Ping Pong (manga)


Ping Pong is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Taiyō Matsumoto about table tennis. It was serialized in Shogakukan's seinen manga magazine Big Comic Spirits from 1996 to 1997 and collected in five tankōbon volumes.
It was adapted into a 2002 live-action film. An anime television series adaptation produced by Tatsunoko Production and directed by Masaaki Yuasa was aired on Fuji TV's noitamina block between April 11, 2014 and June 20, 2014.
In North America, Funimation streamed and licensed the series in 2014. Viz Media has licensed the manga for a 2020 release.

Premise

Despite having drastically different personalities, high school boys Peco and Smile have been friends since childhood. Now, they're both talented members of table tennis club of Katase High School. Peco gets decisively defeated by a Chinese student and thus becomes so devastated that he quits practicing. Meanwhile, Smile's personality always prevents him from winning against Peco. Coach Jō, however, discovers Smile's potential and tries to motivate him to overcome his psychological obstacle.

Characters

;Yutaka Hoshino/"Peco"
;Makoto Tsukimoto/"Smile"
;Ryūichi Kazama/"Dragon"
;Manabu Sakuma/"Demon"
;Kong Wenge/"China"
;Obaba
;Jō Koizumi/"Butterfly Joe"
;Ota
;Masayuki Sanada
;Shuji Nekota
;Ryū Kazama
;Taku Kazama
;Yurie
;Michio Tamura
;Egami

Media

Manga

Ping Pong is written and illustrated by Taiyō Matsumoto and published by Shogakukan. The manga ran in Big Comic Spirits weekly magazine from 1996 to 1997. The chapters were collected and released into six bound volumes from July 1996 to August 1997. The manga was re-released and reformatted into three volumes between July 14, 2012 and August 10, 2012. Shogakukan re-released the manga again in two volumes on April 1, 2014 under the new title, Ping Pong: Full Game No.
In North America, Viz Media announced that they have licensed the manga for an English language release in May 2020.

Original release

2014 Re-release (Full Game Edition)

Live action film

Anime

An anime television series adaptation produced by Tatsunoko Production and directed by Masaaki Yuasa premiered on April 11, 2014 on Fuji TV's noitamina block. The opening theme is "Tada Hitori" by Bakudan Johnny and ending theme is "Bokura ni Tsuite" by Merengue.
In North America, the anime has been licensed by Funimation.

Episode list

Reception

In 2015, the anime received the Grand Prize award for Television Animation of the Year at the Tokyo Anime Awards Festival.
In November 2019, Polygon named Ping Pong the Animation as one of the best anime of the 2010s, and Crunchyroll listed it in their "Top 25 best anime of the 2010s". IGN also listed Ping Pong the Animation among the best anime series of the 2010s.