review contains no spoilers

"The hero comes. The hero comes. The hero comes. Chant these words in your mind, and I'll surely come to you..."

Ping Pong The Animation made it to the spot in my top 20, the directing,animation and writing is great with a good cast of characters. its not much of a sports anime but more heavily focused on the characters, mainly peco, ryuichi and kong seeing them grow not only in their ping pong playing skills but also their attitude and personality through the struggles they went through outside of the sport

The artstyle may be seem pretty weird but there were some scenes that fit the mood for it. Animation, background, visuals and ost plays a big part in this anime and were exceptionally well done. masaaki yuasa is a genius at every work hes ever done such as devilman crybaby, tatami galaxy, keep your hands of eizouken,samurai champloo etc. you dont need to know how to play table tennis since the driving force of this series is the characters and their development within just a mere 11 episodes.

smile has a lot of talent for ping pong since he was a child but has no motivation to play. smile has great chemistry with peco considering they were childhood friends. he is also been called robot for the emotionless expressions he has everytime. "Smile" Makoto and Hoshino, "Peco" Yutaka. Despite being polar opposites, these two characters mesh with each other with ease. Smile is the quiet,introverted and passive character versus Peco energetic and loud They act as yin and yang in the series. While the main story is about these two they also give some spotlight for the supporting characters

Kong is a character who seeks redemption, as well as being an obstacle to the development of Peko and Smile he goes through a journey to understand what humility is within the sport. Sanada is Peko's rival, he is extremely important in leveraging Peko's motivation, as well as questioning why dedicating himself to the sport with Kazama who is the hardest working on the job. It's fascinating to watch, and the stories that develop, means that even when a character loses at a match, it doesn't mean they've lost at life. This sports show is about the players, the play is just its metaphor.

Ping Pong is not really about ping pong. Rather, it focuses on the growth of the players themselves outside of the sport. Their personal lives, their passions, their backstories, their motivations. It is raw and real, while the narrative itself is very artistic, impressionistic, and experimental. The anime follows four ping pong players intertwined by fate and confront each other in national tournaments.

the action scenes are astonishing. ping pong conveys human emotion and inner thoughts while playing a great way. theres always something happening in the screen like splitting screen in different directions and enhance the dynamic in still shots.

different people choose to live different ways. And it's not uncommon for some to stay in the closet, for some to chase fame, for some to be pretentious, and for some to compete. Ping Pong is a blend and blessing of all kinds of personalities who are tied by a single thread: need for victory.

Ping Pong contained messages about life, passion and loneliness that applied to us all