Ping Pong

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"I'm sure you'll understand too, someday. The melancholy of winning. The pain of praise. The weight on your shoulders... the loneliness and agony. The time will come where your efforts will seem meaningless and your victories empty."

Like much of Taiyo Matsumoto's work, Ping Pong includes the same level of energy and surprising depth that outshines its basis to the point of sheer brilliance. Ping Pong, contrary to the title, is less a story about table tennis and more a story about the coming of age of two polar opposite individuals. The author uses ping pong as a medium to advance the story and to develop ... the characters, so well in fact the manga is almost criminally realistic. Ping Pong deals with worldly themes of friendship, affliction and adolescence, not so different from Tekkonkinkreet, the authors previous work, which makes it very down to earth and above all else - believable.

The manga introduces us to Peco, the energetic I-don't-care-what-people-think personality, and Smile, the reserved gentleman who would rather lose than make his opponent feel bad. The development of these two main characters is quite the journey. The supporting cast are thankfully there for a lot more than just to provide moral support, and during a ping pong game Taiyo Matsumoto never really attempts to make the readers favour one character over the other, which allows the manga to stay at a realistic and high quality standard. What makes Ping Pong different from most sport manga is the larger focus on the characters as opposed to the game. The rules are not explained, nor do we get any history lessons. Table tennis is there as a foundation for the story and a means of development. Instead of the game fueling the characters, the characters fuel the game.

If you've read anything by Taiyo Matsumoto before then you know to expect nothing less than absolutely superb art that gives off a level of energy like no other. Matsumoto's art is very unique - his lines are often wobbly, the scale of things can sometimes be unclear and his shading is minimal while his inking is high. You won't find many sketchy effects usually associated with manga in Taiyo Matsumoto's works either, but what he does offer is something totally fresh and just as interesting - that being outstanding line art. A huge amount of detail is put into every single panel and during the ping pong matches the energy behind his art perfectly catches the nature and pace of the game.

Given the level of content in Ping Pong, which is only five volumes long, it is no wonder why Taiyo Matsumoto's series are generally rather short. In only these couple of volumes he presents the reader with a wonderfully fresh coming of age story, accompanied by an extremely exciting backdrop, filled with nerve-impulse boosts and eternal undying instinct to boot, complete with realistic characters sure to leave an impression.

Taiyo Matsumoto once said his goal is to combine the powerful and cool feeling of American comics, the intellect of European comics and the lightheartedness of Japanese comics together to create a really tremendous work, and I believe he has achieved such with Ping Pong. You'll finish this manga worn out due to the level of content and intensity, but extremely satisfied, knowing you just witnessed something quite special.

Taiyou Matsumoto is somewhat of a hidden master of manga, most people don't know about him but those who do respect him a lot. Sadly until recently I was someone from the first group, but fortunately I have now converted to the second group. This guy is master of telling a story by very subtle means, conveying the tell with both his excellent and imaginative writing and unconventional and brilliant drawing.

Ping Pong is one of his most famous mangas and after you are few chapters within you begin to understand just why is this guys so special. This manga is a very simple tale of ... two friends growing up, their passion for the game of "table tennis" yet this is so much more. With this story you seem to strive with the characters for their goals, you cry with them when they fail and laugh with them succeed. These emotions are very hard thing to evoke especially on someone who doesn't even care about the sport of "Ping Pong or Table Tennis", but the writer does this feat with an ease only found in master story-tellers.

This tells the story of two childhood friends, Hosino and Tsukimoto who are very different from each other. Hoshino aka Peko is a carefree spirit who saves Tsukimoto aka Smile from bullies whom he attracts due to his unusually silent demeanor. Peko is his only friend and he introduces him to the game of "Ping Pong" as something which he really loves. This all is shown in flashback as we are thrown in middle of the story of these two as part of a high school team as they prepare for and take part in a tournament to select Japan's best. They both are talented players and their struggles both in this sports and also as growing up is shown with exquisite beauty of thought provoking drawing. Their unique relationship is detailed and also the fact that how it molded their life as a whole. We also get introduced with other good players of ping pong as well as get to know their story and feel their emotions with them. I might have revealed other details about the story but really don't wanna spoil the enjoyment by any means at all.

The art is superb on a different level, while it may not be very good to look at and some characters have almost the same face when getting serious the stylistic approach is very unique. It conveys so much more than any other conventional manga with its drawings, there are pages without any words which says more than many pages crammed with speech bubbles could tell. The story telling style is also unique with the jump between past and present and also between viewpoints of different characters which adds more to the simple story in a very unorthodox way. One chapter you might come to hate a character and a few chapters later when seeing his viewpoint you start to understand him and even care for him. This is all due to the writers excellent ability to incorporate us with the story.

Overall this manga is a journey, a story that takes you in and makes you strive with the characters and in the end you get to look back at how wonderful an experience it was and really feel like may be reliving it someday. It is indeed something special, quite definitely a masterwork and recommend to everyone who enjoys a good story whether you like sports or not.

At first glance Ping Pong looks like your typical generic sports manga, albeit with a choice of sport relatively uncommon to be found in the medium. And yet, while it does have the usual ingredients (tournament, rivalry, dramatic matches, training sessions, etc.), Ping Pong is way more than its simple, literal, title suggested.

To start, there's nothing typical with Taiyou Matsumoto's art. His style is very distinctive and could initially be hard on the eyes, especially if you're used to pretty, conventional, manga artwork. Matsumoto's characters looked like little demons at times, especially when they're grinning, and in this series ... he has tendency to zoom up on their big chunky hands. Stick with it though, and you'd be rewarded with diverse range of facial expressions, beautiful surrealistic imagery, and exhilarating sport scenes. The ping pong matches, in particular, bursts with so much life and energy that I can almost feel the sweat and intensity oozing from the page.

The story revolves around a quintet of young ping pong players, with the biggest spotlight trained on long-time friends Peco and Smile. Characters were assigned nicknames, a nice touch as it lends a sense of immediate intimacy with them. The heightened focus on the players (or rather, human beings that happened to play ping pong) over the sport itself is really apparent; While we were informed about the characters' basic playstyle and their general strengths/weaknesses (Peco, for instance, has a weak backhand), there's no technical breakdown or detailed rules explanation for ping pong newbies. Matches tend to be brisk, rarely extending beyond a couple of chapters at most (although as aforementioned, still exciting thanks to Matsumoto's art). It's also realistic and gritty; While in any other sports series a character nicknamed 'Dragon' would be able to strike flaming ping pong balls with literal dragon flying on the background, don't expect that kind of stuff here.

Ironically, considering the title and all, you can swap 'ping pong' with bowling, badminton, or watermelon smashing, and it wouldn't make that much of a difference; Ping Pong is really about the range of realistic emotion that'd be familiar if you ever engage in something competitive seriously. Questioning the exact purpose of spending so much time and energy at something. Wondering if it's really worth it. Crushing realization that no matter how hard and long you train, there's someone whom you'll never be able to surpass. It's all about those feelings, and also the universal theme of growing up and friendship, as illustrated through Peco and Smile.

Ping Pong wrapped up in just five volumes, way shorter than many more popular sport manga, but Matsumoto clearly didn't need multiple tournament arcs and dozens of competitors to get his point across. The ending may come off as a bit abrupt and too 'neat', but I can't deny how emotionally satisfying the journey was.

MAY HAVE SPOLIERS , BE AWARED !

Passion is something that can either change ur life for the great and good or lead u down into the destruction of life , a dead-end , a scary world that even worse than hell , a "homonuclus".

Nuture vs nature , a debate which has been delivered throughout this manga , that in the end , there is still not a clear answer . But there is one thing u know , that is "hard-working" because , if u don't practice , u don't learn , ur talent , ur passion will just die... that is why in the ... professional world , the players always have to trained all the time , otherwise , their skill will just... disappear.

This is of course , not ur ordinary slice of life , sport manga , this is not some kinds of cute stories about love , NO .

This is a journey of hardworking swordmanship , a trip where each characters exploring themselves from the past through the future , from having fun while doing passion to sacrificing for it , being serious about it but it the end... u need to really have fun in order to continue .

I feel happy when they are talking happily while training , i feel excited about every matches , i feel depressed when someone has to give up on their passion bc of the "limit" they have reached , because of harsh the world is to treating these players , they were once innocent kids , it is sad , it is haunted... especially when I read the last match , I'm hit... "yes , fly high" , after all , u play ping pong not because of ur TALENT , not because of ur PASSION but because FUN , U NEED TO HAVE FUN . I shed a tear reading that....

Deep-diving inrto the ocean of thoughts , feel lost in while a time is what our mc has tried... he has talent , yea , for sure , but he suddenly feel lost , and sad... because of his friend , because of the sport , he suddenly sees everyone becomes serious and no longer having fun on ping pong... they play just to "waste time" , they play just for "titles" , they play just for "money" , to "prove themselves" without having fun , they are killing their emotion , they are becoming "robots"... Throughout 55 chapters of the manga , u will see the mc is always trying to be happy because he surely plays ping pong because he finds FUN in it... and when he feels that , he just "lost" , grow hairs , smoking... and even trying to sucide... but when he gets rescued... he suddenly starts to notice... and he comes back the sport he has abandoned months ago.... he will teach every other players how to have FUN in sport through his gifted talent.

The art of this manga is realism , to use this art type , u really have to focus alot in developing story and characters , and ofc , they nail it by miles... this art reminds me of cubism , an abstract art type that was used frequently by Pablo Picasso , this art requires u need to dig deep in the objects that u are drawing , not only on the surface but also the materials while also expressing ur thought in it. This art surely so real that it captures the emotion of characters so good... it is so real that i feel like it is happening in my real life , it is so real that i feel hurt when the mc is "lost" in the "ocean of thought" ( in both meanings ), It feels so real that it is so fake... it makes right and wrong swapping each places all the time.. a vortex... a hurricane... a storm. Many predicts i have put while reading this manga are wrong and wrong again the longer the story goes.

This manga is either making people who loves will really love it and people hates it will hate it alot and mainly because of the art style which i find it silly , if u rate a manga just because of the art didn't fit ur taste , then sorry , u and I aren't in the same level and please avoiding me right away , people just really love "fake beautiful" art than "ugly truth" words , it is also the reason why art is considered as money laundering these days... Anyway , i'm in the "really love" it side because it cuts deep in humans , it cuts into Philosophy of different characters about what they are thinking while participating this so-called "passion".

In the end , every single great mangas are written base on human , every single things that humans are doing , behaving , expressing . Their emotions , their thinking ,their true nature... And if u forget that base , ur work is souless and deserve be thrown to an exhibition for alien , not humans . U will notice that once u read alot of works... it is all about humans , all about ourselves... I'm rating mangas mostly because of their story and characters , and humans are my base of rating , that is why , I adore this manga .

Anyway , I just want to say... I really , really , really suggest u guys who are interested in sport and slice of life gives it a try , u won't forget it , this experience may either becoming an unforgettable one or just a dust fly though ur face without u noticing it , It all depends in ur feeling so plz don't take my review too serious , take it as the small review at the last page of the novel.

Thx u for reading.

As ping pong the animation is one of my favourite animes of all time
I get to read the manga instead of rewatch it for the fifth time xD
But unfortunatly the manga was less quality than the anime
The anime had it's character development better than how the manga show it . In the manga you will feel that everything is very fast and that make you unfeel the emotions of the characters
I used to compare animes with their mangas but i couldn't find an adaption that is better than it's source before i read this manga
The manga is good and all that but ... if you ask me i will tell you to go and watch the anime

Ping Pong is a philosophical exploration of what motivates people to undertake, well, anything. Some do it to kill time, some for the camaraderie, some chase after an aesthetic ideal, and some do it because they cannot bear failure, and so on. It starts off brilliantly, laying out the characters that exemplify this or that facet of competition, what they look like if mapped onto a motivational spider chart, how they interact with each other, reconcile contradictions, and mature.

However, as competitors drop out of the race and we approach the final reckoning, the manga also gradually becomes a slide show of flashbacks, action shots, symbolism, ... romantic one-liners, repeated mantras, and uh, believing in the heart of the cards. It does a better job than the animated version of build up and establishing the training timeline- a year's worth of blood, sweat and yada yada, but the payoff still feels unconvincing. After all, there's only so much resolution and meaning that can be packed into a one-day regional qualifier tournament. The manga ends immediately afterwards. The mise en place is painstakingly prepared, but then gets all tossed together and submerged in shounen spirit dressing.

Even with multiple reads and me trying to be charitable, I can't see the art in such an ending. The entire time we are left wondering what the protagonist, Smile, is chasing after, and what it will take to resolve his adolescent angst, and the reveal, or lack thereof, makes you wonder if his story was really worth telling. If done better, Ping Pong would have been a far more iconic sports manga classic.

Honestly what put me off first is the art like it isn't personally that great BUT I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN AND WHEN OPPONENTS WERE FACING OFF EACH OTHER, THE SCENES WERE LIT AF MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem anyways I was very surprised that I thought this was a very moving manga since I'm not really a "Ping Pong " fan and the art was rather off (no offense to the artist). I really liked how we get to know each characters (Smile, Dragon, Peko, Granny, Wenga, and the old dude who I can't remember his name lol) like the character development in this was very good. I ... do wish it was expanded out more than 55 chapters so we get to know each character more on their backstories as to why they ended up doing Ping Pong in the first place. However it gave a nice touching ending so can't necessarily complain that it was too rushed tbh!

Just read this guys, wtf are you waiting for??!!!!!!!!!