#198: Ping Pong the Animation (2014)

 

Director: Masaaki Yuasa

Screenplay: Masaaki Yuasa

Based on the manga by Taiyo Matsumoto

Voice Cast: Fukujurō Katayama as Yutaka "Peco" Hoshino; Kouki Uchiyama as Makoto "Smile" Tsukimoto; Masako Nozawa as Obaba; Mitsuaki Hoshi as Takamura; Shouhei Shimada as Yamada; Shunsuke Sakuya as Ryuuichi "Dragon" Kazama; Subaru Kimura as Manabu "Demon" Sakuma; Takanori Hoshino as Ota; Yosei Bun as Kon "China" Wenga; Yūsaku Yara as Jō Koizumi

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Sports as a genre of story can have an appeal even beyond their subject to a universal concept which using the structure to explore them. For an example, chosen as I saw both of them for the first time within each other with today's subject Ping Pong the Animation, was Hanebado! (2018). Hanebado, set within all female badminton competitions, was a controversial show for drastically rewriting the original manga, but by way of more heightened melodrama, it dealt especially in its most controversial aspect, turning the lead into a much more emotionally destroyed character, of how being taught to become the best can cause harm, in a theme of parental neglect or the cruelty of competitiveness. Ping Pong is significantly more light-hearted, or at least whilst with one very tragic back story and another character with severe homesickness, one where no one is broken, only needing to find their real desires to become a better person. More faithful to its source manga by Taiyo Matsumoto, this may be about the sport of its title, with a lot of scenes of even casual spats between players in table tennis clubs, and treated with the respect and accuracy of getting into consultants, but it is definitely a drama first of young men finding themselves first. It is one which just happens to have their existentialism transpiring around ping pong tables.

Not surprisingly, from director Masaaki Yuasa, who also wrote the screenplay, this was going to be an integral part of the adaptation. This is fascinating in terms of his career¹ as, a year before with Kick Heart (2013), he needed to be funded on Kickstarter to create a short film, but in 2017, not only did the theatrical film Night Is Short, Walk On Girl came to be, which would become a film of great interest for many getting into his work, and a certain television series named Devilman Crybaby also came out in Netflix, which was the title which thankfully meant a cult director, held in high regards but difficult to access, broke through the glass ceiling to become a very busy auteur. After Devilman Crybaby finally gained his due, Ping Pong is interesting to see from just before that turn from an obscure and admired anime auteur. He is, as mentioned, also adapting the acclaimed manga author Taiyo Matsumoto here as well, with a work which even if unconventional as a subject matter has a lot of emotional depth within itself. 

Even as a show whose tone is eccentric, and very funny, this is very mature and thoughtful as a tale, clear when you reach the point no one is an antagonist or a villain, just very confused young men in certain cases. Two childhood friends are the leads, Yutaka "Peco" Hoshino and Makoto "Smile" Tsukimoto. Peco is the boisterous and cocky ping pong prodigy who will be humbled early in the show, needing to find himself and his skill in the game, whilst Smile is a quiet and extremely guarded young man, viewed as a robot by others. Smile is very good at ping pong but also incredibly isolated, turning into a cold and ruthless player. Even those against them are complex. Chinese player Kon "China" Wenga, who feels exiled in Japan, is a figure who is a tough player but openly misses his home, the games with a greater risk if he loses as it will mean he will be stuck from his homeland, whilst Ryuuichi "Dragon" Kazama, head of the dominant Kaio ping pong school team, has the most tragic back story despite his depiction in games being a behemoth who is larger than his opponents as he crushes them. A young man who has to play, and dominate, as much due to the failure of his father's passion in flower selling, that is implicitly likely to have led to suicide, as it is compensating from a background where he hides in the toilets whenever he needs to express emotion.

To try to describe Masaaki Yuasa's style following these characters is difficult, as always has been the case for myself as Yuasa's style always experiments with all his work. The influences on him are known, but he varies per show or film, with this having the added fact he is indebted to Taiyo Matsumoto's distinct character designs which provide their own personality. This show nonetheless, even next to the ambition of his debut Mind Game (2004), feels a high bar. For what is such a secretly emotional and quiet narrative, in terms of his experimentation it feels more distinct straightaway with the opening and ending credits, the former a highly detailed sequence that, in monochrome, feels like it is in chalk drawing at times, whilst the later is a bright almost expressionist look at a bright coastal town. Whilst the ping pong action when shown is lovingly rendered, and the drama is treated seriously, metaphor and blatant symbolism are embraced and exaggerated. There is style to burn, be it scenes telling the story within one shot between multiple images at one, to how even points of great drama have exaggerated symbolism to tell the material, such as Smile's literal robotic outer skin or how Kazama's weight is literally a masochism with a nihilistic edge, his battle with a certain hero of ping pong who finally comes to be ([Huge Spoiler] Peco when he gets his act together [Spoilers End]) is a man struggling up a mountain being forced to fly and enjoy himself in the game again, as the music becomes more chirpy and heighten.

The music here is a huge virtue to Ping Pong in Yuasa's catalogue, such as that sequence where, as Kazama is given light, it becomes more chirpy and heightened. Considering Yuasa's use of music in his previous work, such as having Seiichi Yamamoto of the Boredoms score Mind Game, he has always had good music, and composer Kensuke Ushio (who would work with the director onwards) adds a great deal to the material. Here it is a huge virtue among many, and in truth, the entire show is fascinating in that, for all the more dramatically elaborate work in his CV, Ping Pong among them hits so hard with its emotional depth. In just eleven episodes and only two tournaments, quickly getting through a lot without hassle, the show alongside its elaborate production style does stand up in a career that already had big surprises among them. In just eleven episodes and only two tournaments, the show quickly gets through a lot without hassle, alongside its elaborate production style it does stand up in a career that already had big surprises among them. Yuasa in the beginning with Mind Game lived up to the notion of throwing everything including the kitchen sink into his work, and likely a huge factor in his favour, by the point of The Tatami Galaxy (2010), was how he was focusing this material carefully whatever genre he was in.

And in areas here he, and the teams he worked with, still should levels of grace here with one show you normally do not get. Replicated in the English dub, they went as far as casting Kon and his coach with actors who fluently speak the characters' native language, which is rarely done when, honestly, you usually have native Japanese actors trying to work around a second language phonetically or with random words brought up in the script. Even the show's sense of humour, following from its source material, feels more mature, a playfulness of banter, bickering or Smile's mentor, a retired ping pong tournament player and an elderly man, starting their love-indifference relationship to improve him like a crush trying to be noticed in a high school romance, all done with an amusing air.

And as mentioned, this only is eleven episodes, which is curious when they are traditionally around twelve or so, but in mind that this was screened for Fuji TV as part of their Noitamina block, of "alternative" anime (including some of Yuasa's) which stretches the storytelling type and targeted audiences, this varying episode length and how idiosyncratic these shows could be is a common trope from their screening block. Ping Pong manages in quite little time, able to be binged in a day or two, to encompass a lot more existentialism in episodes than some anime have at all, boiled down to its basics a narrative of trying to find oneself. A random male character, a random opponent who loses, is even treated with a journey of renouncing the game, feeling he is not good enough to compete, only to find he has literally having wandered the world only to return to his mistress in the last episodes passionate for the game again, little details like this among the many that make the series as good as it is.  

Ping Pong the Animation altogether is an exceptional work, which considering Masaaki Yuasa has quite a few gems in his catalogue, from before this series and after, also shows how the series has managed to stand out for me as well considering the strength of his other work. Again, as stressed in the first paragraph, sports narratives can be as much metaphors for other themes as they are the subject, and especially in this case, you have the reward of a very idiosyncratic narrative premise but one you can also connect with. Certainly, it is a hidden gem for its creator for me.

 

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1) Yuasa did direct an episode of Adventure Time in 2014 too, so this was definitely a sign the tide was turning in his favour.