Ping Pong (2020)

Childhood friends Peco and Smile play on their high school's table tennis team: one a showboating natural rattled by a loss to a stronger player, the other a blank-faced talent his coach believes could be great if he cared. Matsumoto turns a rally into pure motion, with bodies stretched and the ball smeared across whole pages, and it is as much about friendship and ambition as about scores. Viz collected all five Japanese volumes in two thick books in 2020, based on the Full Game edition, and the set earned an Eisner nomination. If you read only one Matsumoto, this is the easiest way in.