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Anime/Manga ► Ping Pong: The Animation (ie sexy china appreciation thread)



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Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

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So I have literally never been able to get into a sports series ever. Why is this show giving me so many feels. I took this up on a whim when I was feeling like shit a few days ago so I'd have a distraction of some kind and suddenly i've watched like 6 episodes. I'm behind seeing as how my ISP is shit and i'm hesitant to download much but i'm definitely finishing this as soon as circumstances allow.

Smile is the best character btw. Completely different from what you'd expect of any MC in a sports anime and he's all the better for it.
 
Space Cowboy

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No idea why you struggle with sports series, granted....truly great sports series tend to be lacking in numbers. Hajime no Ippo and Slam Dunk are the stand out stars for best sports series.

But it could also be, this isn't exactly a traditional sports series. There is little of the sport for starters...

It probably helps Taiyo Matsumoto is a god.

I love Kong's arc too much to say anyone else is above him honestly. His evolution from arrogant toss pot to almost humbling teacher is too good. His match with Peco was fantastic for this.
 
Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

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No idea why you struggle with sports series, granted....truly great sports series tend to be lacking in numbers. Hajime no Ippo and Slam Dunk are the stand out stars for best sports series.
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I don't know either dude. I mean i'm not into sports at all but other people aren't either and they still manage to get into them.

I even tried getting into Slam Dunk because of Inoue...and maybe it was just because I'm so used to his vagabond art and I just have some innate bias against the genre but it felt very played out and the art just wasn't appealing to look at.

But yeah, Ping Pong is definitely not a traditional sports series. I almost feel like it would have worked with any other sport or activity given a little tweaking, it's just a framing device for the characters.
 
Nyangoro

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I'm sure that part of it has to do with the art style. Not to undermine just how high quality the storytelling is, but it helps a lot that it just looks so different. You can't look at Ping Pong and think "oh, it's just another sports anime." So you get a really good first impression right off the bat.

But yeah, its character driven narrative is far more varied, with a lot of strong and visible development. Most sport series revolve around constantly high levels of testosterone (and that specific "sports" kind of testosterone too). Granted, sports series have gotten a lot of quality out of it, but it presumes a greater interest in that type of show too. And a lot of times, for those that aren't already interested in that backdrop (letting them enjoy the more subtle differences), it leads to a lot of sports series that all feel identical to one another.

Naturally, Ping Pong slides past all that by doing its own thing, and being about the sport as little as possible. Hell, the amount of time they focus on actual Ping Pong could lead you to say that it shouldn't even be considered a sports anime.

Another sports series I can recommend to typically non-sports anime fans is Chihayafuru. It still has some of those typical sports anime idiosyncrasies to more limited degrees, but it's strong focus on characters and varied motivations makes it stand out. The chemistry between the characters is its best feature. It's the reigning champion of "those little moments," lol
 
Pinwheel

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Ophan said:
Hajime No Ippo is by far one of my favorite animes and i would have never guessed id be so enamored by a sports series type anime.
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I have to agree. I was a fan of Slam Dunk, though it was for entirely different reasons that I like Ippo. Ippo's fantastic in pretty much every single aspect and it's the only sports anime I'd recommend to anybody that isn't a fan of sports anime (minus Ping Pong, of course) because of that. It doesn't even feel like a sports anime in a sense and more of a fight-to-fight series with a lot of in-depth analysis and tactics like JoJo but in a more realistic view of things and far less ass-pulling.

That said, Ping Pong isn't really to be considered much of a sports anime because it does things far differently than most every other one. There's a large focus in most on the sport itself and how it's played in most of the genre, though Ping Pong kind of reverses that and makes it more about the characters, their interactions, and how they develop over time. There's been very, very little focus on the sport itself in this series.
 
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