🏓 Ping Pong 🏓 Is About Everything

But I'm not about trophies.

Yo. This week’s newsletter is sourced from your local comic book store.

---

You know what I’ve been doing lately instead of compulsive posting online? I’ve been reading books. More specifically: manga.

Lately it’s been Ping Pong by Taiyō Matsumoto, a masterpiece¹.

I watched the 11-episode anime at the recommendation (and also, lender) of (rhythm gamer) Mike back in 2017 (2018? Later?). I watched it over two nights, loved it, got shit for watching it dubbed and not subbed instead (Mike’s a nerd), and enjoyed it so much I thought about it for years and steadily snowballed my willpower into signing up for ping pong lessons in smalltown Pennsylvania only to show up once and email the coach that I was no longer interested because he collapsed mid-lesson and I thought that was weird. (He is okay.)

Watching Ping Pong: The Animation and reading Ping Pong the manga are in many ways aesthetically same-y. They both use scale to showcase momentum, stature, presence and power. But I favor seeing that drawn on a flat piece of paper. In both cases, its dialog is tight, sharp, and yet so many panels in this manga hold immense weight without the use of words. It’s lean².

Smile from Ping Pong: The Animation (2014)

Peco from Ping Pong: The Animation (2014)

Smile’s quiet, calculated, reserved demeanor hits hard for me, someone who’s sometimes insecure with Actually Trying. Competition can turn serious at the expense of fun. On the other hand, Peco’s raw and obnoxious “bring it on” energy feels like the overdressing and self-hype I use to compensate for a lack…of something else. But beyond the characters, the manga’s depiction of motion and speed is something else — it breezily reads, no wasted panels. It has that stutter-step feel of ping pong, but on paper. It captures the sport’s kinetic blur without an animated frame. Ping Pong is about the weird, messy friendships you keep showing up for, whether or not you’re interested in chasing trophies.

The story is a coming-of-age sports drama about Peco and Smile, two best friends who’ve been playing ping pong together since they were little. Peco’s loud, obnoxious, full of bounce, ego, trash talk and talent. His losses are often taken in shock. Smile is robotically cold. Quiet. Controlled. He’s got the skills but he doesn’t care about winning. He’s ironically called “Smile” because, obviously, he doesn’t.

The story is thrilling and, yes, like it’s like most sports dramas—schoolchildren in competition with one another, the eventuality of having a Winner. But there are so many lovely, unique characters and moments that are heartwarming, thoughtful, relatable well beyond teen years.

Smile and Peco’s training is all mental and emotional. They’re not running laps. They’re watching each other fail and succeed. They’re defining their friendship in real time. They’re struggling with opposite insecurities.

Trying to win a game raises stakes. It makes the play sincere. Play doesn’t have to demand sincerity.

At what point does game become sport? Should that affect why someone plays? Do we always need a winner?

Peco and Smile’s friendship feels so full of color over this Two Volume story³, even if it’s black and white.

I hate to show my physical-collecting-things-may-complete-you heterosexualness, but something about holding a real, tangible comic in your hands makes it all the more better. I don’t believe this story can have the same affect on you if it were not a manga. (Though, to counter that, if you’re one of those weirdos who reads text bubbles and moves from panel to panel instead of taking in stylistic choices, just watch the anime. It’s good.)

Ping Pong is about messy, imperfect friendships. The kind that persist, whether or not you're chasing trophies. Not everything is about a score. Sometimes just showing up can be play enough.

(I’m probably going to re-read this before the end of the year.)

1. ¹ (Let the record state: I, Kevin, do not believe something as a masterpiece because it’s been talked to death before as a masterpiece)² I do not like wasting my time. Anime is very much full of filler. I don’t typically watch anime for this reason.³ Another reason why I don’t engage with manga: too long, too many volumes, too much money.

2. I do not like wasting my time. Anime is very much full of filler. I don’t typically watch anime for this reason.

3. I do not often engage with lengthy manga. Too many volumes, too much money.

---