Devoting your life to table tennis is creepy.
I wanted to say that Ping Pong is not a conventional sports anime, because it’s less about winning and more about friendship and the love for the sport, but then I realized that just makes it sound even more conventional. I guess at its core Ping Pong is actually quite standard, and what makes it stand out are the strong characters and bold visual style.
This is one of those shows I enjoyed, but don’t have a lot to say about. I liked Smile and Peco, their friendship, and how they grew throughout the series. It’s clear that a lot of effort was put in animating the ping pong matches. But as someone who doesn’t know anything about how the game is played professionally, most of it went right over my head. The game is extremely fast-paced, so there’s little room for build-up. Points are scored in the blink of an eye, and it’s hard to tell what makes a player better than their opponent. I don’t know if that actually impacted my enjoyment, because it’s clear enough what’s happening from the context. The action is highly exaggerated for effect, and it conveys a lot through more abstract imagery, like when it portrays Smile as a robot or Kazama as a dragon.
I came away from every episode of Ping Pong thinking it was quite good. But did it add up to something greater than the sum of its parts? I’m not entirely sure, but I feel like it didn’t.
Most of the secondary characters do have some story arc, like Kazama, Kong, or Sakuma. And I can see what those arcs were going for, but something felt missing in all of them, like more development or a stronger resolution. Early on it was hard to tell Kazama apart from all the other Kaio members, so I might’ve missed some important moments there. An oddly high amount of screen time is given to Yurie, even though she ends up barely playing a role in the other characters’ stories.
And while the ending was fine, I didn’t love it either. It seemed a little weird to devote most of the series to Smile’s training, and then at the last minute Peco jumps back in and he’s the only one who actually becomes a pro and enjoys success.
Still, this is a good anime, and one that clearly stands out (like all Yuasa anime does). It made me care about a sports I have no interest in.