Greetings everyone! It's been a long while but the blog lives on! We'd like to proudly announce we have our first non "Weekly Shounen Sunday" review with this write up by our good friend and contributor Marion. As stated in the review of Taiyo Matsumoto's "Ping Pong" this series ran in Shougakukan's magazine "Big Comic Spirits." It's a pleasure to have this review up as our first step towards being more than a resource for Shounen Sunday manga as the offerings from Shougakukan's manga magazine library are unique, fascinating and endless! So it is our pleasure to have this review hosted on the blog. If you like reading Marion's well crafted reviews, please check out more of their writing here.
Hey all, Marion here, and this time, we've got something special for you here at WSS Talkback. I mean, what a time to be alive (as a manga fan)! Taiyo Matsumoto's Ping Pong has finally been graced with an official English release, and the first volume is a whopping 500+ pages! I've been incredibly excited for this ever since the initial license announcement by Viz last year, and I'm very humbled and grateful to have had the opportunity to get a review copy from them.
It might be blasphemous to admit, but this is my first jump into Taiyo Matsumoto's manga repertoire, despite having access to titles like Sunny and Go-Go Monster. My familiarity with his work stems from Ping Pong's anime back from 2012. It was a visual and thematic feast, and I'm pleased to report that the comic is just as impressive. Early on, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from comparing it to its adaptation, even though this was original drawn and written back in 1996, in Shogakugan's Big Comic Spirits. Those worries were easily dispelled as I kept on reading and remembered just how damned good of a character drama this story was. Even knowing or remembering events as I saw them unfold again before my eyes felt more enriching than droll, alluding to how satisfyingly this can hold up on a reread. The character relationships on display were vividly portrayed with a combination of dialogue, body language, and paneling that you can only get in the medium of manga.
The story of Ping Pong revolves around two youths, Smile (Makoto Tsukimoto), and Peco (Yutaka Hoshino), and the lives of other athletes whose lives revolve around the titular sport. Smile's disposition is mostly dismissive and apathetic, contrasting Peco's bubbly, whimsical, and confrontational attitude, making for a weird pairing at first. What makes their relationship click as a reader is the gradual unraveling of a shared backstory between them, and how Peco played the role of a Hero who came to rescue Smile. Their history together is why they play the sport, and why they gradually become estranged over the course of the book.
With the flavor of a sports setting, many ideas and themes become easy to delve into and explore, and one of the easiest questions for a sports manga to ask is, "Why do you play?" Ping Pong is the series that comes along and takes that question, and instead asking it, shows you how the sport itself is so ingrained into everyone, so that you can connect the pieces and understand for yourself why the drama unfolds the way it does. I'm someone who would say that the greatest stories are ones shaped by their characters. When you read or watch something, and look back and realize that there was no other possible conclusion for how things could turn out, because that's exactly the way those characters would act in that situation--that's what storytelling is all about. How did Smile get his name? He never smiled at all, until one moment where he won a table tennis tournament against his hero Peco. Why is he so apathetic now? Peco grew conceited and sloppy without even realizing it. Smile indulges in his best friend by letting him be and not going all out against him anymore. His Hero is nowhere to be found anymore.
It's a very to-the-point observation that can be discerned pretty quickly because multiple characters realize just how talented but unambitious Smile is when he plays. Smile attracts the attention of his high school coach, Jo Koizumi, who sees himself in the boy. Jo used to be known as Butterfly Jo, who was a legend that fizzled out after a loss to an old friend he didn't want to further injure. I had the impression in the anime that Jo was basically doing philanthropic work by getting Smile to realize his lack of ambition and talent going to waste would lead to worse problems. In the manga, an extended conversation with Ms Tamura, owner of the table tennis venue that Peco and Smile frequent, paints him much more morally grey. There is definitely a sense that Jo doesn't want Smile to regret his years playing by giving way to his opponents, but there's also a desperation and harsher idea that Jo is self-inserting and molding the boy into who he couldn't be, whether it leads him to happiness or solitude. The sole goal of showing his student "the view you can only see when you win," might ring hollow when applied to anyone else, because it's such a bland, obvious motivation for someone playing any kind of competitive sport. The fact that Smile is a living void of ambition and desire to win, however, suddenly makes that idea more compelling, because of an older character who is literally seeing his past failures repeat right in front of him.
After Jo, the next person who notices Smile's habits is Kong Wenge, a Chinese athlete who was sent to Japan under the guise of teaching a school's table tennis team as a fellow student, officially at least. The real reason was that he was kicked off the Junior National team after losing and was essentially exiled to test if he can conquer the high school circuit in another country and restore his reputation. What really endears me to Kong is the fact that he has intuition to back his skills and confidence. He knows that Smile threw the set they played together, and that he underestimated the players he knew were talented. Some of the most compelling pages in this volume are scenes of Kong playing, interspersed with shots of a plane landing or taking off. My favorite line of his is "At least someone believes in his talent. I don't even have that." Referring specifically to Smile after Kong tells him he shouldn't let his talent go to waste. To me, it could be a double whammy, saying that he doesn't have anyone back in China believing in his talent, or even going a step further and saying he doesn't have talent, to the extent of Smile, who can hold back. The visual language is astounding, in terms of scenery matching a character's emotional state, or jumping from an action filled scene to a conversation of someone who lost the previous round.
Speaking of panel work, Matsumoto's paneling as a comic artist is so jaw-dropping! The majority of pages are simple, with either flat, 3-4 panels or standard rectangles dividing up the page with margins on the top/bottom/sides left for white space. It gave me an early Dragon Ball vibe in terms of how the page's "real estate" was divided up. During Kong and Peco's scrimmage, we get to see gutters for panels slant more, giving the opportunity to frame characters in more dynamic poses, and experiment with the SFX. A standout page for me is 80, where Kong's sneaker is stepping into the panel from outside of the frame, and the motion of the foot stomping is followed by shot of Kong bracing to hit the ball. Those two panels take up half the page, and it's immediately followed by a quick six panels of reactions before the actual impact. Page 81 shows the follow-through of Kong's swing with a "BWAK" descending diagonally from above the top left corner of the panel, and the trail of the ball lining up with the bottom of the "W," and the outside edge connecting to the rest of the panel. One other page that I love is 180, where Smile is trapped inside the class's utility closet, and we never see his face or body. Only a wide shot of the room.
The panel below is his foot grinding on the floor, and next to that panel is his thoughts, "This place is safe and dark." against a white background. The white begins to fracture into black and actually extends the panel below the sneaker, here in all black we see his next thought: "I feel relaxed in here." The cracks in the solid black seem to be caused by the trembling of his foot, and we can see tears falling on top of the laces. It's such a haunting scene, it's juxtaposed with a paddle hitting a ball immediately after, and we know that this is the moment that planted the seed that closed Smile's heart. Peco saved Smile from this. This is what makes their conversation at the inter-high that much more bitter to swallow, because Smile asks, "Do you believe in heroes?" and Peco says "No way." These kids still care for each other, but they couldn't have grown any less differently because of their values.
Peco's influence on Smile cannot be understated. To be completely honest, as an adult, Peco is fascinating and annoying to watch at once. He makes mistakes that everyone does. He has a ton of hubris. But he doesn't take bullying lying down. He has a charming relationship with Old Lady Tamura! He still values Smile's friendship! Seeing his spiral after losing to "Demon" Sakuma, is what brings this story back full circle. To Sakuma, Peco was a goal he could never reach as a kid. I think that without Sakuma, Ping Pong would not be as good as it is. Sakuma was dealt a really bad hand in life. He developed astigmatism, even though his father was sure that he'd grow up in better shape. He practiced the most out of everyone in his high school, and even though he was able to beat his first rival, he couldn't match up to the kid he used to beat all the time when he was younger. Sakuma's story is really important. He's the athlete that continues to put in effort even though everyone else around him is constantly going off about "talent" this, "gifted" that. The final nail in the coffin of his idol, Kazama "The Dragon,": not giving a care about him after going out and risking the future of his athletic career is beyond damning.
What makes his story so important to me is the fact that Sakuma has no allies, at least in this volume. He has scraped his self up from the absolute bottom to the edge of the cliff known as skill, and was smacked and tossed back down after confronting the harshness of reality. Everyone else around him who was blessed with talent was also fortunate enough to have been noticed and fostered in environments that gave just as much training as he gave to himself. It's absolutely brutal, and a lesson that aside from sports, is also necessary to confront in life itself. Sakuma's reaction to immediately give in to rage at his loss to Smile and violently lash out at the first person to blow his fuse is something that I've witnessed so many people experience. Just as Smile's disillusionment with Peco turned him into the "Robot," Sakuma's descent into "Demon" is also something that stemmed from Peco. What satisfaction could come from beating your old rival if he's just washed up, and less extraordinary than when he was a kid? You could almost say that with the departure of Peco being a Hero, Sakuma had not choice but to fall.
As someone--a former athlete--who related to every single character in some way on multiple viewings of the show, Sakuma is someone I can't feel pity for. What I feel is more along the lines of deep, deep, sadness. I know what it's like to love something with your whole being but not feeling like you can amount to anything. I also thought the world was a harsh marathon, where I started several paces behind others because of a lack of talent. When the enjoyment of a sport no longer comes from the act of participating in it, there's a tightrope that's hard to balance on. Your self esteem now hinges on being able to justify the amount of time you put in, being able to win or show some kind of results. To an extent, this kind of behavior is necessary for finding motivation, but it can be just as toxic. When your entire life becomes about results, you turn into Kazama, who locks himself in a bathroom stall to self-isolate and question your entire being. Part of Smile's apathy also comes from an intuitive awareness that no longer playing for fun will transform table tennis into a chore. The inability--or lack of desire--to turn your hobby into something routine is something that many, many athletes face as an obstacle, including Peco, who just messes around while touting himself as a skilled player.
What makes Peco fascinating is the way that he juggles the drive to be a good player, and what an absolute idiot he is. He wants to be in the Olympics, but he only plays money matches with chumps who don't know his reputation. He skips practice all the time because he's super complacent. He's an absolute tool and if this were a live action tv show, I'd say he makes for good tv. But we jump into the story in the middle of his complacency. We don't know why he got into table tennis, what made him love it so much that he developed that dream. He still has so much respect from Smile even though his attitude toward improving at the game has basically flatlined. He is also the most emotive character! In this volume we get losses for him from both Kong and Sakuma! He is bitter, cries, and ultimately gives up on the sport, even though he never vocally said it. Ironically enough, it's Smile who says "I quit," to Coach Jo even though he comes back later and essentially acts like a foster son to him and his wife. The fact that he still goes back to Tamura's venue to "help out" just goes to show that there really isn't much in his life besides this game. Facing his first real losses, in a greater story (which I know this to be) will be the catalyst to fixing his complacency.
The complex web of relationships in Ping Pong is immensely satisfying to unravel as a reader. I know many people I couldn't convince to watch this series in an animated form. Taiyo Matsumoto does have a very unique art style, maybe even divisive to some. Like any good sequential storytelling worth their salt, though, Ping Pong is easy to read. With panels that are neatly segmented with margins of white space on the edges of the pages, the readers eyes are never lost. Matsumoto seems to have hand drawn all the backgrounds, and very minimal screentones are used throughout the book. Instead, there's an emphasis on inking blacks and making use of white space whenever backgrounds are light in order to draw attention to body language and a sense of movement between action panels. My favorite aspect about the art in general is the contrast between how hyper-realistic the faces can get on closeups, and how distinct silhouettes and structures can appear in farther shots, like in page 256, where Sakuma is looking for Kazama and spots him sitting with Smile in the rafters. Throughout all of Kong's first inter-high match, actually, you can see many characters from both Smile's school and previously established elsewhere in the crowd shots! Matsumoto's style has faces that can be fraught with lines to show creases in brows, laugh lines, forehead wrinkles, and more to show emotion, or just as easily draw a fewer lines to imply movement like lips moving or a scowl. Included in this volume is a Ping Pong Episode 0, originally published in 2002, about Tamura. Tonally it reminded me of something like the Pikachu's Vacation shorts you'd see before watching a Pokemon movie in theaters back in the 2000s. Overall, not necessary, but definitely appreciated!
I don't really do ratings, but to me, Ping Pong is a perfect manga, and I cannot wait to have the next installment. I'd like to thank Viz Media for the review copy. You can find this book in print at places most manga are sold, for a MSRP of $29.99.
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