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Oh Right, We Forgot To Talk About Ping Pong!

Posted on the 18 April 2014 by Kaminomi @OrganizationASG

PP2I really did not like the first half of this episode.

The second half completely changed my mind.

I really don’t feel like Ping Pong needs a ton of introduction: thus far, it’s a group of kids playing ping pong. To be more specific though, the first episode focuses on two main characters Makoto “Smile” Tsukimoto and Yukata “Peco” Hoshino, both students at Katase High School. Smile is fairly quiet while Peco is the more outgoing of the two friends; Peco already has big dreams of playing ping pong in Europe, while Smile is a bit more hesitant to put himself out there. With the arrival of top-notch Chinese competitor Wenge Kong, the ping pong club gets shaken up.

PP1

So let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the room: the animation. I saw some referring to it as “Flowers of Evil 2” and I can certainly see why the animation style would be as divisive if not more so than that show. My thoughts? I really don’t like it. It’s majorly distracting along with the color palette. I’d almost go so far as to say it’s downright ugly. Like anything else, you get used to it though, and I will say it does make the characters look more realistic as opposed to cartoony. I just don’t think it was necessary.

As for the show itself, the first half of the episode is pretty darn boring. We really just get the basic groundwork — Peco and Smile’s basic personalities and how they relate to one another. It’s just…with that animation and not much happening I was pretty bored — it actually took me two times to get through that first chunk.

PP3

What saves this episode is the arrival of the Chinese player Wenge Kong. First off, as someone that studied Chinese I find it majorly cool that the Chinese character actually speaks Chinese — not just a one liner here or there, but enough to actually need to make use of translator for Peco, Smile, and the team. That aside, Wenge brings with him some much needed forward momentum to the story, as he’s quick to challenge the other players to a match. All that said, this one really needs more than one episode to figure out if it’s worth sticking out. With the turn around at the end of the first episode, I’m intrigued enough to do just that.


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