Ping Pog The Animation and repression

I feel like this could be a deeply interesting thread so bumping for answers

>>8847868
I think the OP is too complicated to get much response. If posters don't know the anime, the post doesn't explain it enough for them to reply (yes there's a link, but that's not enough on 4chan).

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>>8847960
I guess you're right, I thought more people would have seen the anime thought. I'll try to make a more complete analysis with more explanations and illustrations tomorrow, if I don't forget to.

I agree, saw that anime years ago.

>>8847763
I never saw it in that light when I watched it the first time around, but now that you've said it I totally get the feeling.

Hey, OP here, back on my bs, like I ever left it.

>>8848643
Nice

>>8849034
So this thread has at least be useful to one person. I'm happy now!

>>8847763
I did a bit of thinking overnight and I have much to add but I'll start with a better impression of the show for people who haven't watched it or haven't felt its depth.

I think it's pretty obvious in the webm in the OP that this is a very unique anime.
It is indeed a sports anime, contrary to popular belief that it is only about characters, but it has so much of its own style and so little of a classical sports anime that it can be deceptive. The very deceptive thing is that it is as much about ping pong and sports and its characters as elite athletes than about its characters as human beings interacting with one another, their passions, their strenght, their weaknesses and their evolution. Furthermore, the ping pong is kept at a minimum, with lots of matches, training sessions and tournaments brackets being skipped, plain and simple, and the rest being kept very short, only to what's necessary to character developpement (yet as a decent ping pong player I can tell that every match that is shown is deeply constructed and thought, and so are every characters' playstyles). That's it for the impression.

(cont)

>>8850967
I'll also sum up the story, I'll try to keep it short and simple.
I would say that there are 5 characters that are necesary to sum up the story, and only two of them actually matter for my point.

The first one in the hero, in opposition to the 4 others, who are villains. He's not the protagonist though. His name is Yukata Hoshino but everybody calls him Peco. Even though his love for the sport makes him crazy good, the confidence the awareness of his talent gave him makes him let his playstyle rot, and at the beginning of the anime, he gets roasted by a villain and looses all his confidence. This loss of confidence cause him to loose to a guy he used to roast (another villain), which cause him to quit ping pong. But he ends up coming back to ping pong and works hard to become the best so he can save all the villains by making them understand that they had lost what they loved about ping pong (by roasting them with love, in glorious matches).

The second one is the protagonist, he's the pic in the OP, Makoto Tsukimoto, but everybody calls him Smile. He's very talented but not interested in winning, because even if he never shows emotion, he has a very sweet heart, and the awareness of his gift for ping pong allows him not to crave victory at all. But at the end of the second episode, his coach manages, by challenging him in a very intense match, to bring him to ignore his emotions and become a villain, the Robot (see the webm in OP). He turns into this mess because the hero he keeps calling (Peco) for isn't coming. Fortunately in the last episode Peco is so good that he forces Smile to break out of his closet and his iron skin so he can stand a chance against him, see http://web.archive.org/web/20150611082545/http://a.pomf.se/aukrgg.webm

(cont)

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>>8850968
The first villain is the one that beats Peco when he has lost his confidence, he has no gift at all for ping pong but through very hard work he managed to squeeze in the professional scene. He gets brutally brought back to reality when Smile hands his ass to him and tells him he has no talent. He is also the one who convinces Peco that he has to play ping pong again.
The second villain is the one who roasts Peco and makes him lose his confidence, there's not much more useful to the point to his character. The third one is ping pong made flesh, the world champ, but ping pong is only a pain to him and he has waited for a hero forever.

This took longer than it should have and I'm pretty sure I failed at "keeping it short and simple" but if anybody read this far, thanks. I think by now you see my point : Smile is really sweet, but his gift makes him able to hurt people, so he hides it. When he is forced to let it out, he ends up going on a rampage and hurting himself by playing staying in his comfort zone while repressing his strong emotions. He only manages to get out of this hell when the hero comes and takes him out of this "comfort zone" hell.
Also, I guess I'm repeating myself but I'll tell it in a slightly different way, the analogies are really similar to the one trannies use. The thing is, they don't mean the same thing in the anime. So it indeed spoke to me on a very personal level, but it wasn't meant that way, which I didn't state explicitly in the OP.

I guess I spent more time trying to sum the show up while making what I saw as explicitly as I could than explaining what I saw, I hope you get the point anyway, thanks for reading everything!

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>>8850968
>the hero he keeps calling (Peco) for
the hero he keeps calling for (Peco)

>>8850974
I forgot to tell the plot I'm so dumb I'll write a quick episode-per-episode summary:

1st episode:
>Peco gets roasted by the second villain

2nd episode:
>Peco is depressed
>Smile becomes the Robot

3rd-4th episode: Tournament arc!
>Peco gets beaten by the first villain and cries
>Smile almost wins against the second villain but a last glimmer of kindness makes him spare him, which his coach slaps him for (no interest for the point)
>The third villain roasts the second becomes world champ

5th episode:
>Smile hands his ass to the first villain, which makes Peco quit ping pong

6th episode:
>Christmas episode, my favourite, lots of character developpement, but nothing useful
>Alll aloooone on a CHRISTMAS EVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VIAU6FqpP0
>At the end Peco realizes that he didn't call Smile Smile because he never smiles, but because he used to never Smile when he showed him ping pong he smiled like crazy. This gives him the motivation to get back to ping pong

7th episode:
>Everybody training like crazy for the final tournament, especially Peco

8th-9th-10th episode: Final tournament arc!
>Smile beats some punk, character developpement: we understand that he has become a monster and that he is not playing his table tennis anymore
>Peco beats the second villain, happy end
>The first villain comes to watch the tournament and cheer on the third
>Peco struggles against some punk because he hurt his knee, but he wins
>He wants to keep playing despite his knee because Smile is calling for him, he waited for his hero for so long
>During a one episode match against the third villain, he transforms into the hero and wins with this amazing music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yybGF4PmaRo
>The third villain becomes an amazing character
>Pic related is from the match, Peco on the left

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>>8851064


11th episode:
>Match against Smile, Smile breaks out of his prison http://web.archive.org/web/20150611082545/http://a.pomf.se/aukrgg.webm
>The match was hero against robot, it becomes Peco against his friend Smile
>During the end of the match the song tells us the moral: we're all alive, that's why we're happy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDeca52TDZE
>They don't tell the winner right away, there's an epilogue where we see that Smile became a happy kid coach, and on a picture on the wall we see that Peco won
>We see that Peco became world-class
>The end

>>8851064
>but because he used to never Smile when he showed him ping pong he smiled like crazy
but because he used to never smile, but when he showed him ping pong he smiled like crazy

Also I'm sorry it took this many posts, one last thing though.
The analogies of the closet and the robot are very very very present all thoughout the anime, you wouldn't know by watching what I posted, and the butterly one is heavily present too but only in the first few episodes, 3 or so. I didn't put as much emphasis on it because there wasn't as much to say, but it's most of the point, Smile's character developpement being the other

I put lots of time into this, is it that confusing or just very much out of place ? I feel like I might have gone a tiny little bit overboard since I really love the series, someone just tell me so I know please

Apparently I'm not muted so I guess this is just too boring, which I honnestly understand. Go watch Ping Pong The Animation though, it's a great show. I won't be bumping this anymore, sorry for the mess