Ping Pong the Animation

This review contains spoilers, so it's mostly for those who have already watched the show. But if you haven't watched it already let me tell you right now in one single paragraph that i do recommend it, i think everyone should watch it and hey, if you come here to watch ping pong itself you should know that while theres plenty, this show is more about the relationships, stories and experiences of the characters behind the game and how that affects each match. Which means that even if you don't know anything about ping pong you can still enjoy it and have a blast.

Now begins the real review:

I have been a fan of gurren lagann for the longest time now, and something that has always stayed with me about that show is how inspiring it is. I used to have depression and during that time i felt as if nothing made sense or had any kind of purpose, i remember going to sleep without any kind of motivation or desire to live and waking up the next day with the exact same train of thought, wondering why i was even alive in the first place. I feel like we all go through feelings like these at some point of our lives, obviously not everyone goes through the same and some have it worse than others in some ways (i for one had depression as i just stated) but im sure that everyone has had a point in their life in which they just dont know what to do anymore.
During these times we tend to be lonely, we seek a place where we can be by ourselves. And most of the time what we see once we are all alone is quite scary, because that's when we get to truly get to know ourselves.

Thats why its essential to remember the importance of people, bonds, family, friends, how warm it is to be around people and just talk to them. We need people, we need others to stay behind us so that they can be for us and we need to stay close to them too, so that we can also help them out. I believe that the only way to make progress and to achieve happiness is through understanding that we can't truly achieve anything relevant by ourselves alone, if we want to get far we need the strenght of others. And i feel like this is what this show is all about, the importance of our bonds, the importance of friendship, and what it means to be a hero.

We are used to seeing heroes like Goku in anime, these all mighty beings, pure, kind hearted and strong, no one can oppose these imposing figures of good. Characters with little to no weaknesses, if anything they usually have traits like being stupid or stubborn. And im not trying to trash these kinds of characters, in fact i've enjoyed them for years and im sure i will for many years to come. But at some point i began to seek more realistic depictions of heroes, ive grown more fond of characters like Peco, one of the protagonists of Ping Pong the animation. Characters that portray a more realistic interpretation of what it means to be a hero.

Peco is presented as what can be considered by many as an annoying and arrogant kid who is more in line with heroes like Goku. In the beginning he seems to be the absolute best, a beast who knows no limits and one that no one can ever even dare to stop. But then, the show decides to take a step back and show just how much humanity resides in this particular character. He goes from the shining and hopeful prodigy to... a person.

He falls to the ground and has to learn about what it means to lose, and for once he now knows how it feels to be on the losing team. He throws everything away and decides to leave it all behind and just try to go on with his life, but as soon as he starts trying to be someone else and trying to seek joy in what he believes to be freedom, he notices just how empty and hollow he becomes. And this is the point in the story where what i said about the importance of having friends and people around starts to make sense: Sakuma, a character who was introduced as an asshole who only seeks triumph, who was once a close friend of Peco reappers in the story after suffering a crushing defeat that destroys him. Sakuma loses his motivation and no longer knows where to go, in a similar way to peco. The difference being that Sakuma regains his will to live and learns of new ways to enjoy and to go about life, and this is when he realizes that not everyone is made to shine and thats ok. But the fact that we cant shine in front of a crowd doesnt mean that we cant do it on our own for the people that we love, and Sakuma shows us how everyone can be of help and useful.

This is an important theme through ping pong, not everyone needs to be popular or be known, every victory no matter the scale is still a victory and we are all necessary and we all got roles to fill. Peco goes from a shining prodigy to a teenager who wonders around aimlessly. Until his friends make him understand that falling isn't the end, and that there's always a tomorrow that we can look forward to.

There's so much character development in these 11 episodes that it's almost insane, everything is perfectly tied together to convey this inspiring message about what it means to be alive and how everyone is unique in their own way and thats what makes us shine in our own way.

And at the end of the day, the whole arc of Peco needs to be understood through the arc of Tsukimoto, our other protagonist. A kid who grew up for the most part on his own, one who was always bullied and who never really got how one is supposed to interact with people. They bullied him for "acting like a robot", he doesn't laugh, cry, nothing. But when he meets our hero as a kid he begins to smile when he is introduced to ping pong, but as time goes on and Peco falls from grace he begins to fall into that mindset that he used to be as a kid, he starts to think of himself as something other than a person once again and he's unable to connect with people (as Peco was the person he admired the most and his ultimate inspiration. So once he falls, Tsukimoto changes). And we get this pretty interesting dynamic, where when one falls, the other rises, and so begins the journey of Peco to regain his inspiration, his dream and his friend. In the process, becoming the most human hero i've seen in a while.

He struggles, he goes through sadness, anger, dissapointment, and seeing him rising once again, regaining his inspiration and motivation is just glorious and so damn heartwarming. At the beginning of the series i hated this character for how he was presented and now i think its actually one of my favorite characters in all of anime. He's a person, someone who until the very last moment has to give it his all and struggle to become who he wants to be. Im sure we have all had a friend who went from being someone who we admire to someone that we dont even recognize anymore, and we would like them to rise once again and be even better than before. Peco feels like that friend, and he feels like the best case scenario of that kind of friend where we get to see this guy become greater than before.

This show is just so damn inspiring and beautiful, and being that it's only 11 episodes long and considering that we are in the middle of a pretty harsh situation worldwide, i think that now more than ever we need these kinds of stories to remind ourselves why we should try our best and why is it worth it to live and to keep giving our all for the things and people we love. I feel like this show could be to many what gurren lagann was to me, and if you have read everything up to this point first i want to say thank you very much for your time, and secondly, please give it a watch if you havent, it's totally worth it.

From the spectacular visuals that perfectly convey what this series is all about, most of the time giving a lot of cues about the development of the narrative and almost always telling the narrative through said visuals, to the incredible and exciting opening, to the flawless writing of the narrative between the main characters (hell, even many minor characters add a lot to the overall theme of the show), to the beautiful sound. I swear, the way these fucking ping pong balls sound is just SEXY, it's so damn good.