Chapter 1 of Ping-Pong Peril introduces the story of 16-year-old, Second-Year High School Student Taira Mikado. Due to a stroke of bad luck, he’s and his little sister, Momo, have inherited a ONE BILLION YEN debt from his father. After this mother died of an illness four months prior, he had to deal with his dad disappearing and leaving them owing a massive amount of money from his failed attempt to rebuild his factory.
The opening scene is a 29-year-old Debt Collector attempting to take his twin sister, Momo, and sell her for the one billion yen needed to pay off the debt. More than that, we see how desperate our protagonist is as he’s attempting to rush the Debt Collector with a knife, only to be miraculous saved by a mysterious woman who offers him a way to put his troubles behind him…
With Ping-Pong. Considering Taira Mikado is a Ping-Pong Prodigy who won all three years of the NMPC (National Middle School Ping-Pong Championship), he’s pretty good. Mutsuki Kaname has given him an unexpected lifeline.
The stakes are clearly set with what he most do, and what he has to lose if he doesn’t. The first few pages show the circumstances surrounding Taira’s misfortune, his dead mother, and a father who put his debt upon his children. Also, it’s a possibility he will lose his sister if things aren’t solved quickly; believing he had until he graduated to square away that debt is a pipe dream. With no other choice he has to follow-up.
They go to a swanky hotel room in the “SUPER VIP” section; a ping-pong table made out of solid gold and a lavish room seems insane. However, she tells him that an underground tournament with an opportunity to win one billion yen is taking place; just that he needs to win (or his debt will increase since it costs a billion yen to enter).
Fighting against the Debt Collector who just threatening his life with a gun and attempted to sell his little sister, Taira realizes that things are not as simple as ping-pong. No no, they are playing “PING-PONG PERIL“. A game where anything is permitted as long as you win, and in this set to 11, he has to quickly learn how to adapt or fall into despair
However, using techniques and his brain, Taira quickly manages to turn the situation to his advantage. Closing his eyes to avoid the glare of the glass table and fire engulfing the room, not being afraid of the sparks caused by the backspin of the ping-pong ball on the solid gold surface of the table, and reacting to the sound of the ball bouncing to direct his arm was his strategy for victory.
Seems an underground winner-take-all Ping-Pong tournament will decide the fate of Taira Mikado and his twin sister Momo.
This series comes off extremely heavy with the Debt Collector trying to take a 16-year-old to sell her, and pointing his gun in the willingness to kill another one. Also, it makes no sense to me why he wouldn’t take out his gun to shoot while playing Ping-Pong Peril if ANYTHING GOES as long as you can. More so, why he wouldn’t try to murder Taira in cold blood since he was so willing to shoot him last time (though to be fair, Taira did pull a knife on him before).
The series in and of itself seems like a way to force Taira into this absurd underground tournament where simply giving him enthusiasm to be the best would work; kind of like how the protagonist of the poker game All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is. I will undoubtedly check out Chapter 2 of Ping-Pong Peril to see where the story goes, but I was not really blown away by the first chapter.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...
Leave a Reply!