Ping Pong: The Animation

"The hero appears!"

“Ping Pong: The Animation” (or just “Ping Pong” for short) is a 2014 anime series that follows 5 different characters as they overcome the trials and tribulations of the psychological aspects of the same sport that they all love: ping pong.

And I will say no more, for “Ping Pong” is one of the greatest anime achievements of all time.

I don’t often critique (much less even mention) cinematography in anime, mainly because of the way it can be taken and/or perceived. With animation, the amount of different shots you can do is astounding; there’s just so many options to be had. However, while this is a great thing for the average viewer, for those wanting to fully critique it… it can be a bit of a bigger challenge. But, rest assured, I have no problem in saying that “Ping Pong” has some of the greatest cinematography I’ve seen in any media to date. Period.

Just look at some of these shots! Once you get past the quirky animation style, you can truly see what the creators were going for here; not only do most angles look great in the pseudo-manga style, but a lot of them also do a marvelous job at expressing characters’ feelings as well. For instance, take one of the series’ more interesting characters, Chinese foreigner Wenge Kong.

Oftentimes throughout the anime, Wenge has many, many shots of airplanes drifting off towards the sky in the background behind him, mainly after a particularly tough match. What do these represent? At first, I thought they signified his going back home towards his own country, but that obviously isn’t the case when it’s repeatedly put back on screen.

So what does it really mean?

For me, at least, I think the series uses it as an anecdote of sorts, especially because they’re almost always after a ping pong match: an anecdote of acceptance. When the plane floats across the empty sky, it signifies Wenge’s acceptance of the loss/loses that came before, which, in turn, lets us (the viewers) go on without a bitter defeat in our mouths as well. It isn’t manipulation- it’s genius.

Alas, that’s only one of the many great cinematography meanings this anime has to offer. Only one! There’s plenty more examples to be shared further down the line, which, for me, is what separates good cinematography from great cinematography.

But the cinematography only contributes slightly to what is, otherwise, a fantastic anime- an anime that knows exactly how to pace a story.

The pacing and storytelling of “Ping Pong” is out of the park. Instead of scenes just moving from one to the other, this anime instead ends each with both stunning grace and a spark of excitement, which always gets the viewer excited for more; in short, the creators knew how to craft an episode, and, on a larger scale, an entire series (the climax is particularly satisfying) as a whole.

I’ve always put the whole title/year/genre spiel in the first paragraph for as long as I can remember, but, this time, I decided to skip putting the genre there this time, but for good reason: “Ping Pong” is a genre breaker.

Some could call it a ‘sports’ anime, since, well, the very title is the name of a sport, but I would disagree: while most (but not all) sports anime focus on both the sometimes one-note characters and the often inconsequential matches, there’s real weight to nearly everything in “Ping Pong.” The characters, the story, even the games themselves… there’s weight and importance to all of them: nothing is worthless.

Some could also call it a ‘psychological’ series, to which I say yes, a little bit, but it breaks so much from that traditional psychological mold that it feels like much more than that: it feels like a character study. A character study that not only treats characters’ emotions with the proper respect they deserve, but also the characters, and, hey, even the viewers themselves. They’re not stupid, we’re not incompetent: “Ping Pong” treats its characters and its viewers with the adequate respect they deserve.

But, when all is said and done, “Ping Pong” is about one of the simplest things of all: heroes. Heroes, and the way that they can save all of us. That isn’t to say that “Ping Pong” is pushing an agenda of any sorts, but what it’s saying is that all of us need a helping hand every now and again, and that’s okay. Not all of us can climb a huge mountain by ourselves, and that’s perfectly fine: get somebody to help you every now and then, and everything will become a lot clearer. Everything will be all right.

10/10- A stunning meditation on life and a blistering character study at the same time, “Ping Pong” is one anime that deserves to be studied, analyzed, and, above all, respected, for years to come.