(L+CR) Ping Pong (NoitaminA)

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

My first thought: Looks interesting and great sound-direction, but it's just so... ugly.

Masaaki's shows get this a lot, and while I can see where people are coming from with this opinion, because it's certainly not pretty, I always found it a bit strange. I mean, of course this is very subjective, but I really like this style, and much prefer it to the über-polished look of PA Works or KyoAni. There's a lot more you can do with something that's so fluid, flexible and expressive.

[RollingPenguin]

Originally Posted by Eclipze

The spoken Mandarin Chinese was not awkward at all, for those who are wondering. It sounded like something you'd hear from a chinese period drama, actually.

Yeah,one thing that I have noticed is how the Chinese voice actor was noticeably more intense and melodramatic in performance compared to his Japanese colleagues.Which doesn't bother me in slightest,in fact I think it suits his character quite well.
The ending song was just amazing,too bad that they haven't animated opening song yet.That defiantly indicates that the show has production issues.

[mweloo]

Well, I like the glimpses we caught of Peko and Smile's friendship, as well as their individual characters. And I've heard that the story is in essence a coming-of-age tale- and I'm a huge sucker for those, so I'll be keeping a lookout on that front. The table tennis matches were also really intense- which is something you wouldn't expect from a battle as one-sided as Peko's and Wenge's. But yeah... I'm not very familiar with the manga or Masaaki Yuasa, so the art style's going to take a lot of getting used to (I had to watch the episode three times to really enjoy it and catch all the nuances present). I will give the animation props for fluidity, though.

Still, the show is building things up fairly slowly, so I think we'll see the payoff in the long run, and- if the praise people have doled out towards the source is any indication- it'll be glorious. It seems to be a lot more restrained than the other sports manga I enjoy (Chihayafuru and Haikyuu!!, specifically), but if the character development here is as good as it is in those two, I'll be a very happy camper.

[monir]

Dog tired, but still had to come to the forum to say.... what an opening!!! The shounen blood in me is boiling. It hasn't reacted like this since the opening episode of Attack on Titan..... So to the animators of this show, don't allow any girl in this. As in, no romance please! Bromance is okay.

Btw, is there any native Chinese speaker watching this? How was the spoken Chinese? Is it as bad as Engrish?

Episode gets a 9 out 10 for being almost perfect from virtually every aspect of animation. Very good start for this show.

Good night~

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by monir

Dog tired, but still had to come to the forum to say.... what an opening!!! The shounen blood in me is boiling. It hasn't reacted like this since the opening episode of Attack on Titan..... So to the animators of this show, don't allow any girl in this. As in, no romance please! Bromance is okay.

Btw, is there any native Chinese speaker watching this? How was the spoken Chinese? Is it as bad as Engrish?

Episode gets a 9 out 10 for being almost perfect from virtually every aspect of animation. Very good start for this show.

Good night~

The spoken Mandarin is excellent, because in Wnege's case it's being spoken by a Chinese seiyuu.

[Kanon]

The Ping Pong match at the end was marvelously animated. It was a one-sided match and yet it was still intense, I can't wait to see how matches between two players around the same level will look like.

I was pretty pleased that Peco got his ass handed to him. Always great to see an arrogant prick get taught some humility. As the coach said, there's always somebody better than yourself, it's good to remain humble even if you're better than most.

Smile seems like an interesting character. He could be a top player but he lacks passion and competitiveness. I'm looking forward to seeing him grow.

[ditn]

Once i get used to the different animation this will be a great series i think.
Happy that for once its actual somebody from that country who speaks the language.

[Flolan]

Started watching this without any prior knowledge of the series and the first scenes were... shocking. Made me wonder whether i should go on or stop. The fish-lips were probably the worst part.
But as i went on i was hooked! Interesting story and the banter was good! Hearing real chinese in my animu was weird.
Who knew you can tell so much about ping pong from just the game sounds... amazing!

[cupumanager]

Haha, Could already see how the animation would not be everyone's cup of tea...But this is wonderful, really.

Oh, anybody here a Ping-Pong player? The Styles and Techniques flew by my head, care to explain? I mean, I can imagine how Shakehand Grip, Penhold Grip, Chopper Style, Soft Racket may looks like, but how it really effects the play I have no idea...

[Freeter]

A refreshingly original show to balance out the awesomeness of returning heavyweights like Jojo and Mushishi.

This season might just be the best offering 2014 has seen yet.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Masaaki's shows get this a lot, and while I can see where people are coming from with this opinion, because it's certainly not pretty, I always found it a bit strange. I mean, of course this is very subjective, but I really like this style, and much prefer it to the über-polished look of PA Works or KyoAni. There's a lot more you can do with something that's so fluid, flexible and expressive.

I certainly agree with the gist of what you say. It's just that I do find the style ugly - instinctively. But that's just an entry barrier; I usually adjust pretty quickly.

I like the überpolished look, personally, although I'm a bit luke-warm on recent Kyo-Ani and with PA Works its more setting than character design. I personally go for the stylish stuff. Think: Mushibugyou, Katanagatari, or recently Nobunagun (except for some lips).

I'm not very aware of what you can do with what style; I have no eye for detail and my eyesight is slightly bad. I hate 3D because it gives me motion sickness (in extreme cases; I might not be able to watch Sidonia no Kishi this season).

I definitely didn't mean to imply that Ping Pong should be prettier; far from it. It's just perfect the way it is. My own reaction is proof of that.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Excellent start. It did take me a few minutes to get over the early drawing style -- the other players were so ugly, and I could almost smell the sweat -- but so expressive and interesting once we got to the meat of the story. And the relationships among the characters were fascinatingly unusual: the club managers just having to accept their best players not showing up; a top player not freaking out when someone starts playing around with his racket, because he enjoyed watching the play.

And two things about the Chinese player sealed the deal for me. For one, not only was his Chinese perfect but (up to a point) I think he acted like a Chinese idea of someone Chinese, and said natural lines. I expect the seiyuu had some influence on the script. For another thing, I felt as if he -- and through him all Chinese -- were being treated with intelligence and respect. It was only natural that he would then feel respect for at least one of the Japanese he met (our apparent MC). I look forward to finding out what the mistake was that landed him off his team.

The Chinese seiyuu (文曄星 Wen Yexing, Japanese "Bun Yosei") is 30, from Canton, and is famous in Japan for acing Japanese-language tests. He does Chinese-language announcements of various kinds in Japan, but I think he proves here that he's actually a decent actor, too. He sounded quite natural, to me.

[ookamigirl]

The animation was a shocker.
I seriously didn't expect something like this.
Guess it's a sports anime, but why did they do this to it.
Don't know what manga looks like, but I hope the drawings are better.
I just can't see past the animation.
Dropping it.

[neshru]

Originally Posted by ookamigirl

The animation was a shocker.
I seriously didn't expect something like this.
Guess it's a sports anime, but why did they do this to it.

It's not sports anime, it's Masaaki Yuasa. He likes to go for creative visual styles instead of the usual anime conventions.

[Tempester]

Originally Posted by ookamigirl

The animation was a shocker.
I seriously didn't expect something like this.
Guess it's a sports anime, but why did they do this to it.
Don't know what manga looks like, but I hope the drawings are better.
I just can't see past the animation.
Dropping it.

Art style is based off the manga.

I think Ping Pong's incredible animation more than makes up for the ugly art so far. I've also heard lots of praise for the original manga, so we may be getting a great story as well.

[neshru]

Originally Posted by Tempester

I think Ping Pong's incredible animation more than makes up for the ugly art so far.

You make it sound like the series is drawn that way because the artists sucks at drawing. The "ugly" art is of course not ugly at all, it's drawn that way on purpose.

[Tempester]

Originally Posted by neshru

You make it sound like the series is drawn that way because the artists sucks at drawing. The "ugly" art is of course not ugly at all, it's drawn that way on purpose.

That insinuation is untrue. My use of the word "ugly" means exactly what it says on paper: I'm simply not fond of the look. If I thought the characters were drawn poorly, I would have clarified myself by saying something like "off-model" or "QUALITY".

Do you really think I'm so stupid that I believe the director and animators, with as much talent and resources as they had to make such a splendidly animated episode, drew the characters in such a way by accident?

By the way, I think Ping Pong's art style, while not pretty, is quite *appropriate* for the type of anime it is: a raw and passionate sports series. So even though I'm not personally fond of it, it doesn't irk me nearly as much as say, Love Live would if it was drawn the same way.

[Haak]

Absolutely loved it. I was going to totally ignore this show until Flower pushed me into watching it and I'm glad he did because it was great. I thought the fugly art style would distract me too much but the story was just so totally engaging that I forgot about it by the end. Funnily enough I thought the best character was the Chinese dude. I was afraid he was just going to be a typical arrogant prick but he was actually pretty sympathetic. He had the two best scenes of the episode: judging the match by sound and letting off steam against Peco.

[Guardian Enzo]

It's interesting how many people were surprised by the look. I guess Yuasa isn't as well-known among newer fans as I thought.

[MeoTwister5]

Well to be honest when I first started to watch his shows his shows it took me a while to get used to his... unique approach to animation and art. It was already in Tatami Galaxy where I really started to dig his style.