The Most Difficult Anime

Created on July 22, 2026

Spoilers for Ping Pong the Animation

Years ago, YouTube recommended me a video (not this exact one, but video content was same)

I clicked on it out of curiosity. At first, I almost closed it because the animation looked terrible. But the scene itself caught my attention. Then the music kicked in, and before I knew it, I was moving along with it. By the end of the video, I had enjoyed it far more than I expected. Kong seemed like such a cool character.

I checked the comments, and everyone was praising the anime. Since it was only 11 episodes long, I decided to give it a try. Around episode 4 or 5, I was bored out of my mind. The scene that got me interested in the first place felt like the only part I actually enjoyed. So I dropped the series.

A few years later, I remembered it again. Once more, I looked up the reviews, and once again, people couldn’t stop praising it. This time, I decided I would finish it no matter what. I enjoyed it a lot more on my second watch. The story clicked better, but I still felt like I wasn’t fully understanding what it was trying to say. This anime never spoon feeds the viewer. Everything moves quickly, and almost every important detail is incredibly subtle.

After finishing it, I came across this video. That video helped me understand the main themes really well.

I still wouldn’t put Ping Pong the Animation in my top three favorite anime because I didn’t enjoy watching it as much as many other shows. But when it comes to mature storytelling, subtle writing, and meaningful character themes, it has my deepest respect. The ideas behind these characters resonated with me long after I finished the series. And this easily takes the title for being the anime that I least understood on my own.

Originally, I wanted to write a blog about this anime the same way I wrote my One Punch Man blog because I’ve resonated so strongly with it. But most of my understanding came from that analysis video, so it didn’t feel fair to present those ideas as my own.

Still, when I rewatched the anime a few months back, I started noticing a lot more because I already had the right mental model. I’m not going to point out exactly which scene I’m talking about. I won’t spoon feed you just like the anime. If you’ve watched the anime recently, I think it will be easy to connect.

Hopefully, they resonate with you too.

Notes

“The wind makes it too hard to hear.” The series begins with this line. I think it represents how the noise and distractions around us make it difficult to hear our inner voice. Every major character struggles with this, and their journey is about learning to listen to themselves.

“Is it the next stop?” Peco asks Smile this, and Smile replies, “No, the next one.” To me, it symbolizes that their journey isn’t over yet. There’s still more ahead.

In the absence of the Hero, Smile becomes the Robot. He loses his emotions and can no longer truly smile. The Hero is the only one who can save him and bring back his humanity. We see how ruthless the Robot becomes during Koizumi’s match, where Smile completely crushes him without emotion.

“Blood tastes like iron.” My interpretation is that Tsukimoto believes he’s supposed to be a robot, so Hoshino reminds him that even though blood contains iron, humans are still human. Throughout the series, Tsukimoto becomes more and more robotic, especially without Peco beside him. A robot simply follows orders, but that’s not who he wants to be.

Smile can’t live joyfully. He sees every activity as something to pass the time until he dies.

“Are awards and trophies really so important? There are sights you can only see from the top.” I don’t think this line needs an explanation. I just love it.

Talent isn’t something that only goes to those who want it.

The tune Smile hums is the Hero’s theme, Peco’s theme.

Smile has extraordinary talent, but he only cares about enjoying the game. We can say he’s wasting his talent, but are we really right? Does fulfillment only come from winning? We see him as wrong because almost everyone around us plays to win. It’s incredibly rare to find someone who genuinely doesn’t care about victory and simply does it for the love of the game.

Kong, despite his arrogance, never ignores reality. Even though everyone believes he won fairly, he admits that Smile let him win.

Koizumi: “Talented people who know exactly who they are don’t crave anything. Those who don’t know themselves are always the ones who struggle hardest to win, because they want to prove a point.”

Kazama is often mocked for looking much older than his age. I think this reflects how much he’s forcing himself to do something he doesn’t truly enjoy, just to keep winning. So much that even his body is facing the consequences. He’s the complete opposite of Smile.

Only after Kong loses do we see who he really is. His arrogance comes from his frustration. More than anything, he wants to go home to his mother. When he says, “I used to always dream about losing my keys,” Lack of fulfilment for him comes from him not appreciating whatever that he has right now. He wants to go home, he is so afraid of losing his key meaning not being able to go home. He has to learn to see his current place itself as his home and appreciate the people around him. He wants to go home, but with all his ways closed how will he reach home? He can see that he has no chance against kazama. How will he find home?

“Focus on distant things when your eyes get tired.” I think this means looking at the bigger picture instead of obsessing over what he wants right now.

Meanwhile, Peco throws away his racket and gives up on the one thing he’s naturally gifted at and genuinely loves. Why? Because he has corrupted himself to only enjoy winning now. He has forgotten how to just enjoy the game. And so when he loses, he distances himself from the activity itself just so he can be spared from the pain of a loss. He has attached his worth to victory.

Kong eventually starts coaching his team seriously. He’s accepting his reality and making peace with where he is.

“I just had to save a moron drowning in the shallows. You didn’t even make it to open water.” Sakuma says this about peco, that peco was giving up when things haven’t even gotten hard yet. Sakuma not only literally saves him from drowning in water, but also figuratively saves him from destroying his life.

Kong talks about how his team is now quite good. Showcasing he has finally overcome his arrogance and now appreciates and cares for his team and not just himself.

Sakuma asks Kazama, “Who do you play table tennis for?” Kazama answers, “Myself, of course.” Later, when Sanada asks him the same question, he replies, “For the team, of course.” I think this shows how he himself is unsure why he plays. He hasn’t yet acknowledged the truth about his beliefs towards ping pong.

Kazama plays for survival. After his father’s suicide, he comes to believe that failure isn’t an option. Winning becomes something he feels he needs just to exist, placing an unimaginable burden on himself.

Now we finally get to know why smile was nicknamed smile. It was because he smiled when he played ping pong. The game itself brought him genuine joy. When he says he wants to be like peco, he didn’t mean he wants to win like him. He meant he wants to have fun like peco. He stopped smiling because peco wasn’t playing for fun anymore. He was corrupted by the victories. And for so long, he has been waiting for the peco that plays for fun. He is waiting for the hero to come and save him, to make him smile again.

We have seen till now that nothing gets under kazama’s skin. Him getting ignored by kong, etc. But when peco claims he will fly, that stings kazama. The way he lives he can’t fathom someone enjoying the game, he believes winners need to suffer through pain. Victory needs relentless and painful hard work. Peco’s existence challenges his belief system.

The Hero never gives Kazama a hand. Instead, he helps him grow his own wings. In the end, Kazama flies too. Peco shows him that you can love the game instead of simply enduring it. He finally doesn’t care about winning. He finally gets his wings. He finally learns to fly.