PING PONG THE ANIMATION |OT| ( `´)°(ò_ó )/

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My only complaint is that the fonts they use are really hard to read. I had to pause during
Smile's awakening
so I could read the internal dialogue.

Other than that, its really good so far. It completely captures the feeling from the movie / manga.
 
Man, this eps is too good.. what a technical showcase, I love it how fast the narrative can move, and they doing it with style.
 
Interesting. The Background Director of Ping Pong worked on Rayman Legends.

God tier. Anime has been saved.
http://aymrc.blogspot.jp/

Kevin Aymeric also worked on Yuasa's Kick-Heart short, and he worked on a few episodes of Space Dandy as well (ep5, 9, 11). For episode 9 he did all the backgrounds himself. He's been pretty busy working on anime stuff for the past year.
 
Kevin Aymeric, he's also worked on Kick-Heart and episode 9 of Space Dandy (the plant episode) as Art Director.

Edit: dammit duckroll
 
2 - Smile Is a Robot

Just when I thought the anime would play the bad writing card it just made things incredibly fun. Definitely the best episode so far and Im curious if other matches could be just as good on both character, entertainment but also on emotion.

Though I just want to get back to Wenge too. If we can fast forward two months.
 
KjiKnTc.jpg

Always wanted to get the manga after really liking Matsumoto's work with Tekkon Kinkreet, but never did for whatever reason. But, Yuasa and this type of source material seems like a match made in heaven.

Still waiting on the real opening sequence, though.
 
This is probably the best show in recent years. It's always astounding the degree of strength and soulfulness that Yuasa can give his shows, and this one is already proving to be an excellent example of that. Smile's condescending sadism was such a rush of blood, i loved it to bits.
 
pingpong2.jpg


It was this matchup that first made me realise the source material was the realest shit when I read so to see it so masterfully handled in this adaptation was just too good. Even Yuasa's added visual motifs of the Robot really fit and elevate all this Matsumoto goodness.
 
Man that entire second half was masterful.

The directional choices here are really elevating the already fantastic source material. The visual layouts are on point and the imagery is really effective. Nearly any frame taken from this episode looks great on its own. Really loving what's been introduced of the music too.
 
Not a huge fan of Yuasa (watched a bit more than half of Tatami Galaxy and thought it was good, but not amazing) but the theme of this show seems right up my alley.

Backlog++;
 
Ping-Pong 1-2

I felt the first episode got off to a bit of a lukewarm start. I was afraid the show wasn't going to be for me but things turned around for the better and pretty quickly. Smile can be a difficult individual to be around - his complete ennui can drain the energy out of a lot of scenes. I can understand if he's more interested in playing for fun but if you're going to join a team, then his complete lackadaisical attitude is pretty unacceptable. I've played varsity sports before and if there ever was someone like that on my team there was no way I would have been able to stand them. Peco can be a bit of a jerk but I really didn't have a problem with him until he essentially said he'd quit after being manhandled by Keng. I understand being bummed as fuck but one loss and your first instinct is to give up? A pretty shitty attitude to be frank.

However, when writing characters who you plan to develop, it often makes sense to write them as far from your intended goal as possible. This can unfortunately result in some characters who initially have some unappealing aspects. I do stress and recognize though that both Smile and Peco are both pretty realistically written - what they do and how they act can be annoying as fuck but I think we all have known people like them or have acted like them before we did some growing up.

The potential for character growth and the character writing (for both the protagonists and other major characters) are what sells the show for me even if I find their actions annoying sometimes. Once the Chinese dude arrived on the scene in Episode 1 I felt things REALLY took off and they did such a good job developing that character in such a short period of time. The match between Keng and Peco was straight up awesome and king of exhilarating. A similar energy can be felt in the match between Smile and the Coach (the latter of which spent most of of the second episode being kind of awesome). The visual metaphors used in both fights were quite cool and on point I felt. Through their interactions with the rest of the cast and the new obstacles that have been put in front of them you can see the gears turning in the heads of Smile and Peco. They are getting the wake-up calls they need and I hope/expect them to overcome their dumbassery through the course of the series.

I guess I should also briefly comment on Yuasa's stye and what not. It's certainly not the first of Yuasa's work I've watched and while it took me a bit of time to readjust from "normal" cartoon/anime land, I think it works well here even if it feels a bit extra rough from time to time. Heavily stylized but not so far out there that you have no idea what's going on :P The OP animation sequence is mad cheap though since they pretty much play/loop cuts from the episode. Ah well, best save the budget for elsewhere :P
 
Shit, this us the first I have heard of this anime. Gonna guve it a watch when I get home. I love the live action film. I had no idea it was based on a manga.
 
Really impressive stuff from Shinya Ohira. He directed and storyboarded that OP, and brought a bunch of his animator friends to work on it. I was surprised to see Niho's name in the credits for the OP too. It's been awhile since he was attached to something major like this.
 
This show keeps outdoing itself. Episode 3 was fantastic. Loved the use of the sea in Smile's first match, and the match between Smile and Wenge was awesome. And that OP! Sogood.
 
Episode 3


The pacing for this series is really quick, and it doesn't seem to compromise character development or details in the process either. I think there's quite a bit to criticize with regards to the animation or consistency of the art in this episode, especially since the CG close ups of the paddle and the ball are really distracting compared to the hand drawn art which looks totally different, but the direction and the actual content of the show carries it high enough that those issues are at worst minor issues. It's an engaging show to watch, and Smile's psychology juxtaposed with the mentality of all those other players around him make for some really compelling character drama even without much said to each other. Great stuff.
 
Ping Pong The Animation Episode 3:

Well, we finally have an OP and I am going to need to give that a few episodes before making a judgement on it. Anyway, in many ways this feels like it is the anti-shonen sport show as it does have many of the standard sports tropes but the attitude and presentation is so vastly different, there is no of that high postivve energy, the cheer of the crowd, the frustration of the opposition and so on and so forth. Everybody is so dialed back it is kind of unnerving actually. Anyway, much better episode this week now that the pitch black nihilism has faded.
 
Episode 3



The pacing for this series is really quick, and it doesn't seem to compromise character development or details in the process either. I think there's quite a bit to criticize with regards to the animation or consistency of the art in this episode, especially since the CG close ups of the paddle and the ball are really distracting compared to the hand drawn art which looks totally different, but the direction and the actual content of the show carries it high enough that those issues are at worst minor issues. It's an engaging show to watch, and Smile's psychology juxtaposed with the mentality of all those other players around him make for some really compelling character drama even without much said to each other. Great stuff.
Woah woah since when has a duckroll existed that acknowledged how distracting bad CG can be? I can't believe it!
 
Loved the episode, but it was frustrating at the end
seeing Smile let his sense of mercy make him give the match to Wenge. That's how it seemed to me, anyway.
 
Loved the episode, but it was frustrating at the end
seeing Smile let his sense of mercy make him give the match to Wenge. That's how it seemed to me, anyway.

It would be more out of character for
Smile to completely change how plays in one day I felt, but he got passed a few hurdles already
 
This is so good holy fucking shit this is like the condensation of everything that makes sports shounen appealing with none of the fluff.

This is distilled sports shounen.

The good stuff.

100% pure, uncut cocaine, mainlined right into your fucking eyeballs.
 
This is so good holy fucking shit this is like the condensation of everything that makes sports shounen appealing with none of the fluff.

This is distilled sports shounen.

The good stuff.

100% pure, uncut cocaine, mainlined right into your fucking eyeballs.

it's like a sports shounen with all the shounen cut out, so goooood
 
It would be more out of character for
Smile to completely change how plays in one day I felt, but he got passed a few hurdles already

Oh, I know it makes sense, it wasn't out of character or anything. It was just frustrating as a viewer, that's all.
 
Oh, I know it makes sense, it wasn't out of character or anything. It was just frustrating as a viewer, that's all.

Ah i understand,
I personally aren't watching it so much to see Smile win as just to see how it all unfolds, so watching Smile defeat himself doesn't frustrate me at all, I can certainly see your viewpoint though.
 
Ah i understand,
I personally aren't watching it so much to see Smile win as just to see how it all unfolds, so watching Smile defeat himself doesn't frustrate me at all, I can certainly see your viewpoint though.

I understand; after all, the series seems to be about how Smile grows as a person just as much as the actual ping pong matches!
It's going to be great seeing how Smile changes after this match, but I'm actually a little more interested in Wenge right now. Does he know that Smile threw the match? How will he react when he finds out?
 
I understand; after all, the series seems to be about how Smile grows as a person just as much as the actual ping pong matches!
It's going to be great seeing how Smile changes after this match, but I'm actually a little more interested in Wenge right now. Does he know that Smile threw the match? How will he react when he finds out?

He's going to fucking lose it.

And then do a rocky training montage.
 
Episode 3

Yeah, that was really super fast pacing in this episode and it showed, around 8 chapters or so of content. Not that I will complain cause otherwise the match would have been split in half and it's not something I would have preferred to see. Anyway the animation issues for the matches are starting to show, I know rushed schedule and all, but it really sucks that we could have gotten something more dynamic and better had everything went accordingly to schedule. Still, Yuasa's great direction is making this very fun to watch.

Also the OP is amazing.
 
Episode 3

When Smile was just taking data from Kong. When he downloaded Kong that first round, got damn. PogChamp

Fuck that was a good episode.
 
Loved the episode, but it was frustrating at the end
seeing Smile let his sense of mercy make him give the match to Wenge. That's how it seemed to me, anyway.

Ah i understand,
I personally aren't watching it so much to see Smile win as just to see how it all unfolds, so watching Smile defeat himself doesn't frustrate me at all, I can certainly see your viewpoint though.

I understand; after all, the series seems to be about how Smile grows as a person just as much as the actual ping pong matches!
It's going to be great seeing how Smile changes after this match, but I'm actually a little more interested in Wenge right now. Does he know that Smile threw the match? How will he react when he finds out?

What are these spoiler tags for? Y'all don't appear to have read the manga and these 'spoilers' are actually for your speculation, right? Can we get a quick clarification on how spoilers will work in this thread?
 
What are these spoiler tags for? Y'all don't appear to have read the manga and these 'spoilers' are actually for your speculation, right? Can we get a quick clarification on how spoilers will work in this thread?

They're discussing in this week's episode as to how
Smile lost to Kong.
 
Something about the look and vibe of this show has me super curious. Really looking forward to it.


It'll be airing on the noitaminA timeslot alongside some uguu moe bullshit.

I thought the whole point of noitaminA was to put out anime that pushes the boundaries of the medium and puts out riskier, more creative, substantial stuff though... :/


For some reason, I thought for a second that the Ping Pong Club is back. God that show was screwed up


Lol that show was awesome.
 
This episode I really am starting to understand why Smile's playstyle is so disgusting. It's like watching someone throw away their God given abilities while also being patronizing about it at the same time. It's the most insulting way a person could play any sport.
 
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