Interview with Akira Fukuzawa, Former Nippon TV Announcer “Super Attraction” of Table Tennis, which he realized when he met again at the age of 42

Both the man’s uniform and the racket he holds in his hand bear the familiar phrase: “JUST MEET.

JUST MEET.

Akira Fukuzawa, 61, a former announcer for Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV), has become synonymous with this phrase, using it so effectively in the programs he has appeared on. Fukuzawa is known as a great table tennis enthusiast. He spoke passionately for 60 minutes about the “superb appeal” of ping-pong (comments below by Fukuzawa).

I’m into a new type of ping-pong game called “large-ball. The ball is larger and lighter than normal (normal ball is 4 cm in diameter and weighs 2.7 g; large ball is 4.4 cm in diameter and weighs 2.2 to 2.4 g). It is air resistant, so it is difficult to speed up and rallies can be sustained. It was ‘just right’ for me.”

Fukuzawa first encountered table tennis when he was a student at Waseda Junior and Senior High School (Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo), a private integrated junior and senior high school. At the time, however, he did not understand the fun of table tennis.

At first, I thought I would join the tennis club because of its fashionable image. At that time, high school students were coaching junior high school students at Waseda Junior High School. When I observed a tennis club practice right after entering the school, I got a scary impression of a senior student with long black tanned hair who was teaching ……. When I turned my attention to the gymnasium, I saw pale-skinned, kind-looking seniors hitting the ball with a pecking order. I thought this was a better fit for me and decided to join the table tennis club.

However, when he actually joined the club, he found that it was still an athletic club. He says that he was given some “inappropriate coaching,” such as being hit on the buttocks with a racket by upperclassmen.

There were 30 to 40 members in total in the junior and senior high schools. There were only four ping-pong tables. As the youngest students, we only needed to be able to hit the ball for about 15 minutes a day. The rest of the time, we went for a run or did push-ups on the nearby Hakone Mountain. If we were sloppy, the seniors would make us sit on our hands for an hour.

He is a very smart guy.

After the Inter-High School qualifying round in the summer of his sophomore year, he retired from club activities without achieving any significant results. He entered Waseda University, which is affiliated with Waseda University, where he left ping-pong and became passionate about acting, inspired by the student theater that was popular at the time.

He became a research student of the theater group “En,” which also included Ken Watanabe. I was seriously considering dropping out of college to become an actor if I became a member of the group. However, I was unsuccessful in the promotion selection process. …… In the spring of my sixth year at university, I took a job examination and joined Nippon TV, and in the dizzying pace of my life, I forgot all about table tennis.”

Fukuzawa was 42 years old when he first encountered ping-pong again. It was around the time he left Nippon TV and went freelance.

There was a ping-pong bar near my office at the time. I was aware that I was not getting enough exercise because of all the work I was doing, so I tried it for the first time in a while and found it interesting. The manager, who had experience in ping-pong, said, ‘You have a good swing. Let’s make a team together,’ he invited me. We named the team Junfukukai after the manager Junya and myself.

More than a dozen people in their 10s to 60s, mostly regulars, participate in the Junpuku-kai. They practiced once or twice a week for about two hours and participated in tournaments.

In junior high school and high school, I was just trying to hit a strong ball, but now that I am over 40, the pleasure I get from table tennis is completely different,” he said. I feel more relaxed and can look at table tennis from a bird’s eye view. I realized that there is a very tactical aspect to table tennis, for example, trying to catch your opponent off-guard and aiming for the right course.

Ichiro Ogimura, the god who won 12 gold medals at the World Table Tennis Championships, had this to say about table tennis. It is like playing chess while running the 100-meter dash. It’s a hard sport, but it’s also very intellectual. The beer after practice tastes three times better than usual.

It was at a party for his 60th birthday held at a hotel in Shinjuku that he first encountered large-ball, the sport he is now addicted to. The chairman of Nittaku, then a table tennis equipment manufacturer, asked him to become a “table tennis evangelist” and spread the appeal of large-ball.

He said, “Large-ball is recommended for the elderly because they can communicate with each other while playing slow rallies. I also started playing in earnest last spring and have been in good physical condition ever since. What I think about every day is expanding the base of table tennis and increasing the number of players. My dream is to hold casual large-ball tournaments. I want to make it a tournament that focuses on recreation, not winning or losing,” he says.

At the opening ceremony of the tournament as envisioned by Fukuzawa, all participants will shout “Just Meet! and paper tapes will be thrown.

From the February 14, 2025 issue of FRIDAY