I Really Should Read This 22: Ping Pong Volume One, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Ping Pong Volume One, by Taiyo Matsumoto

1996, English Edition 2020

I consider myself a fan of Taiyo Matsumoto's work, that I've read in English. I have Tekkonkinkreet, Sunny, and Cats of the Louvre. I'm not always taken by the story of these books, but I love the atmosphere and emotion of it. His work has an alien quality that I need to appreciate in a different way from conventional comics or manga. 

The cover of the book isn't very good; this is a better taste of the book

But I was hesitant to get Ping Pong. It's older work of his, done in the sports genre, which was made into a movie and into anime. Without reading it, I just assumed it was more conventional manga made before he became THE Taiyo Matsumoto. And maybe it is more conventional in some ways, but I loved reading every page of this book.

Ping Pong Vol. One 

I'm no judge of the genre of sports manga. As someone who has never watched or played sports, my main experience of them is their use in movies and TV. I was worried about what I would latch onto when I couldn't care who won a match. Ping Pong doesn't seem to care that much about it either. Certainly, it features table tennis matches, but when the tournament comes up, it skips a lot of them too. It puts more focus on the first round of matches than on the final.

Instead, the book focuses on the egos of the players involved. How they feel about winning and why is more important than the games themselves. The book covers the table tennis teams between high schools in a smaller city in Japan, and many players have relationships stretching beyond their extra-curricular team. Only one player, a Chinese transfer student Wenge, is disconnected, but even he has a connection of sorts in that he relies on being better than the Japanese to sustain his ego. Every kid in the tournament calls him "China" to exacerbate that status.

That line on the ball as it impacts against the paddle is exquisite

Matsumoto is a poetic artist. Where a lot of manga is mechanically precise in its illustrations, Matsumoto has what I'd call an "artistic line." He lets the pages breathe. The only perfect lines seem to be in the ping pong balls themselves, which are smooth circles. He also practices extreme perspective throughout. Not Jack Kirby style, but I think Kirby would like what he does here.

The book is worth buying just for the scenery

And of course, he draws the hell out of the table tennis matches. It helps that Matsumoto isn't an artist intent of copying his own work and repeating faces and scenes. Every picture seems new, no matter how repetitive the content is. The art breathes, there doesn't seem to be a better word to express it.

The little nibs on the paddle create a texture on his finger. There's so much love in every image

In the writing too, there is poetry. I don't want to belabor it too much because it may not stand up to deep analysis, but Matsumoto works in ideas that color the overall work. The main two characters are Hoshino and Tsukimoto. Hoshino goes by the nickname of Peco, which is Japanese slang for hungry (ペコペコ). He is an aggressive player and wants to be the best, but he's just as happy goofing off. Tsukimoto goes by the ironic nickname Smile, because he never smiles. He is the best player, but has no hunger to win. He seems to play to be closer to his friend Peco. At the same time, the kanji for their names use 星 and 月, star/hoshi and moon/tsuki. Those are not uncommon last names in Japan, but it seemed too cute to be coincidence. As I read, I saw star and moon motifs used in the book, including a pattern in inner cover, so yeah, they are a hungry star and the unsmiling moon.

And I love how Matsumoto gives players gestures. Smile is constantly pushing his glasses up. It's a choice to have him adjusting himself. 

There are probably 100 pictures of him doing this in the book. Note the moon on his shirt

The closest thing to an antagonist in the book are the students at the Kaio/Neptune school, and their star players, Demon and Dragon, but they are students who want to win more than real villain characters. 

Again, I don't want to belabor the metaphor too much, because these are all human characters. Perhaps Matsumoto uses these grand ideas (star/moon/Neptune/China) to root his characters before he gets to work fleshing them out 

Peco gets a little fat

This is the first half of the complete series (and I love manga like this that clocks in at 1000 pages). I don't know what resolution will come of it. In the first half, no real problem has arisen. Smile is the best player, but has little ambition to win. Maybe he will want to win, but I suspect not.

My favorite part in the whole book is a coach speaking to a student who has lost and will no longer be able to compete in high school table tennis tournaments. The player tells the coach he feels like a pathetic loser. The coach laughs, and tells him as a friend, not a coach, "you're life's just started. You've just arrived at the starting line." For all the emotion these players are putting into this game, it'll end up only being a footnote in their lives.