Change Your Image
duboreedas
Reviews
Ping Pong the Animation (2014)
Blood Tastes Like Iron
This anime is not just for anime lovers. Anybody can and should watch it. It is an education. And a funny, heartwarming sort that won't leave you soon.
Ping Pong is something my kids would be forced to watch. It doesn't bleat about ambition or success. Instead, it humanizes growing up and living life - through the lens of four ping pong players. And no matter that you don't play the sport or know anything about it. It more about life than about Ping Pong.
This is also a story with one of the best endings I have ever watched. It isn't pseudo intellectual but it is also not predictable. It makes you wonder about choices you have made/will make - and that is one of the greatest things art does. A new state of awareness.
For the anime lovers reading this, note that it is another collaborative effort by Masaaki Yuasa and Taiyo Matsumoto so it is genius.
Tekunoraizu (2003)
Expand Your Mind
My first review on IMDb, Hiroshi Hamasaki's Technolyze has been so far (in my viewing experience) the most effective way to understand moral ambiguities of the human spirit. Juxtaposing art, architecture, science, psychology and a fair bit of body horror rendered in surreal animation, this series is everything an entire generation of storytellers could want to tell, perhaps, without being able to.
The first episode has exactly five lines of dialogues, the most provocative sound design and surreal animation that can either put you off it or make you bend your knees in awe. From there on, the world of Lukuss takes over, in vivid and astonishing detail.
The denouement is especially haunting and much will depend on your own perceptions. Unless you decide to hanker over the internet trying to find a singular meaning. Which will not be very satisfying. Re-watching this series is going to be my gamble.
I believe Texnolyze is more of an impression. An evolving thought in the minds of Konaka and Hamasaki. And therefore it has movement and fallibility. Sometimes, that is exactly what defines true expression.
Watch it only if you are patient. Or you enjoy art.