally gloss over the dialogue aspect of the story. Dialogues are the second to just actions to showcase both story and character progress and this anime completely nails the dialogue aspect. Each dialogue is significant and each line spoken helps you and the characters in themselves to understand the characters better.

Another aspect that is totally overlooked in anime is the direction. Most anime directors who have works often go for a very conservative and orthodox approach to direction. This makes the anime bland. There are some gorgeous animated scenes here and there in certain anime but that's just about it. There are not significant and notable experiments with the cameras, the shots and editing. Anyone who has seen Maasaka sensie's previous works is aware about his unorthodox approach to direction. The most visible aspect of it is the art style that is deployed in the anime. Most people would be instantly turned off by the art style but to the ones who complete the anime would agree that how important and how beautiful the art really is. This anime or his other anime like Kaiba and tatami galaxy all explore unorthodox and plain weird subjects and the art style deployed is perfect with the theme. The usual shonen art would not gel with this anime at all. But apart from the art too, the director goes for cuts like not other director. Often the scenes are divided into panels focusing on different characters to showcase the different points of life each character is struck at and the complication in their lives. It is said that eyes are a window to a person's soul and the director seems to strongly believe in that. So many of the cuts are close ups solely featuring the eyes of the characters and this alone is enough for the viewers to comprehend the character's situation and mood. Also, the director often goes for shots which are played in faster than normal stream which increases the tension and makes viewers be on edge of their seats. Thus, the direction of the anime plays a significant part in telling the story.

The OST too are outstanding and are very diverse. When Smile plays the OST is akin to that of a robot esque music which brings in his personality. When Peko plays a faster OST is used to highlight Peko's attacking playing style. The opening is a hit and miss and was a miss for me but the ending is downright superb. There is one other song that is played in series and specifically in Episode 6. That is without doubt one of the best use of song in an anime. The song itself was sufficient to show Kong's integration into team and Smile and Kazama's slow but sure exclusion from the team. The scene was so well shot and the song chosen was so perfect that really made me feel somber about the current state of affairs of the characters in the anime. No sound is out of place and everything just meshes so well with the story that there can never be any complaint in this department.

Concluding my review, I would like to say that Ping Pong is a phenomenal and a game changer anime in both SOL and sports anime genre. Anyone who wants to watch an anime which focuses more on maturity and growth of characters rather than them just living each day as it comes must surely watch this jewel of anime.