Well folks, the moment has finally come. We have arrived at a simultaneously joyous and somber day, as we treat ourselves to the very last episode of Scorching Ping Pong Girls. This thrilling tale of table tennis triumph has been a highlight of the year for me, with the show regularly embodying the core appeals of both slice of life and sports drama. Scorching Ping Pong Girls seems to simply understand fun, and has worked hard every episode to instill its characters and competitions with passionate energy, arcs worth investing in, and clear, tactically coherent stakes. Additionally, its art design embraces the principles of animation-friendly design, with its iconic contrasts of colors, shapes, and visual motifs making for a dynamic and often stunning visual experience. Scorching Ping Pong Girls is the kind of show I’d never tire of; like Chihayafuru, Girls und Panzer, and a select few others, it is a perfect page-turner, a show you could watch from front to back without even noticing the time pass.

And now, sadly, that journey is coming to an end. As this is an incomplete adaptation of an ongoing manga, I’m not really expecting much closure from this episode, but that’s fine with me – I’m just happy to enjoy one more episode of this endlessly entertaining show. For the very last time, let’s check in with Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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Hello everybody, and welcome back for another episode of Scorching Ping Pong Girls! This week, we’ll finally be… wait, that was last episode. Koyori and Kururi played out their long-hyped match, Kururi’s unhealthy fixation on “proving herself worthy” was resolved through Koyori’s joyful play, and the two vowed to continue their rivalry at the actual tournament. Our heroes’ battle with Mozuyami ended with a glorious visual spectacle and satisfying emotional resolution, and Scorching Ping Pong Girls concluded the arc that has dominated its entire second half. So, uh, what do we do now?

Well, as it turns out, the process of adapting a continuing manga into a one-off anime season can be a little messy, and so it looks like we’ll be wrapping up the series with two episodes of post-arc downtime and training sessions. While this is certainly a little odd in a structural sense, it’s the kind of compromise you tend to get used to in this medium, and I’m frankly eager to see how the cast play out all the personal growth they’ve recently experienced in a less competitive venue. A great deal of Scorching Ping Pong Girls’ appeal is how much its cast obviously all love each other, and the Mozuyami arc featured reaffirmations of those relationships all across the main team. Let’s see how the dust settles in the next Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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The preliminary matches have all been concluded, and the record stands at two matches to our brave and gallant heroes, and two matches for our fiendish, nefarious villains. After their enemies ruthlessly cut down Hokuto and Hanabi, Suzumegahara’s heroes rallied back with Mune and Kiruka’s doubles match, followed by Agari’s close win against Mozuyami’s captain Zakuro. Now, with Koyori’s faith in her own play having been restored by Agari’s victory, it’s time for the true battle. You folks ready for battle!? You folks ready for BLOOD?!?!?

I’m pretty excited personally, if you hadn’t guessed. But I don’t think I’m alone here – this series has literally spent two-thirds of its running time hyping up this particular match, with Kururi having been framed as the “true threat” of Mozuyami from the very start. Additionally, Scorching Ping Pong Girls’ core theme is “finding a positive, fulfilling reason to play,” and Kururi represents the most unhealthy negative articulation of that theme. Early on in the season, the show’s central emotional conflict was Agari learning to play for the joy of play itself, instead of the brittle comfort of having her skills validated. The moment that conflict was resolved, the narrative essentially introduced Kururi as a super-Agari, someone even more invested in table tennis as a source of validation, rather than personal joy. Will Koyori’s joyful play and inherent puppy-ness convince Kururi to play for her own sake, and realize that seeking her own happiness is also the best way to make Zakuro happy? I mean, probably, but I still wanna see how we get there. LET’S GET TO IT!

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Buckle up folks, we’re watching some goddamn Ping Pong Girls. Our last episode of taut table tennis tension managed to stuff two full matches into twenty minutes, as Hokuto’s close defeat at the hands of the sadist Yuragi led into a joyous doubles match featuring the team moms. That match served as a celebration of pretty much everything this show cares about – bombastic, JoJo-esque sports melodrama, genuinely well-constructed tactical action, and a cast who are all head-over-heels in love with each other.

The match’s drama was smartly constructed around Munemune remembering to trust Kiruka’s instincts, though it also demonstrated Ping Pong Girls’ so-graceful-it-seems-effortless approach to tactical drama. The degree to which Kiruka and Munemune compliment and elevate each other was clear not just in their overt expressions of love, but also in the synergy of their play; Kiruka’s consistent, efficient movements control the battlefield, setting Munemune up to rattle their opponents with a devastating power swing. Scorching Ping Pong Girls has always offered a mix of sports action and lovey-dovey slice of life, but last episode was the first time those two instincts merged on the same side of the table, making for an extremely endearing spectacle.

And yet, for all that, it’s only now that we’re getting to the real payoffs of this tournament. With our team against the ropes and fighting a 2-1 score deficit, Agari and Koyori will each have to defeat one of their enemy’s strongest players, as Zakuro and Kururi at last take the field. Let’s see what madness awaits in one more Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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You folks ready for some Scorching Ping Pong Girls? Alright, that’s what I like to hear. Our last episode saw the long-awaited commencement of the team’s brutal, no-holds-barred (practice) match against Kururi and her teammates, opening with Hanabi getting thoroughly thrashed by the scorpion-striking Sasorida. Along with that, we were dazzled by such scintillating dramatic highlights as “Koyori got stuck and she can’t get down,” making for an altogether thrilling, might I even say scorching dramatic tableau.

That episode also featured more hints as to where this battle will be going thematically, which isn’t really much of a mystery at this point. Though it has many goofy embellishments that give it a whole lot of personality and charm, Scorching Ping Pong Girls is fundamentally pretty straightforward in its embracing of sports and shonen narrative conventions, and its big thematic points are basically “friendship is good” and “play for the things that bring you joy, not because you feel obligated to win.” Koyori’s relationship with Agari reflects their true, unconditional feelings, and the ways they play off each other make each of them stronger. In contrast, Kururi seems to believe that Zakuro’s friendship is reliant on her continuously offering “friendship fees,” a belief that also plays out through her insecure physical possessiveness of her friend. It’s an obvious conflict, but Scorching Ping Pong Girls isn’t really about themey-wemey stuff – it’s about having a great goddamn time, and its themes are a natural reflection of the joyous, loving relationships at its heart. I’ve been greatly enjoying this thrilling, creative, and very silly sports show, and I’m eager to get into the heart of this (practice) tournament. Let’s get to it!

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Settle in everybody, we’re watching more Scorching Ping Pong Girls! After a long run of match-filled episodes introducing the main team, Ping Pong Girls slowed down for the first time last episode, and used Hokuto’s family store to emphasize the importance of the unconditional friendships uniting our heroes. It was a charming episode that demonstrated Ping Pong Girls’ slice of life elements can be just as satisfying as its sports elements, while also clearly setting this show’s thematic axis on the importance of friends who love you for who you are. The use of color to illustrate how Hanabi’s presence impacted Hokuto’s life was an effective trick, and the villain Futamaru’s introduction was as wonderfully stupid as I might have hoped. On the whole, as always with this show, it was a very nice time.

That episode also left me more than eager to see these girls actually engage in some doubles matches. I’ve never seen a slice of life property pair up its characters quite this aggressively – every member of Agari and Koyori’s team has a specific partner they trust completely, and having spent so much time building up these relationships, I can’t wait to see those bonds paid off through thrilling acts of teamwork on the ping pong court. With only half a season left, my guess is that we’re about to witness a disastrous practice match that will both set up the threat of our opponents and serve as motivation to succeed in the actual tournament. But either way, I’m happy to be watching more of this consistently charming and often thrilling production. Let’s get to it!

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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!

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Hell yeah folks, we’re watching Scorching Ping Pong Girls! It has been a ridiculously long time since we last explored an episode of this one – so long, in fact, that I no longer have any idea what our ongoing conflicts are, or what narrative/emotional/thematic threads I should be paying close attention to. BE RIGHT BACK, GOTTA REFRESH.
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ALRIGHT, I’m back! So from what I’m gathering, the last episode was pretty much the end of Scorching Ping Pong Girls’ first act, ending on Agari at last embracing ping pong because she genuinely loved it, instead of simply using it as a vehicle for personal praise. That character turn all came about because of Koyori’s earnest love of the sport, and her desire to use it not as a way to prove her dominance, but as a way simply to communicate with others.

That’s a twist I really like, partially because it seems like a truthful reflection of the ways personal anxiety can express itself, and also partly because “competition as communication” is one of the things I find most compelling about sports drama and competition in general. It’s essentially another way of articulating the tactical appeal of really good competitive games; from fighting games to sports to board games, great contests involve a continuous exchange of proposals and counter-offers, an argument held in a language of tactics. That stuff is all pretty much fundamental to tactical drama, but setting it as Koyori’s signature skill seems to imply this show will be even more focused on tactical repartee than most, like a Mizushima production. But anyway, last episode concluded on the partial introduction of a Mysterious Stranger, and we’ve got work to do. Let’s dive into the next episode of Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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It’s time for another episode of Scorching Ping Pong Girls! The show’s second episode was a big step up from the premiere, offering a very satisfying match, some nice animation highlights, and plenty of sturdy setup for the payoff of Agari and Koyori’s initial rivalry. I was particularly impressed by the show’s illustration of Hokuto’s unique ping pong powers, which was not only just engaging in a visual sense, but also very clearly conveyed the tactical back-and-forth of the fight, and even ended up underlining Hokuto’s emotional shift throughout the match. The show’s character writing is still only so-so, and Koyori hasn’t quite come into her own as a person, but this arc is clearly centered on Agari’s anxieties, so that’s understandable. Koyori is the intimidating new villain in Agari’s life, and at long last, the time has come for the two of them to truly duel. Let’s see some sparks fly in Scorching Ping Pong Girls!

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