Ping Pong the Animation

Watch Episodes

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: PPTA

Japanese: ピンポン THE ANIMATION

More titles

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 11

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 11, 2014 to Jun 20, 2014

Premiered: Spring 2014

Broadcast: Fridays at 00:50 (JST)

Producers: Aniplex, Dentsu, Fuji TV, Kyoraku Industrial Holdings

Licensors: Funimation

Studios: Tatsunoko Production

Source: Manga

Genres: Award Winning, Drama, Sports

Demographic: Seinen

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 8.62¹ (scored by 178,260 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #80²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #581

Members: 381,518

Favorites: 15,484

Available At

Official Site

@pingpong_anime

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Streaming Platforms

Crunchyroll

Funimation

8.62

Ranked #80Popularity #581Members 381,518

Spring 2014TVTatsunoko Production

Add to List

Episodes: /11

* Your list is public by default.

PV English dub version

play

Synopsis

Despite being polar opposites, Makoto "Smile" Tsukimoto and Yutaka "Peco" Hoshino have been best friends since childhood. Although the overly confident Peco strives to be the best ping-pong player in the world, he often skips practice, earning the ire of his fellow teammates on the Katase High School ping-pong team. Meanwhile, Smile—in spite of his innate talent for the sport—cannot help but hold back his full strength when playing against others. Through their mutual love for ping-pong, the two have developed a bond that is seemingly unbreakable.

When Peco hears that an ex-national team player from China is coming to Japan, he drags Smile over to rival Tsujido High School to observe them. The subsequent trip leads to a clash between Peco and Kong Wenge, who overwhelmingly defeats the former in one game. Stunned by such a comprehensive loss, Peco finds himself questioning why he plays to begin with. Seeing his potential as a player, Katase's coach begins to train Smile to overcome his hesitation, but he is reluctant to play if it is not for enjoyment.

As the two struggle to find meaning in the sport, a plethora of stronger players—each with their own internal strifes—await them at the inter-high tournament, where only the very best can persevere. But when these young athletes let their unbridled ambition go unchecked, the hardships they face paint a somber reality as they pursue glory.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

Ping Pong The Animation won the Animation of the Year award in the Television category at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival in 2015.

The series was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Funimation Entertainment on June 23, 2015.

Episode Videos

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:

Ping Pong

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Hoshino, Yutaka

Main

Katayama, Fukujuurou
Japanese

Tsukimoto, Makoto

Main

Uchiyama, Kouki
Japanese

Kong, Wenge

Supporting

Bun, Yousei
Japanese

Kazama, Ryuuichi

Supporting

Sakuya, Shunsuke
Japanese

Sakuma, Manabu

Supporting

Kimura, Subaru
Japanese

Egami

Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou
Japanese

Koizumi, Jou

Supporting

Yara, Yuusaku
Japanese

Tamura, Obaba

Supporting

Nozawa, Masako
Japanese

Kong's Coach

Supporting

Ha, Tei
Japanese

Yurie

Supporting

Kawasumi, Ayako
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Yuasa, Masaaki

Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Key Animation, Series Composition

Kimura, Eriko

Sound Director

Ohira, Shinya

Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, Animation Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"Tada Hitori (唯一人)" by Bakudan Johnny (爆弾ジョニー)

Edit

Ending Theme

	1: "Ano Hero to' Bokura ni Tsuite ("あのヒーローと" 僕らについて)" by Merengue (メレンゲ) (eps 1-4, 8, 10-11)
	2: "Ano Yoake Mae no' Bokura ni Tsuite ("あの夜明け前の" 僕らについて)" " by Merengue (メレンゲ) (eps 5-7,9)

Reviews

Jul 28, 2023

TinoTheThortino

Recommended

This show is not for everyone so, whoever wants to approach it, is advised.
"Ping Pong the Animation" is an unusual anime, mainly based on the characters' development and their bond with this sport.

ANIMATION (10) - it is literally written in the title of the show so.. animations are extraordinarly-well drawn (surely there were lots of studies about real ping-pong players playing): very smooth and fluid, they give you that feeling of watching a real professional ping-pong game.
Even if sometimes they do look repetitive and weird, especially when lots of people are drawn in the same scene, I felt satisfied overall.

CHARACTERS (9) - another strenght of ...

Open

Gift

Apr 12, 2020

ST63LTH

Mixed Feelings

Ping Pong - The Animation, an underdog sports anime of sorts. Ping Pong is promising from the get-go with its fast paced action and resourceful split-frames leaving no idle moments. The animation style is unique and makes use of realistic movement rather than the typical characters only moving their mouth. The surface level plot behind it is also fairly intriguing with quiet and loud ping pong prodigies MC, Hoshino and Tsukimoto.

Story:
PP:TA leaves nearly no narrative detail unexplained, the story line follows 2 high school boys of opposing personalities and outlooks on life who are tightly connected through the mutual interest of Ping Pong. Their ... high school team participates in the annual inter-high ping pong competition involving schools locally and internationally, their journey and past is shared as they progress closer to the end of the competition fitting as much details about each other as visually and verbally possible. Doing all that in 11 episodes seems like an interesting idea however, it does mean it'll be slower to process detail on a surface level viewing; most likely requiring one to obsess in order to fully grasp what is occurring (unless you're a literature fanatic with fetishes for dense, unique approaches to the medium) As such, naturally Ping Pong isn't my type of sporting entertainment so it didn't interest me as much. 5/10...

Art & Sound:
I've been searching through forums to find why this series is well praised despite its vulnerability to age and change in generations. The art style, mimics a hand-drawn rotorscoped version of real life, there are no fancy ecchi characters or powerful aura that emitts from powerful opponents visually which means this series stays true to life and rather considers the use of different types of film techniques (wide angle, close up etc.) to portray action. That being said, there are a few things that this series may lack in terms of art: shading is very minimal even toward the climax of the series there weren't many hints toward shading which made the characters feel unrealistic and also the smoothness of the animation was questionable for some scenes. Overall art could be considered a 6/10; Sound didn't excel as much either since it is expected to be naturally well constructed 6/10.

Character:
The one aspect this series excelled phenomenally at was the character development. I always wondered why Tsukimoto's nickname was Smile since his classmates explained that he never smiles and I took that as the textbook reason but the person who began nicknaming him was Hoshino and the main reason was because he actually smiled while learning to play Ping Pong after he had taught Tsukimoto how to play. That level of detail was maintained at the end of the series and could have easily been missed if it was skipped over for a few seconds. The attention to character development in Ping Pong the animation is out of this world, even toward the end character development was maintained with close precision. It's amazing that level of detail would be maintained across all 11 episodes without a drop in quality. 10/10 in character development

Enjoyment:
Despite being an underdog of sports anime, Ping Pong establishes more of the characters (they even paid attention to using chinese VA as international ping pong opponents instead of using English which was surprising.) However, I personally couldn't find the sports premise as entertaining as a racing anime such as initial D or Kuroko no Basket because they give the viewer comic relief and are tailored to the user-satisfaction. As such, I'd rate 4/10 in terms of enjoyment (I still watched it though, just to give it a chance haha)

Thanks for reading :)

Open

Gift

Mar 31, 2021

pickyviewer

Not Recommended

Funny

I want to like this show more than I actually do. First off, it’s racist (I’ll explain in the Writing section). I would have dropped the show by the end of episode 5 if it weren’t for Kong, my favorite character. Seeing that he reappears in episode 8 encouraged me to hang on. Episode 10, the second to last episode, was the first ostensible feeling of fun I had watching the show. Episode 11 then wrapped up the series in a satisfying manner.

- Story. This show is 40% sports 60% character arcs. There were a couple revelations about character backgrounds and relationships that pleasantly ... surprised me. However, the pacing was too slow. Half of the main and supporting cast are unlikeable for the first two thirds of the show. Kong and Akuma had the tightest narratives, with clear motivations and actions resulting from their internal struggles. The others had several logical inconsistencies that got in the way of convincing storytelling even though I understood what the show was trying to say with each of them.

It follows that the payoff of episodes 10 and 11 took too long to arrive. In my opinion, there was enough imagery and foreshadowing that 2-3 episodes’ worth of B-roll and extraneous side plots (such as one character’s weird incest romance, or a mere background character's soul searching journey) could have been cut. It was not worth my time sitting there waiting for things to “get good” between Kong episodes.

- Characters. Each character grapples with what ping pong means to them. Why do they work so hard to train? Why do they want to win? Why do they like to play? Do they like to play? Who are they playing for? The answer is rooted in their individual pasts and life experiences.

Kong is the star of the show for me. He faces high stakes pressure fueling his desire to win. What is most compelling, however, is how he deals with his trials and tribulations. He changes so much as a person by the end of the show. His reasons for change are open to interpretation, but I think the show gives me enough information to come to a conclusion that makes sense to me.

- Art. The lineart style is exceedingly HIDEOUS! In fact, the lineart is so poor that a character who changed his fashion sense was literally unrecognizable until another character said their name. It made me realize there are basically no character models for faces. As for the colors, I liked the pastel-like shading style. It made some background scenes look really nice.

- Animation. Decent for a lower budget show. It is rough around the edges, yet it fits the unhinged art style. There is some weird 3-D CGI, but I think the team did the best that they could. They made interesting stylistic choices such as animating an actual arrow as the ball travels between players. I was worried about the recycled animations, but there was only one episode in which I fast forwarded through them.

- Music. I thought the soundtrack (synthwave/electronic vibes) was fantastic. The use of the music transformed the mood of the scenes.

- Sound design. The actual selection of sounds was fine, but I noticed several moments where the sound didn’t sync to the animation. Most frequently, a shoe would skid on screen and the sound came late.

- Writing. What's up with the casual racism? Kong is referred to as “China” throughout the show. Not “that Chinese guy” or “Chinese player”, just China, as in the entire country. While they called him China less frequently out loud as the show progressed, they still referred to him as China in writing on screen and then once more in episode 8. While his Chinese identity is part of his character development, I don't care for this offensive delivery. Early on, they also threw in a stereotype about black people being good at dancing, in order to combat stereotypes (the irony). Who greenlit this? I expected better from 2014.

Even though relationships are supposed to be a core theme of this show, several depictions did not make sense. Without giving too much away, the friends in this show seemed to support each other less than their rivals/antagonists. It was hard to believe the utter dearth of empathy between two characters when they were extremely close childhood friends. Their supposed fallout was not properly explained (I wasn’t buying the one-liner provided in the show). Furthermore, Peco and Smile’s team has zero camaraderie - we constantly see the bad blood between seniors and first years -- and somehow they are on good terms at the end. The seniors had even expressed their bitterness at being neglected by their own coach, who focused all his energy on developing Smile.

Smile and his own coach’s relationship was also unconvincing in comparison to Kong and Peco’s relationships with their coaches. I do not understand where Smile and his coach began trusting each other and working together. His coach seems more interested in beating the competitive drive into Smile instead of drawing out Smile’s intrinsic motivation.

Speaking of character motivations, a couple of main characters had confusing turning points in their motivation. I could identify that there was supposed to be a catalyst, but not what it was in the scene. I had to look up other people’s interpretations online because the show didn't leave enough breadcrumbs to figure it out myself.

For some reason, this show likes to tell you all about Smile’s prowess rather than show it as it does for the other skilled players. It was irksome to hear a side character remark for the umpteenth time that Smile was a ping pong monster murder machine. I think we got it the first time, and the second time, and the third time, as they played robot noises synced to his movements… His matches were boring and predictable.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Anime You Must Watch Before You Die.

by Deylin

50 Entries · 1.2K Restacks

11 or 22 episodes

by koczwy

36 Entries · 7 Restacks

you need to see this!!!!

by ladrondemanzanas

37 Entries · 9 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

View All

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for June

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for June Week 1: June 6 - 12 Anime Releases Ajin (incl. Part 1: Shoudou) Blu-ray & DVD Combo Limited Editi...read more

Jun 5, 2017 11:01 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (12 comments)

Q3 2015 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 9/17]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of anime and manga licensed in the third quarter (Jul-Sep) of 2015. Summer anime which were licensed before the...read more

Jun 29, 2015 12:52 PM by Snow | Discuss (79 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Ping Pong The Animation Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Jun 19, 2014	392 replies	by Chfenj_ »» Sep 27, 9:18 AM
Poll: Ping Pong The Animation Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jun 12, 2014	160 replies	by Chfenj_ »» Sep 21, 2:04 AM
Poll: Ping Pong The Animation Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jun 5, 2014	133 replies	by Chfenj_ »» Sep 20, 9:37 PM
Poll: Ping Pong The Animation Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - May 1, 2014	140 replies	by SHS13 »» Aug 1, 1:28 AM
Poll: Ping Pong The Animation Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - May 8, 2014	163 replies	by mirsips »» Jul 31, 2:21 AM

Recent Featured Articles

In Numbers: The Best Anime of the Decade

What's the #1 anime of the 2010s? Which year was the best? What studio had the most hits? We have the answers to all these questions and more!

by Shymander

600,905 views

Six Foreigners Who've Worked in the Anime Industry

Have you ever wanted to make anime in Japan? These six gaijin actually went ahead and actually managed to get jobs in Japan's animation industry. Some have thrived, others have suffered.

by removed_user

32,018 views

Japanese Life Studios Trivia

Ping Pong the Animation

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Hoshino, Yutaka

Tsukimoto, Makoto

Kong, Wenge

Kazama, Ryuuichi

Sakuma, Manabu

Egami

Koizumi, Jou

Tamura, Obaba

Kong's Coach

Yurie

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Ping Pong the Animation

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-