(L+CR) Ping Pong (NoitaminA)

[BloodyKitty]

Originally Posted by noobita

Just watched episode 1, and I was freaking impressed that CHINA actually spoke CHINESE instead of Japanese like every anime foreigner did. +1 for the animator.

So, is CHINA going to speak CHINESE for entire series?

He started speaking Japanese from ep 5 due to character development, what is even more awesome is that both his Chinese and Japanese are done by the same voice actor.

[Kaengel]

Peco is doing great at his coming back. But that strap on this knee isn't a good news.
Kazama has something wrong in his head. Kind of a tsundere.

[HandofFate]

With the coach's story of his past.
Looks like a parallel foreshadowing of a Peco vs. Smile match with Peco with an injured knee, and Smile faced with going easy like he used to, or mercilessly attacking his injured side possibly ending Peco's playing for good even after Peco renewed his spirit.

[kuromitsu]

This show is just so good. Everything about it, the way it comes together.

Finally Peko is learning humility and discipline, and Nozawa Masako is given some time to shine (and man, she's awesome). It's nice to see Peko taking the sport seriously.

Smile has also taken another step forward, in the right direction. He's... having fun. Wow. (Oota continues to be my hero.) Surprising backstory about the coach. Aside of the very obvious foreshadowing, there's also a curious message that seems to go contrary with whe apparent message: coach basically gave up his own career out of consideration for his friend, who then went on and became a top athlete (so apparently he was pretty good) and businessman, while coach is coaching in a small ping pong club in some no-name high school.

I think this goes two ways here. One says "don't trample over other people", the other says "I didn't and look where I am now and where he is now." I suppose the question here is "how much is this game worth for you?" For Smile it's "do you want victory bad enough to risk deeply hurting your friend, or are you in it for something else?" and for Peko I guess it'll be "do you want victory bad enough to risk even permanent injury which could end your dreams?" (duh)

China still has his sorta-friends and that's so awesome. And apparently someone shared my concern about him not practicing against someone on his own level, so they got him a machine. I'm glad to see that he's not given up and wants to get back at Dragon, but something tells me that playing against a machine won't help. (Machines never help. )

No Akuma in this episode... I hope we'll see what he's up to now that he needs to rebuild his drives and goals.

Dragon is pretty messed up, along with his entire family. I really wonder how his story will play out.

And an epic confession courtesy of Sanada Masayuki.

[Jazzrat]

One thing i love about Ping Pong is how many storyline they are keeping track all at once for a sports anime and each of them are engaging on their own. While the players are all interesting, the coaches are probably one of the best I've seen in sports anime. Koizumi and Tamura is simply the best, I always break into a grin whenever they get screentime.

Huge revelation this time with Koizumi's backstory. Looks like the whole butterfly theme that appear in ep2 was more about Koizumi than Smile.

[cyth]

The knee thing? Eh, I don't like it. The setup felt a bit forced to me.

[Flower]

I am impressed by this series again and again. The character development, the story, tne juggling so many things at once and portraying so many people from so many different age groups so well is hard to pull off in any visual medium, and this series is doing an excellent job so far as far as I am concerned.

The people are real, flawed, not one sided, change over time, and are even given a chance to show other sides of their personality.

Kudos to those who produced this extremely ugly yet charming duckling.

[Kaengel]

Originally Posted by cyth

The knee thing? Eh, I don't like it. The setup felt a bit forced to me.

He's training like crazy to catch up with all the good players, given all the shit he did during the past 6 months, that's to be expected.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by cyth

The knee thing? Eh, I don't like it. The setup felt a bit forced to me.

It's certainly unsubtle - not the injury but the way it ties into the coach's cautionary tale and how obvious it is as a foreshadowing. But I think that even if Peko and Smile face off as Kazama Ryuu and the coach did way back, the point is not really the "who wins?!" drama, but more along the lines that I speculated above. (Has Smile developed ambitions on his own, or is he just looking for Peko? Will they repeat the coach's story with one player deferring to the other out of consideration, or will they have an all-out match, may the best one win?)

[Reckoner]

I'm starting to wonder if Yuasa is going to change the ending of the manga. There are enough details different here where I could see that happening.

[RollingPenguin]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

I'm starting to wonder if Yuasa is going to change the ending of the manga. There are enough details different here where I could see that happening.

Given the number of hints tossed through the entire show,it is almost guaranteed that the ending will be kept.Also Yuasa made a lot of great changes but the basic structure is still there,I can't see him becoming more radical than now.

[Guardian Enzo]

It's been nagging at me for a while, but it finally hit me this week - structurally speaking, Ping Pong is laid out very much like a boxing story. Both the character types and the general motif of the series owe a lot to boxing, both of the manga and Hollywood variety. Hell, there's even a striking continuity between the scenes of players in a packed gym hammering the ball across the table and a gym full of boxers hammering speed bags. Kids running up stairs as cigarette-huffing old-timer trainers alternately encourage and harangue them, "Butterfly Joe" - it could be straight out of a boxing movie from any era. It's a bit of a jump for Western minds to see table tennis as that sort of brutal, savagely aggressive sport - but that's how it's presented here, with complete conviction.

[Kanon]

This episode was too good. Loved the part with Smile running with amazing music playing in the background. That was a great episode for Peco and Smile, both of them are moving forward. We haven't seen China much, but it looks like he hasn't given up, which is great news. I'm rooting for him to beat Dragon. That might actually be a good thing for Dragon, he has way too much pressure on his shoulders and he's completely neglecting his life outside of ping pong.

[articuzwolf]

Originally Posted by cyth

The knee thing? Eh, I don't like it. The setup felt a bit forced to me.

exactly, I hate when sports anime/manga starts using injury to give spices the story

[Sixth]

This anime is very good. Such a shame that this anime didn't get well-deserved attention in every anime forum. This says a lot about anime industry today. It is all about MOE.

Really love the character development in this series. Felt so natural to see the character grew. Smile actually starting to interact with people, especially with his senpai. I guess that Smile really look up his coach as his figurative father for now.

As for Peco, why would he wants to cut his hair off? He was looking pretty good with long hair. Anyway, it is a great scene to see Peco and the grandma interact with each other.

Also, it was really amazing to see China picked up Japanese Language so fast. Good to see that he is enjoying with his new friends.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by articuzwolf

exactly, I hate when sports anime/manga starts using injury to give spices the story

I didn't mean that, I meant it as foreshadowing future conflicts. I enjoy the series immensly, but as kuromitsu says, this one feels a bit forced. Maybe because the episode set up so many threads that the last one felt like unnecessary topping. I don't know.

[articuzwolf]

Originally Posted by cyth

I didn't mean that, I meant it as foreshadowing future conflicts. I enjoy the series immensly, but as kuromitsu says, this one feels a bit forced. Maybe because the episode set up so many threads that the last one felt like unnecessary topping. I don't know.

I meant that as two sentences as well...shouldn't use coma there
the part that "I hate..." is my own preference and yes exactly, the foreshadowing of Peco (probable) injury by Butterfly Joe is really forced

[musouka]

I would be more irked by the blatant foreshadowing in Koizumi's story if I didn't feel as though Koizumi isn't actually Smile in the past. To me, the words he was saying, and his obvious bitterness at being where he is today, reminded me more of Peco when I stopped to think about it. Perhaps it was just from Koizumi's perspective, but he also implied a tactical reason for Kazuma-the-elder to play even with his hurt knee that I don't think we're getting from Peco at this point in time, potentially busted knee or not.

This was a good episode, though. It's sort of easy to forget why these kids are so obsessed with ping pong in earlier episodes when it brings them such heartache and stress, but this episode really laid it out. For all but Kazuma, they just...really love the game. You can see it in Peco's excitement to be playing again, to the point where he's ignoring what his body is telling him in order to press on. You can see it in Smile's excitement over the new ping pong balls, playing just for the joy of playing with them, and reaching out to another teammate in order to do so. You can see it in the way Kong teaches his group, gentle when he needs to be, strong when he needs to be. (Honestly, I think Kong is probably the best coach on the show, though both of Peco's are pretty good too.)

It makes me sad to think there are only four episodes left.

[kuromitsu]

FWIW I never said I thought the injury foreshadowing was forced. I said it was unsubtle. But I think that this ties very much into Smile's character development - will he be willing to "fight" an injured Peko? Will he be willing to go all-out on him or will he let him win? if yes, why? The options that open up in Smile's development leading up to and including his decision when faced with having to play against an injured Peko may very well be the culmination of his character arc.

1) He tramples over Peko in robot mode, wins <-- I doubt it, as there would be no character development in this case.
2) He defers to Peko again and lets him win <-- nah, in this case Smile's entire character arc would've been meaningless
3) He lets Peko win because ultimately Smile is into ping pong because of Peko and not because he has ambitions as a ping pong athlete, regardless of his talent, so now, having overcome his issues re: Peko and himself, he's content to have the "hero" back and just play ping pong for the (newly realized) fun of it <-- more likely and would make sense
4) He a) realizes he has ambitions as a ping pong athlete, or b) feels he needs to have an all-out "fight" against Peko to find the best balance in their relationship and his own life, so he and Peko have a fight as equals, may the best one win <-- another likely scenario, I'm not sure which one I'd like to see the best, this or 3)
5) ...etc

So no, I don't think the development is forced. Yes, it's unsubtle as a foreshadowing, and also the parallels between the coach and Smile are made very obvious. But it doesn't seem to me that they're using Peko's (possible) injury as drama for drama's sake.

...And there's a possibility that Peko will go "oh this? nah, I'm totally fine, I just wanted people to think I'm cool because I'm playing while I'm injured " xD

[cyth]

My prediction?

Spoiler for prediction:

One of them dies before they have their match (accident or something), the other carries on the other's love for ping pong.