Ping Pong The Animation [Episode eleven ; END]

“I’ll be damned — I like this sport.”

For how little screen time Egami has had, popping in and out for a little bit scene here and there since the tournament he was eliminated from, I do feel I fundamentally get him as a person and what he was trying to figure out with his life. And that is a nice thing to be able to wrap up not just from the miniplot he had, but as character writing. I mean, hell, I stopped watching anime entirely for about six years wandering around the world in my own way before coming back and doing whatever this comment nonsense I do now, so even from that perspective I can relate.

Going beyond that, very little of our final match really shows any of the direct game between Peco and Smile, which I feel is appropriate. A few minutes total, spread out between the far more substantial childhood flashbacks, the sideline reflections, and even a frontloaded few minutes of just milling about. Microphone checks, text messages, tea or coffee selections at the refreshments area. That we have some groups of folks heading home because the grand finals of the competition are irrelevant to them, which I feel is such a valid viewpoint to show.

This is “just” a regional high school qualifier for a national tournament, after all. We can have those gaps of emptiness in the stands because this really is not the most “important” thing in the world for many, it just happens to be the endgame for what we are looking at. We saw very little of the Kaio coach, but there is still the expression that he worries about Akuma, because there is the sentiment of caring for their path in life as a person beyond the sport.

And of course, we get to see the old timers together as friends  again, where at least for a short while it was as if things were as they always had been. It is another case where, sure it was expected so as to be able to tie up those threads mentioned previously of the tournament from all those years ago. But, that does not detract anything from the sequence in execution, and the combination of awkwardness, embarrassment, and jovialness it has.

And it dovetails well into the whole cast being as they were in their younger days as well, and then into the further future in their more adult lives. The game itself, as has been said in so many conversations surrounding this show that even those who like it may be sick of it, was always secondary. So we only see the result of our tournament in a passing photograph. There is no grand match point action scene for Peco specifically, because in the end everyone won in their own ways that they will need to carry forwards from here for the rest of their lives, no matter the prominence, lackthereof, or transitions from ping pong specifically.

And that is what is most important, for all of them, as in the end we too did worry for each in our own ways.

Can we just cut out the middle, say, 6-7 episodes of this program and graft on some connective tissue that would get to tighten the show up, cover the bases it did, and manage to progress us to here?

I feel the show wants that, as structurally we have saved basically anything resembling progression of actual character writing rather than hollow scene motions in the leading relationship of Nike and Livius until this arc. I suppose one could say the moments we see of them now being quite a bit more comfortable together or open would be “payoff,” though to me it has come off more as emphasizing just how long the show was spinning its wheels and how much excess material it could have trimmed. There is a good romantic comedy or lighthearted romantic drama or what have you in here somewhere. Now that it seeks to breathe in big gulps of air after popping its head above the week-in-week-out swampwater I almost feel bad for it. The show would have fared a lot better with like an OVA series format.

And even with the strides the series has sought to make and the cards it wants to play, some elements still kind of misfire. Livius being able to meet and speak privately with Nike’s mother should be a good moment, on paper, either for dramatic for comedy purposes. One could go in either direction with it to great effect. Yet their conversation serves as yet another fleeting minor chat about how Nike controls a great power that would be dangerous in the wrong hands and could be used for ill… which is disarmed by Livius just saying that his nation is so big and powerful that nobody would ever get her but him. Which seems like not the best of answers to give in this situation. I would think he would want to play up other aspects in an attempt to prove a kind of point for his feelings for her and such being in a manner where he would care more for Nike as a person than as a kind of weapon.

And yet Might Makes Right somehow resolves the issue immediately enough for them to drop the matter with all the effort of a damp towel. And forgoing the series of issues of that aside, it is just such a lost opportunity for character moments for both of them, especially as we never have seen much of Nike’s mother before.

Likewise, the later scene of Livius being over a cliff for a bit held by Kitora holds virtually no weight. We are too late in the game for this kind of show for there to be any risk of this later character doing anything substantial in this scene, especially nothing in the way of bodily harm. So this is a moment that fills a mechanical gear need for them to have a chat and “resolve” something. Which would be fine, structurally. But arguably, this is what we should have had instead of grandma being the sudden cackling puppetmaster last episode.

The celebration party  for Livius and Nike though, I feel, was the highlight of the episode. We get to break out some new costumes and formal dresswear for those visual aspects of traditional culture. There is our bit where our boy king gets to speak frankly about how he really felt about his wife when he first met her and threw her in prison. People are drinking, songs and dancing, relatives making smart remarks, and all kinds of other embarrassments. And our groom here has his nice little speech about family and such.

Honestly, if anything I think the event itself got the short end of the stick here: this is the sort of scene the series should have been wanting to lay the groundwork for leading up to so much more than it had been, to sell it all the harder and have it be more prominent.

Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara (Gaworare) [Episode twelve]