Ping Pong the Animation: the ultimate comfort show By Nam Woon Kim (he/him) When Alana suggested writing about comfort shows this week, I immediately knew what I would be writing about. It helps that it’s also my favourite show, but having read David’s piece on mental health in sports it felt extra relevant. It’s by no means a story “about
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mental health”, and yet by exploring the interiority of its characters growing up it still has everything to say on the matter, and in a refreshingly earnest way to boot. In many ways, Ping Pong is the ultimate comfort show. Despite operating through the sports genre, it’s also gentle and reassuring.
The story touches on, and perhaps even answers, the question of normalising failure in David’s piece. In any sport, there are winners and losers. Ping Pong doesn’t deny this reality. In fact, when characters lose, they lose hard. Casual and veteran players alike quit the game, sometimes permanently, which often forces them to do some unpleasant soul-searching. The show even gives the most minor of characters an arc, who, after losing in the first round of regionals to one of the main characters, travels the world to find themselves. Several episodes later they return, realising that the answer lies in this humble game. Winners and losers, it is tempting to extend this logic to life itself. That one person’s gain must be the other person’s loss is a belief-turnedworldview-turned-status quo we’ve
