Hell yes folks, we’re back to Scorching Ping Pong Girls! Among the many excellent shows you readers are currently steering me through, Scorching Ping Pong Girls is almost certainly the most dedicated Fun Things Are Fun production, and I truly love it for that. Ping Pong Girls is the kind of show Tsutomu Mizushima likes to make – a loving genre riff defined by consistent high energy and a keen understanding of dramatic fundamentals. Conceits like the various characters’ visual motifs play into the show’s overall sense of genre-savvy irreverence, but Ping Pong Girls isn’t self-aware in order to parodize; it understands the dramatic appeal of great sports drama done right, and it’s here to provide.

With last episode essentially serving as a twenty minute hype session for this episode’s match, I’ve been sitting on my hands and grinding my teeth ever since I finished that one. Ping Pong Girls’ matches have consistently demonstrated a great talent for grounding their drama in clear tactical variables, and the show’s fluidity of action cuts has regularly impressed me as well. With Agari and Kiruka about to clash paddles, let’s dive right back into Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

Episode 5

Alright, episode title is “I Want To Feel My Heart Race With You.” My point blank prediction is that this title implies Agari will lose, Koyori will fight Kiruka in her place, Agari will start to feel jealous of Koyori potentially finding a new sparring partner, and Koyori will reassure her with something close to that title line. Let’s see how wrong I am!

We flash back to when Kiruka first joined the team, two years ago. It seems like the club was much more casual back then, with Kiruka’s determination to make it to nationals causing some muttering in the crowd

And yet, the last shot belongs to Munemune. That could imply we’re getting a little closer to her perspective this episode; hanging the final shot of your cold open on your new focus character is a convenient way to create an audience expectation that you’ll return to them, essentially using the length of the OP to create anticipation. Foreshadowing doesn’t have to be clever or hidden to smooth an audience’s reaction to a shifting narrative

We’re back to the match! Hokuto likes her cat ears

The peanut gallery offers some commentary, before Munemune shushes them, centering the focus on herself right before the match begins. So I’m guessing we’re building up Munemune’s relevance because she’ll be the one providing the commentary that explains Kiruka’s strength – as Agari wilts under some tactical attack, Munemune will reveal the secrets behind it

Agari is actually taking this match seriously, as a chance to ensure she’s on the team play roster

“There’ll be lots of great players at Nationals, and I’ll get to feel my heart race even more!” Yep, we’re seeding Koyori potentially separating from Agari specifically

As expected, Munemune is the commentary lead, highlighting how Agari’s loop drive is an effective counter for Kiruka’s chop. If I’m parsing both techniques right, I believe I can see why – the chop is a drop shot designed to kill the ball’s momentum, whereas Agari’s loop drive is inherently designed to drag balls upward, countering the chop’s intent and restoring the ball’s spin

“There’s more to Kiruka than her chops.” Munemune starts to get into the secret she was concealing, Kiruka’s “iron defense.” As I’ve noted, this episode has not only been building up this match, but also specifically building up Munemune as the guardian of Kiruka’s tactical secrets, largely through subtle tricks of visual emphasis. Creating a show like this, which has such a strong sense of forward momentum and dramatic flow, necessitates careful attention to things like this. Even if you weren’t consciously picking up on the way this episode was using Munemune, this would still feel like a dramatic payoff, a secret revealed

And now we’ve created a little narrative for Agari – she needs to gain confidence with her forehand smash, because the backhand won’t break through Kiruka’s defense

But she’s already learned it! Agari actually counters the commentary itself, confidently rallying back with a forehand smash. She’s grown since fighting Koyori

Munemune reveals that Agari asked to practice the forehand smash “to be a better rival for Koyori.” Oh my god, could there be a more dramatic confession of sports-love than that. Lovers are cool, but nobody shares a closer bond than Destined Rivals

“Koyori! Keep your eyes peeled and watch me!” Agari stop, the girl’s heart can’t take it

And Agari gets her point, her victory captured in Scorching Ping Pong Girls’ signature sweat-o-vision

Nice little cut of Kiruka’s “wall” crumbling. Her impenetrable defense is a less visually compelling conceit than something like Hokuto’s calculations, but still pretty distinctive

They’re really hanging on Nationals as a concept. I guess Koyori’s path to finding her own motivation outside of Agari could hang on this point

Koyori finally drops the title line, and Agari goes Full Tsun

“The only one you’re allowed to lose to is me. So win, no matter what!” Agari, it must be so stressful to live like this. Just hug the puppy, christ

We start the next match in Kiruka’s perspective, leaving me to assume that Koyori is about to undergo an intimidating level-up. Match sequences like this generally settle the camera on whoever’s about to be challenged/surprised, keeping the audience where the tension is

And yeah, Koyori’s very quickly pushing her back. The posture of Kiruka’s returns clearly emphasizes how she’s consistently off balance, and only just managing to return these shots

Kiruka’s cat ear gag actually gets better over time, as the overt rationale for the gag fades, and we’re just left with a commentary gallery who are all wearing cat ears for no apparent reason

Koyori takes it! The girl has no mercy

I’m still very much enjoying this show’s use of Dezaki style picture postcards for dramatic character moments. There is basically nothing about this show’s genre or tone that echoes Dezaki, but that doesn’t matter – this is just a good, effective visual trick, and more shows should use it. You don’t have to echo Dezaki (or your aesthetic influences more generally) as closely as something like Simoun or Ikuhara’s works to make use of an effective visual technique

So Agari and Koyori win early placement on the team’s roster, which makes sense. It’s already clear they’re the best players, there’s no real suspense-related reason to drag this out

Aha, I love this superdeformed embarrassed Koyori with her hair basically melting into her head

Hokuto Still Likes Cat Ears. I like this personal gimmick a lot more than her panties-related one

These girls constantly blowing smoke out their ears with embarrassment feels pretty true to the junior high experience

“I wanted you to know how good they were, and I wanted them to know how good you were.” We once again return to Munemune, with her momlike stewardship of the team essentially serving as the framing device for this overall pair of matches. The episode would feel much less self-contained and congruous without this framing device, even though her overt influence on the narrative was pretty minimal

“The captain hasn’t shown her real strength yet.” The conceit carrying over from last episode also lets Kiruka remain a dramatic threat, since she was clearly exhausted by the time she fought our leads

Agari tries to set up a dramatic reveal regarding the president’s true skills, and pompom hair totally spoils it by revealing her strength is actually in doubles. A nice gag that only increases our anticipation

Damnit, Hokuto’s back to the panty thing

Kiruka and Munemune being extremely Wife City with each other is a very charming dynamic. Munemune is a lot more sympathetic as a character for having a fellow mom to co-lead and also dote over

The team moms discuss their daughters’ progress while said daughters share ice cream on their walk home. I think this show might be gay, folks

“I think Koyori-chan will get better and better now that she has a goal.” Munemune outright articulating this episode’s most prominent emotional takeaway

I find it interesting to consider how a choice like that essentially establishes a dramatic “floor” for following this episode. The more closely you examine a piece of media, and the more you’ve trained yourself to pull threads out of media, the richer your appreciation of that media generally becomes. But not everyone is inclined to do that sort of thing, and so a monologue like this at least ensures all audience members parse the most relevant piece of character development, even if they’re watching almost entirely for the gags and funny matches. The inclusion of this monologue might seem like underlining something obvious if you’re actually watching for the emotional development specifically, but it could well be intended to smooth the journey of an entirely different segment of the audience. From Shakespeare’s simultaneously highbrow and lowbrow works onwards, media is very often working to entertain multiple audiences at once, and evaluating it entirely in terms of how it services one specific kind of viewer will often paint an incomplete picture of its intent

“You’re not just going to meet those great players, you’re beating them. With me!” Agari is apparently a master of sports anime marriage proposals

Ooh, this postcard frame of Koyori is great. The rich blues and yellows of the background neatly evoke the dreamlike night air

And we get the necessary addendum to that initial flashback, as Kiruka’s passion inspires Munemune in turn

Oh my god they actually just did a random “okairi, tadaima” welcome home bit between the two of them. These two are extremely married

And Done

Heck yeah, that was great! Though we actually got two exciting match sequences in this episode, I was even more impressed by how well this episode both integrated Kiruka into the team and further fleshed out Munemune as a character. Kiruka and Munemune are not only an incredibly adorable pair, they each clearly rely on the other in a way that emphasizes their own strengths and weaknesses. Munemune also served as a subtle kind of narrator for the episode overall, with her flashback bookends and general match commentary collectively granting this episode an airtight sense of dramatic coherency. Scorching Ping Pong Girls continues to embody the fun of sports drama done right!

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