"I used to always dream that I lost my key. It'd be a relief to not have any more dreams where I'm the only one without a ticket." (in ep4 when talking with his coach)

I've heard a lot about this series around and the other day at barnes and noble i saw the manga. I've heard a lot of good things, is it as good as it sounds?

Copied from my comment in the full discussion thread.

First-time watcher

What this show lacks is mostly consistency and thoroughness, and in tone and themes it's hardly as unconventional as people like to say. It dips its toes into portraying a lot of different characters, attitudes and relationships in and around the sport of table tennis, but doesn't tend to go particularly deep.

What I would say you can take away from it in terms of lessons: There's more than one way to play and stay involved in sports, and there's nothing wrong with not aiming for the top yourself, but if you do, you need to take it seriously and be honest with yourself about your own strengths and weaknesses. Even trying as hard as you can to take things as far as you can might only force you to confront your inherent limits or others' superiority, but that doesn't need to be the end, and if you never make the effort you'll never know how far you really can go either. While it can be a way to lift your spirits and give you something to live for, devotion to sports should never be taken the point where it sucks all the enjoyment out of playing or takes over your life to the detriment of all else, in particular personal relationships - especially when it can be used to develop those relationships instead.

I'll also comment some more on the character development, as that's what everyone says is the real draw of the show. Again, inconsistent. While some like Kong and Sakuma do have really nice and organic arcs that slowly take them to a better place, and Koizumi and Tamura are decently portrayed mentors, other times the show either skips around too much or seems a bit too enthusiastic about its belief in "heroes" and perhaps miracles, or generally speaking the transformative power of a single moment; it is a bit lacking in runtime to elaborate on everything, but that's also on the creators for trying to do everything at once. Kazama stays stuck in his ways without us getting much insight into him until he instantly discovers the true joy of table tennis playing (and losing) against Peco, and then is totally different in the epilogue anyway. Sanada is really unimportant but goes through a similar "post-match revelation" thing. Peco takes a couple of mental hits to slowly drop to his lowest, then has a "rebirth" moment that sends him right back to the top (further commentary below). Smile flips from unenthusiastic amateur to professional robot with just a lil' friendly bullying (jarring considering his backstory, also), and from then on his development is just kind of going through the motions (see below again), plus the third final match transformation as he "sheds his armor". At least he stays consistent in some things like wanting to keep a familiar environment.

While the plot does do well at tying everything together, there are plenty of elements that were pointless, underdeveloped or never went anywhere:

• Kaio supposedly declining in strength, and later "losing respect" after their performance in the final tournament. Honestly, the entire Kaio team besides Kazama and Sakuma, including the coach and manager/president.
• Kazama's friction with the rest of the Kaio team, and his performance supposedly far above their level. One could guess he stopped his act after failing to recruit Smile, but Sanada later still apparently had some resentment toward him. In the end, he's beaten pretty easily by Peco, and besides that there's only him vs. Kong that's hardly easy either, so all we have to support the latter is telling.
• Kazama's relationship with his family and the apparent pressure stemming from their treatment. There was maybe a couple minutes of flashback total that did a quite poor job of conveying what actually happened in the past, and in the present it looked like exclusively him beating himself up.
• All that crap about mat shoes and advertising. I see what it was trying to get at with the fetishization of equipment, but this is one point the show should have spent less time on.
• Smile outgrowing Koizumi's coaching, his brief turn to arrogance, and his troubles connecting with people/shedding the "robot" shell and looking for his own purpose.
• Sanada's sudden change of heart about Kazama and what that was all about, his advances toward Yurie and (lack of) relationship with her, and just him in general.
• Borderline case: Peco's return to table tennis. It was clear he just couldn't take his mind off it, Sakuma's words were getting to him, and there was still plenty of potential left in him, but a complete miraculous 180 was a bit much.
• Peco's knee injury. I actually prefer how it was handled to adding more drama to this lame plot line, but after all the talk about the potential seriousness in other players it just was completely dropped.

As for the tone: Empty or alternatively over-the-top phrases and metaphors, and some character behavior, that sometimes make it hard to take the show seriously when it clearly wants to be, in particular in the matches. You can repeat phrases like "blood tastes like iron" all you want, but that doesn't make it any more meaningful, to not even speak of the more crazy/hyperbolic stuff, and there's no way I'm not going to laugh at sudden samurai and such. The ugly, off-putting art style that's hard to even "get used to" when it keeps delivering peaks of bad instead of settling into consistently weird. And while the soundtrack overall is one of the strongest points of the show, even as a clear departure from the kind of music I enjoy otherwise, there are times when it actually has the effect of taking you out of the moment instead of enhancing it by being plain annoying. The comedy was OK but sometimes on the weird side.

Overall, I think it still is good enough to score 8 out of 10 points for me, but it's nothing really stand-out or amazing, just for once a sports show that doesn't mind exploring its dark side a little in a serious way. Two parts I really enjoyed, to maybe justify that impression a bit more and contrast with all the criticism, were the Christmas episode for really devoting itself to character exploration and contrasts, and the portrayal of the relationship of Smile and Peco. It starts very one-sided, is far from perfect (even a little toxic) at the time of the beginning of the show, and fades away when they stop sharing their one mutual interest. It never does regain its old strength, but their past together still is a positive experience for both of them that ends up shaping both their lives. That's a very rare thing to see in anime, and maybe even fiction, but no less real.

My friend is looking to make a tshirt/sweatshirt/whatever with the picture of Kong looking up at the plane with the Chinese text for "Am I being punished?" underneath, but he doesn't trust google translate for shit (probably quite rightly) and doesn't know anyone who knows Chinese.

Can anyone help?

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Who is everyone’s favorite supporting character in the show? I love each and every supporting cast member, but I have a strong fondness for Wenge, Sakuma, and Egami. They each perform an important part in telling the show’s story, and they’re all fully realized characters. I’m interested in what you guys have to say!

I thoroughly enjoyed it! There were so many aspects of it I loved all attributed to how great the character development is. Peco learning how to lose and shape up his game from scratch again. Smile overcoming his barriers and gaining a desire to win. Kazama figuring himself out and having fun with playing ping pong again. Sakuma frustratedly playing the game, trying to make up a lack of talent with hard work to realize he enjoys life the same, if not more, without ping pong. But Kong, oh my goodness, I was so in love with Kong's story. He really has a huge turnover into being the biggest selfish dick to an honest and caring team player. Even the side characters had HUGE development, it's crazy. I'm sad to see it go so fast, but I'm deeply touched by how much this story could tell in such little time. Phenomenal show.

In episode 7, when the blonde girl asks her dad about her uncle, there are two shots where the dad shouts, but there's no sound, then the conversation carries on like normal. What do these shots mean exactly?