The Ping Pong Club, Vol.3: Goes Too Far (1995)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Screenplay by Tsunehisa Ito, Yoshiro Sasa, Kenji Terada & Sukehiro Tomita, based on an original story by Minoru Furuya & Kodansha
Directed by Hata Masami
Music by Kobayashi Katsuyoshi

Features:

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

Released by: Central Park Media
Region: 1
Rating: 16+
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Skip it.

Ping Pong Club has become infamous in the anime community and with good reason. The show excels at the type of humor that drives middle school teachers crazy: scatological humor, humiliation, and sexual harassment. If a culture's comedy really does provide insight into the psyche of the nation, then Japan should be closed to travel by the UN (as perhaps should the USA, for importing it).

Given that the fourth and fifth/final volumes of this show have already been released, some viewers might be a bit confused by this release. Suffice it to say that volume three here is the middle of the show, but if you've seen volumes one and two, you should follow the action just fine. If you've seen all the way through volume five, then you probably won't even care that this is out of order; you aren't watching the show for its continuity.

How does the Ping Pong Club go too far? The titular club consists of their school's recognized losers, and boy howdy do they revel in it. There is a healthy dose of gratuitous drag, as Kinoshita dresses as a girl so convincingly that Tanaka chooses him as his first love, and of course everyone feels they must constantly fondle Kinoshita-as-girl. This brings us to a flashback of another first love tale that reminds viewers of the meaning of the world "angst." In what might be the creepiest part of the show, Izawa ends up forming a girl into the perfect woman, meant for Kinoshita, but Izawa ends up wanting her for himself.

The idea of "forming" a woman into some ideal is so offensive and sexist that there are no words to describe the many levels of wrong here, especially given the methods employed by Izawa. This charming plot is followed up by an attempted rape, luckily, but accidentally, interrupted by Izawa, who is then invited to the would-be victim's family mansion. Izawa, intending to rub his good fortune into Maeno's face, ends up being tossed aside in favor of Maeno by the family whose priorities, morals, and everything else are way out of whack.

If the following items strike you as an occasion for comedy, then pick this up. If not, then skip it and run for your life:

Some of that is just silly and stupid, but some of it is potentially damaging and just plain evil. I hate sounding like a Puritan or Tipper Gore here, but there are some things that just aren't funny, and if they are funny to you, you really might want to see if psychiatric care is covered by your insurance. What could be at least as socially relevant as Revenge of the Nerds is instead just a reason to be as offensive and gross as possible and call that "entertainment."

The DVD features list is nice enough. We get clean opening and closing credits, an art gallery, and the original trailer. If you are a fan of this style of art, then you will be quite pleased with the features array on this release, especially given that there are also some features as a DVD-ROM: an art gallery, complete scripts, and full production credits.

Basically, if you think South Park is funny but maybe too tame when it comes to sexuality, then Ping Pong Club might be your favorite show. If, on the other hand, you prefer your shows to at least have heard of the word "class," then you'll hate this. We can all enjoy some off-color humor sometimes, but you have to like some pretty marginal things for this one to succeed in even being funny.

(UK!) (CAN!)

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