When watching Win or Lose, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by how they animated and visulized the struggles of the characters. It was something that was briefly seen with the scene involving Anxiety in the second Inside Out movie and just like in that movie, it’s equally captivating in Win or Lose. However, the stories that stood out the most were Laurie’s, Kai’s, Rochelle’s, and Frank’s. While the other stories are just as important and have amazing visuals that represent each one of the characters external and internal struggles, compared to the previously mentioned characters, they don’t match the intensity of the scenes and visualization of the characters struggles.
To start, Laurie is a clear display of what anxiety can look like, a grey blob made from her sweat. However, it’s not just the small blob hanging off her that’s noticeable, it’s her surroundings and how the characters interact with her. She appears almost as an unreliable narrator as it appears that some of the characters in her story have outcasted her or possible see her as a villain. Then as the stress slowly builds up, due to her insecurities and wanting to be good enough for her dad, the grey glob slowly grows until it appears as if its crushing her under its weight. Another thing that only confirmed that Laurie struggled with these constant insecurities was the constant negative comments from the grey glob and the massive softball slamming into her at the very end of her episode. Which, pretty much, showcased that Laurie may see it as a much bigger thing she had to overcome. This isn’t something that often pops up in animation, with the closest thing being the animated short, Overcomer, and the award-winning animation, Are You Okay?
Kai, seems to face a lot of the same problems that Laurie is facing, except from the opposite end. As we’re introduced to Kai, it’s extremely gloomy with her hiding behind her hood and hiding old photos of herself. However, we also get to see her at her best as she slowly grows into herself. This causes her surroundings to brighten and show her euphoric moments as her floating. As her episode continues, we see why she would get a long with Laurie the best, as they both struggle with being good enough for the team and have their dad’s coaching them. Except, Kai seems to be constantly under her father’s coaching on and off the field, which wasn’t the case with Laurie, this only seems to amplify Kai’s need to be the best and it doesn’t help when the team also heavily rely on her during the game. During these truly stressful situations we see Kai, literally, sinking under the pressure and into the ground; where it’s dull and colorless, just like her introduction was. These scenes were extremely powerful as we got to visually see how down Kai felt and how Kai views her world when she’s sinking or floating. With the only downside being not getting enough out of her story and wanting to see her in more moments, as it showed some internal struggle in the beginning only for that to disappear completely in place of a montage of her growing into herself.
In Rochelle’s story we get to see what I’d like to say is the “mom” of the pickles team. In a lot of ways, Rochelle encapsulates her mother, Vanessa, with the only difference being responsibilities and how they react in certain situations. The episode goes to tell how she has to raise money to play in the next season and how the stress of getting that money is hanging over her. Often being shown as the world falling or physically collapsing around her just for her to snap back to reality. Even abandoning her previous morals of not cheating for others just for to get closer to her goal. Other than the world actively falling apart around her, she can also be seen transforming into this business or parental role. This is noticeable when Rochelle’s working the snack stand as well as when she stands with the other parents to hear what the Coach has to say. This definitely shows how much older she might feel, especially when she has to worry about making the money to play in the next season on her own and feel like she’s parenting her mom instead. At first, it truly feels this way, as her mom is shown in a very irresponsible manner, but as Rochelle’s story comes to an end we see that this might not be the case, but just how Rochelle might see it.
Last but now least, Frank’s story is probably the most heartbreaking and emotional visually. As we follow a teacher, Mr. Brown as he plays the umpire for the pickles and goes through his day to day life. Except he carries this blue armor around every where he goes. He can be seen dropping the armor every once in a while, just to bring it back when he feels he’s been too emotionally vulnerable. While this may work on the softball field, as parents can be overbearing when he makes calls that change the whole game, it obviously doesn’t work out in his love life and he attempts to change that. When he figures out he can’t make a relationship work without vulnerability he decides to go back to his ex, the love of his life that he broke up with on the whim due to not wanting to take the next step with her. Except, she now has a ring on her finger showing Frank is too late and she has already moved on. In this moment, the blue armor we were so used to seeing throughout the episode is no where to be found, leaving him emotionally vulnerable, as the love of his life goes off to marry another person.
Overall, each one of their stories is heartbreaking in its own way, which is what makes them the best representation of the struggles they’re portraying. Of course, this could be different to other people, but the talk that Kai and Laurie had with their dad’s had broken my heart and seeing how much pressure Rochelle was under, to the point of feeling like she needed to sell her cleats and cheat, and watching Frank overcome all his personal obstacles just to get crushed emotionally were also pretty heart-clenching. These four stories have and will always hit harder, but even looking at the other episodes it’s clear this series won when it came to the best visual representation of internal struggles with a younger character and audience.
