Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume

A pleasant surprise. After marathoning the whole series in a night, I have to say I really enjoyed myself. The characters are all fun and have their own little quirks. I felt they went together in the series well. The show is pretty much all about ping pong too, hardly any filler at all. Surprisingly little fanservice too, considering it's full of girls getting sweaty and moving around a bunch. I was actually hooked on the dramatic moments in each episode, and never felt like fanservice was being crammed down my throat for the sake of selling a product. Not a masterpiece, but worth your ... time, and worth buying to put on my shelf. If you want a show with a deep, involved story and great character development, maybe you shouldn't watch a show about ping pong.

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume (Scorching Ping Pong Girls) is a textbook case of 'I should have known better'. This anime from studio Kinema Citrus - following the trials and tribulations of a middle school girls table tennis team - had the potential to be an interesting experience but the warning signs were there from the opening episodes. What unfolded was a by-the-numbers moe-sports hybrid. You've seen this before: New girl has skill, makes number one player jealous and the pair work hard to overcome their faults and step up their game. Is there at least interesting characters or twists to the story to make ... this predictable formula exciting? Don't get your hopes up. Annoying mannerisms from the cast, bland character design and a drab narrative all play their part in making Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume a show I'd backhand off the table in a hurry.

Our main character is Koyori Tsumujikaze, a shy transfer student who finds the perfect place to seek excitement thanks to the Suzumegahara Middle School table tennis club. It's there she runs into the number one player, Agari Kamiya, a confident but jealous girl. Koyori is in search of the player who can bring out the best in her, and Agari fits the bill. Agari has never been greatly tested by the rest of the club but when the talented Koyori shows up things start to change.

It feels kind of wrong to hate on such a light-spirited show but when its characters sound and act like fingernails on chalkboard then it's hard not to. To counter this I've come up with a way to make watching Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume somewhat bearable. It's "Tozzy's Scorching Ping Pong Girls Drinking Game", and the rules are simple. Grab a bottle of your favourite spirit - the kind that makes your head throb harder than Koyori's heart - and make sure you key in the emergency number on your phone beforehand, just in case. Then take a shot every time Koyori mentions the excitable state of her heart, Hokuto converses with a character not by name but by the colour or composition of their underwear, Kiruka decides to nest her noggin in Mune's comically large chest, Hanabi squeezes or fiddles with someone's hair or one of the first-years need the game explained to them during the middle of a point. It's not so much that there's anything wrong with these things, it's just that their repetition reinforces little surprises Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume is willing to throw the viewers way. The show is built upon characters who act a particular way, and one way only. Sweet, jealous, insecure, creepy, quiet or loud. The end result? No curveballs. Little development. Rarely entertaining.

If you've followed through my drinking game I apologise in advance. I assume by the point you've made it through the 12 episodes adhering to these rules then you're in trouble. Regardless if you're staring down an empty bottle or into your soul contemplating why you watched this show there's one thing that's clear to see - Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume is no different from the last moe dribble you watched. It's sickeningly sacchrine and painfully dull. All these faults, cliches and annoying characters are actually disappointing because there's the odd moment of glorious animation in this show but it's not worth slogging through the remainder of the series to witness it. Some of the table tennis scenes (the main reason I watched this show) look fantastic, at least when the characters decide to shut up and let the game unfold, that is.

Thanks to a one-dimensional cast and a story that ends at an awkward moment Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume earns three heartbeats out of 10. Someone get me a defibrillator and make my heart race again.

Simple; yet thrilling, vivid enough for me to be addicted to this series. There are many ways I can express my love for this underrated gem of an anime. I never thought an anime such as this let alone a sports anime would give me this much enjoyment. I'm not a sporty type of person so I tend to avoid sports centred anime but I'm glad I watched this and watched it all the way through.

This anime is as I've mentioned before simplistic, it's a show about girls playing ping pong, no more and no less. It plays out like a typical sports themed show ... would about becoming the best and winning the main competition for that sport; and features the theme of typical 1v1's for a lot of the episodes; showing us the characters strengths and weaknesses and getting more in depth into that aspect. For a story premise like this it really doesn't sound all that interesting but there are many features that make this enjoyable. Mainly because it's cute as hell but also accompanied by these matches is a killer OST to accompany them; a feature I will go more into detail with later on in this review.
This season focuses on a build up to the national competition; with friendly matches and training up to the main event which in-toe is enough to keep you hooked. We get to see the main cast flourish well and their bonds with each other and also an opposing team which increases the enjoyment factor; but other than that this is all we see from this "first season" if the show is lucky enough to gain itself a second.
In all fairness while being cheerful and enjoyable a concept like this isn't too original, but works well for what it is.

The art presented is very cute; it has that charm that made me enjoy it the most, with a cute cast of enthusiastic characters the art style complements that feature well in many ways. It's very bright and stands out well; reducing the serious tones from most of the matches of ping pong and flourishing the fun side to sports rather than competitive. Again this is very simplistic in terms of anime but it catches the eye well and makes the vibrant show even more splendid to watch.

Now moving onto the sound; which I complemented previously in the story section of the review. The OST to go along the ping pong matches is glorious, up-beat, enjoyable and keeps you hooked into the intensity of the matches. It has a very electronic and modern vibe to it which fits the sport well. The ball hitting the racket in the SFX department is also satisfying to hear especially as the fight grows more intense and you root for your favourite character to win the match. Also I have to mention the stunning opening theme, which I loved so much that I bought it on CD. It's upbeat and also complements the show well. Overall, fit to my taste in music.

The characters are pretty generic, there's nothing too special that stands out for them other than the fact they are all passionate about ping pong and competitive to become the very best. I can't find much words to describe the characters but their enthusiasm and up-beat natures is always fun to watch. Which although not very good led me rooting for each character every episode.
I can't honestly pick a favourite character they were all so splendid to watch.
The character development between Agari and Koyori was also pretty neat to watch; but that's all I can really say for this part of the review.

Enjoyment-wise. I loved this show to death; I want more, it was always the highlight of Mondays as it was cute and feel-good to watch. This led this to being my favourite anime of the Fall 2016 season, it can't compare to other more well received titles, but it had enough charisma to keep me hooked and demanding for more. It wasn't hard loving this series at all for it's nice set of characters and entertaining ping pong matches; along with the prior mentioned gorgeous OST.

Overall. I'm scoring Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume an 7/10 (going enjoyment-wise mainly it would score an 8/10).
It didn't present much for it to stand out well in the crowd of anime, but for me it was a gem compared to many other anime's I've seen. If you are into cute up-beat and happy toned anime's. this is a 100% recommendation from me.
I have so much love for this series, and I am really hoping this gets a second season someday.

The idea of putting moe girls in a competitive environment is not anything new to the world of anime. It is something which has been pulled off with great success in the past in shows like Saki for example, and in general I think it adds a nice touch to the otherwise somewhat formulaic sports genre of anime. Following a similar idea, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume is a surprisingly engaging series which keeps you coming back for more. However, although it exceeds expectations in some areas, it also comes across as rather frustrating or awkward in others. It is the kind of show which I ... really enjoyed watching as a whole, but when actually thinking about it I cannot help but find quite a lot of holes in it regardless.

The story is quite straightforward and can be roughly divided into two parts. The first half of the anime follows a group of female middle school students in a table tennis club who interact and compete against each other within the club itself. Then in the second half they start playing team games against other schools instead. In other words, completely standard stuff for a sports anime. What is perhaps a bit less ordinary though is the in-house rankings they have where every club member is placed on a ranked leaderboard which is constantly updated based on recent performance in order to determine who the best player in the club is, and in turn to motivate everyone to play their best. What exactly determines these rankings is never explained in detail, but it seems to be some sort of combination of a king of the hill format and an overall collective skill evaluation. In either case, the games are generally quite fun to watch and the anime as a whole is surprisingly addictive as a result, but there are definitely some problems with it as well.

The first issue I have with Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume is the characters. There are two main girls: Koyori and Agari, the two most highly ranked girls in the club. Agari is to a large extent a rather stereotypical twintailed tsundere (albeit with boobs for once), but initially she also has a rather strange superiority complex which causes her to frequently look down on others and just take it for granted that she has to be the best, though she grows out of this behavior over time. She can be pretty arrogant but for the most part I am honestly okay with that; in a sense I think it is refreshing to see some main characters every once in a while that are actually intentionally flawed rather than being 10/10 perfect goody-two-shoes all the time, so I actually kind of like Agari as a whole.

Unfortunately she is an exception rather than the norm on that front. Koyori is the newcomer prodigy in the club who jumps straight to the top of the rankings right after joining. She is very shy, gets embarrassed easily, and is kind of hopeless at anything other than table tennis, but that is where she truly shines. The problem is that she shines way too much... and in the wrong way. Honestly, Koyori feels too much like a battle shounen protagonist to me, as her special "ability" is awfully close to nakama power in my eyes. Essentially she magically powers up from "having fun" when playing the game (more on that later), which I think is really immersion-breaking and stupidly cliché. And as far as the supporting cast goes, it's somewhat bland across the board. There is Hokuto; the calculative girl who refers to everyone else by the colour of their panties, Munemune-senpai; who is literally named after her enormous tits, Hanabi; the energetic girl who goes >.< at any given moment, and Kirika; the club president who likes enforcing punishments onto everyone she defeats in a match. However, beyond these quirks, they are quite uninteresting as a whole. Probably the most interesting character in the show to me would ironically rather be Kururi, the ace player of the club from a different school that they play against in the second half of the anime. She is an interesting case of a borderline yandere, which is not exactly something commonly seen amongst moeblobs, at least outside of Higurashi.

Secondly... there is the somewhat awkward usage of blushing and fanservice. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy seeing red-faced moeblobs as much as the next guy, but Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume takes this concept way too far. Essentially, Koyori has this obsession of wanting to "feel her heart race" when playing games, which it seemingly does whenever she is playing a skilled opponent, and it is also the main source of her suddenly powering up as I mentioned before. Not only is this stupidly cliché and cringey to watch, but whenever she does this she also starts blushing so hard it looks like her cheeks is going to catch on fire. What are you so embarrassed about? All you are doing is playing a sport. Are you just blushing for the sake of blushing? It makes no sense at all, and only feels like the producers are trying way too hard to make the girls look cute. I often complain about how many anime tend to throw in ecchi fanservice shots in untimely situations where they simply do not fit in just for the sake of having them, and what Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume does here is effectively the same thing except with moe instead of ecchi. And it happens way too often for me to just ignore it, especially considering that Koyori actually infects Agari with this syndrome after a while so that she starts doing the same thing too, and so we are left with two tomatoes playing table tennis all of a sudden... which is really awkward to watch. As a side note to the above, this anime also has some other form of fanservice in the sense that these girls tend to sweat *a lot* when playing, turning their gym clothes rather transparent a lot of the time. However, this part actually does make sense unlike the needlessly excessive blushing and can also look pretty sexy, so I would consider it a plus point.

Thirdly, this is quite evidentially a rather low-budget production and it kind of shows in the animation. Considering that table tennis is a very fast-paced sport, you would also need some rather impressive animation in order to keep up with it, and unfortunately Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume generally does not. There are way too many still shots during the duels instead of fluid animation, which makes it a bit stiff to watch. Occasionally it looks really good though, with some really impressive sakuga usage momentarily, but these are sadly mere exceptions. I think the budget distribution per episode is probably a bit uneven, as some games seem to look a lot better than others. Also, I personally have a bit of a problem with the general character designs: for many of the girls it looks like their cheekbones are completely deformed with almost 90 degree bends in the middle somehow. For Agari this is particularly noticeable. But again these are only visual flaws and not anything major. There are also occasionally some annoying adaptation issues, such as the anime skipping entire sets from matches when playing other schools. Like why are these matches played as best-of-five if you do not have time to show it all anyway, instead of just letting it stay at best-of-three? Probably because it was like that in the original web manga and they did not want to change anything, but cutting it out is hardly a better option in my eyes.

So evidentially, there are quite a lot of things which could have been done better. However, all that being said, I still enjoyed Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume decently as a whole. Yes, there are numerous flaws, but beyond the aforementioned issues, I thought it was a pretty solid anime. Even though these problems certainly do drag it down, I would still put the show slightly above average. Seeing cute moe girls working their hardest to achieve their dreams is a quite beautiful sight, and the unusually competitive nature of the matches even within the club itself certainly helps in catching your interest because it makes even regular practice games feel important. Normally training arcs tend to often feel like fillers in sports anime in my experience, but here the girls are competing just as much within the clubroom as outside it, which is a quite refreshing experience. All-in-all, what you have is an anime which probably will not leave much of a lasting impression, but for a mere 12-episode moeblob show you can do a hell of a lot worse. Though it really needs a continuation because the way this season ended was not exactly very conclusive.

PS: For whatever reason, Crunchyroll's subs for this particular anime were generally quite sub-par by their standards. Unfortunately I have not seen any other group pick it up yet at the time of writing this, but I hope someone does in the future, because the anime probably deserves it.

Is Scorching Ping Pong Girls an enjoyable anime? I answer that question with a definite yes.

Story-wise, art-wise, character-wise, Scorching Ping Pong Girls may not offer anything far above your average anime, yet I had more fun watching this than any other anime this season. The reason? Simply put, the tone of the series.

While from first look you might assume that Scorching Ping Pong Girls is a moe series; that you would watch it, say "That's so cute," maybe even have a few laughs from some cheerful comedy bits, and then walk away after a relaxing time, what the series actually offers is a ... sports anime which will fire you up like its name suggests. The show's story beats all focus on what happens around the ping pong table; games are the main focus and each player represents a different playing style, much like you might expect. What sets Scorching Ping Pong Girls apart from the crowd is the main character, Koyori, and the mood she bring to her matches. Koyori doesn't play ping pong to win, she plays out of love for the sport, to have fun, and to make sure that her opponent is having fun as well, and when the characters are having fun and you feel that you can root for both sides because it doesn't matter who wins in the end, then, in my experience at least, it's a blast to watch.

MY HEART WAS RACING THE ENTIRE TIME DOKI DOKI
HMMMMMM
art is rare
but this is art
better than ping pong the animation
akari is the new smile
if i could go to nationals with these girls I would train very hard to do it

The story didn't get so far, but for how far it got it was great!

... Sound was great, such high quality! OST made me cry when paired up with day to day interactions like walking my dog.

Characters all worked hard and developed a lot along the way!

I enjoyed this anime!

over I enjoyed this anime! Personally, I would say it's the death note of its genre.

cons
knees

Confession time. I have to admit, when I first heard of the anime adaptation about this series, I paused and thought “girls playing ping pong…what can be so exciting about this?” Coming into this show, my expectations were rather low. I didn’t read much of the original source material either so venturing into this series is like walking into the world of the unknown.

As H.P. Lovecraft once said:
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an over exaggeration. However, what this show ended up being ... was a pleasant surprise.
Adapting the manga of the same name, the story follows middle school students Koyori Tsumujikaze and Agari Kamiya. They get involved with ping pong, a sport played between players on a hard table divided by a net. On the surface, there probably not much to expect from this show. That’s no surprise considering the simple premise and casual storytelling. However, this show is able to capitalize on several concepts that makes it quite entertaining.

First, it’s the characters. The show has a colorful cast of characters of different personalities. From friendly Koyori to the sarcastic third year captain Kiruka Ushirode, there’s something that will always grabs your attention about these characters. Some of the background storytelling are also extensive that expands beyond childhood memories. The series’ attempts at making character roles’ relevant also becomes quite entertaining because every character has a reason to play ping pong. As a sport, the show also introduces rivals so expect the show to evolve with some competitive elements. In essence, character chemistry is likeable especially between friends, Koyori and Agari.

Second, there’s the humor. While this show can initially feel like a “cute girls doing cute things” on paper, the comedy can easily be appreciated from the character reactions to their personalities. Take Kururui Futamaru for instance. She has the sort of look that gives off a yandere-like vibe and her behavior in the show is contagiously addictive to watch. The captain of Suzumegahara is also known for her love of teasing her team. Every episode has a balanced feel of humor that doesn’t overextend itself. Even at times when it feels like dumb comedy, it doesn’t drag the show down.

Third, what we have is the overall tone of the show. Often these days, sports shows is portrayed as overly serious. Soccer, football, basketball, you name it. There’s the pressure put onto players so drama is inevitable both on and off the field. However, this show portrays ping pong as a more casual sport even with its competitive nature. With that being said, it’s more or less popcorn entertainment. There’s no stress in being disappointed on who will win or lose. At the end of the day, the emphasis on the show is to craft fun from ping pong, something that it effectively achieves. While there are some characters that are obviously more skilled than others, it doesn’t spend too much time focusing on them at the expense of others or the other way around.

Still, if you’re looking into a show about creative storytelling, then it’s the wrong place. The storytelling is simple, perhaps way too casual. There’s not much to remember besides the show’s characters and humor. When it come storytelling, the show suffers from development and in general, it isn’t interested in going anywhere new. When watching this, it’ll feel like every episode is nearly the same with its pacing. The final two episodes are also I describe as quite underwhelming compared to the mid-season.

Adapted by Kinema Citrus, the anime visual quality is decent at best. The character designs emphasizes on cuteness as the girls (especially the moe eyes) look just like kids. Even the captain has her childish personality being expressed visually with her facial features. The ping pong matches focuses a lot on body movements and camera angles to present its action. Is it good though? Personally, I feel like it works sometimes while other times feels dragged down. Fan service does exists in the show as well although it doesn’t venture beyond onsen scenes.

On the other hand, the soundtrack surprisingly creates a perfect storm of expression. It’s spot-on aim with fast pacing and instrumental choreography. Character voice mannerism will probably appeal to fans who are used to shows with cute girls. If you’re not used to this type of show, then it’ll probably feel like a disappointment. There’s nothing else to say besides that. It’s either you’re into it or out.

This show can pretty much be recommended to anyone. It’s one of those series where you shouldn’t really expect too much. At its core, the series delivers a satisfying comedy and is hilariously worthy for a sports show. Just watching cute girls playing ping pong and trying to make a name of themselves, you know? That makes me feel like a kid again.

I play a little bit of table tennis, and a few other sports, and usually sports anime resonate well with me. For some reason though, I found this to be pretty mediocre. There was little excitement, but I can't wait to watch Ping Pong the Animation.

I like the characters. They a vivid and lively. They are all unique, which in the case of a non serious anime, makes it's all the more fun to watch.

Sometimes, the animation was amazing, especially in episode 1, which tricked me into watching it. It's not amazing compared to all other anime, but was amazing in the sense that there ... was more action sequences that showed the ping pong battle, than just freeze frames of people talking. There were even a few rotoscoped sequences sprinkled throughout the series, and made everything feel much more lively. Unfortunately, episode 1 got special treatment, and most of the scenes afterwards, are just still frames.

There were some details of the sport that you'll learn throughout, like replacing the rubber on the paddles, or the effects of spin shots. The mangaka obviously knew the sport well. The only thing I can point out bad, is that the spin shots were usually reserved for only the highest ranked players, when in reality, they are easy to learn.

The story is whatever, but more importantly, the battles seriously drag the enjoyment down. Every single battle was as mediocre as you could imagine. Everybody always ties, and then someone loses. Or learning to overcome a weakness near the end, and then winning. Or the negative person, learning the meaning of having fun, after being shown a fighting spirit. And many, many other examples of the most cliched things you can think of.

Table tennis is fun. But I think these girls are having a little too much fun...

Story:
A new student joins the table tennis club and teaches everybody the joy of table tennis. Later on, they play the table tennis club of another school. This is sports anime 101. But the way it is presented here is cute and entertaining, which makes it work well. The games aren't very thrilling, but they are interesting and short.
7/10

Art:
I hope you like moe, because this anime is very cutesy and colorful. Some of the animations during the matches are in a realistic style, which looks awesome. Other times, they have ... this crude dynamic style that Nichijou loved to use. No animation milestone, but as good as it needs to be.
7/10

Sound:
The opening was pretty cute, fittingly so. The ending wasn't bad and the soundtrack during the matches was great. Voice acting was solid all throughout the cast. All the stereotypes were there and they were all well done.
8/10

Characters:
Like I said, we have all the stereotypes of cute girl comedies here: the stoic, the tsundere, the genki girl, the naive main character, etc. I personally have no problem with such a cast, as long as the characters are well done. And they are. All the girls are likeable and the viewer can easily pick out his favourite and root for her.
8/10

Enjoyment:
Shakunetsu is a good anime, not great, but good. It's easy to watch and enjoy, which is more than you can say about most anime every season. If other sports anime feel too lengthy, maybe you should give this one a chance. Just be careful you don't play the doki doki-drinking game.
8/10

Overall:
7.6/10

This show was very relaxing and easy to get into from the get go, I found it to really be a "feel good" anime with your generic characterizations and simplistic story.

Story: 4
the story is very simplistic as it always is for sports anime, they set a goal to make it to nationals and we watch them slowly achieve that goal over time,
comparing it to a better animation (Ping Pong the animation) the story pales in comparison


Art: 4
The art is decent during ping pong matches it shows they used a good portion of their budget on it but as for the off ping pong matches, ... it is very plain, as for character design I felt each character was designed perfectly to match their personalities

Characters: 7
They are your generic anime personalities akin to lucky star but they retain their own individuality in some ways, I enjoyed it because I got to see all the tropes I've enjoyed over the years in different anime

Soundtrack: 9
The songs in this show are just perfect, they match every moment for every scene during the ping pong matches they use a great playlist of J-core to happy hardcore, which fits perfectly with the animation and the scene going on, I would recommend this show fully just based on the soundtrack if you love happy hardcore styled music


Enjoyment: 10
I fully enjoyed myself while watching this (so far), its definitely a new experience to enjoy and sit back and relax from the other shows of this season, this is 100% a "feel good moe" kind of show where you can just enjoy the characters doing their thing, personally I actually play ping pong recreationally so it was loads of fun watching this.


Overall: 8
I'm having fun watching this show and would recommend it to any new anime viewer, its very simple to follow and easy to get in to, the soundtrack is fun and amazing for any J-core or Happy Hardcore fans, characters are very generic almost cliche at times but its still all fun to watch

~Ceno

So this show really could have been great, And I really did want it to be. Unfortunately it just couldn't come together properly.

The pacing of the plot which is little more than generic is extremely questionable, rushing through the season and the first arc to end two episodes into the second arc. This doesn't make sense from the idea of a single season or from a sequel as you would want the sequel to be the start of the new arc and vice versa. They really could have dragged out the arc more and added more character development instead of trying to churn the ... story out. The series is very character driven so it's kind of okay that the plot wasn't anything too special however it doesn't excuse the fact that it doesn't seem to be making any real attempt to try anything new either.

As for animation the shows has some flashes of brilliance utilizing great use of motion and colour to create strong powerful cuts. Unfortunately they're few and far between with much of the character animation moving awkwardly and reusing far too many cuts. There's really not too much to say it was simply average with the occasional great shot.

The soundtrack is one of the high points of this series. It's frantic and energetic and remind me of something out of an arcade. It really helps amp up the action and make up for some of the scenes that have lacking animation. The tracks from competitive matches are so fun I've began putting it on when playing competitive games because it really helps get you into the mood. The opening also makes great use of the sound of ping pong balls bouncing to keep the rythym. Once I noticed by episode 4 or so I couldn't stop myself from bouncing along throughout the rest of the series.

Another high point of the series is the characters. The majority of the characters have very unique designs and somewhat unique twists on standard character tropes. The main cast isn't too developed unfortunately which goes back to the pacing issues of the story and could have easily been fixed however the characters who are more fleshed out feel really fun and interesting. In particular one of the antagonists from the first arc is a really unique take on a character trope which I was really able to identify and bond with. They aren't necessarily a character most would or would want to but just the few extra defining feature helped make her feel so real and relateable to my own personal experiences in highschool that it had me rooting for them even though I shouldn't have. Likewise I am extremely intrigued by the very different antagonist introduced at the end of the series for the second arc. Which unfortunately we never get to so I guess I'll just have to read the manga for that.

Overally I really enjoyed the series. The light hearted comedy and straight forward plot made it a fun show to unwind late at night to and just relax while watching yet still be able to get invested in enough to really care about some of the cast. Unfortunately as I said at the start, it could have been so much more. I would recommend if you like sports, club or high school club shows and want something light hearted and fun. You wont get anything super deep with this one but if you don't need that then it's a good watch.

Okay, I know what you're all thinking. A 10/10? On a typical moeblob anime? That seems a bit overkill, right? Well, let me explain, and then maybe you'll understand why I love this anime as much as I do. (Please bear with me, this is my first time writing a review)

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume, translating to Scorching Ping Pong Girls, is an anime about a group of girls who are on the table tennis team at their school, Suzumegahara. The anime follows their matches amongst one another in their attempts to get better, their practice matches against other schools, and their journey to Nationals.

As ... soon as I noticed this anime, I was immediately drawn in by the art style. I'm typically a very picky person when it comes to art in anime...if I don't like the art style, then I can't enjoy the anime itself, no matter how great the story may be. I don't know what it was in particular, but I really enjoyed the art, even if the animation wasn't as smooth as it could've been.

I cringed upon reading the title, and I assumed that there would be tons of fanservice (as is the norm with anime like this) and that the plot itself wouldn't be very good. I had seen very poor attempts of combining sports and cute girls before, and it hadn't ended well. But I decided to give it a shot nonetheless. And I have to say, just after the first episode, I was immediately hooked on the story and characters.

I find that this series doesn't just cater to those who like cute girls and slice of life anime...it has plenty of high-paced ping pong matches between the characters as well that are intense and incredibly thrilling to watch. I play ping pong myself (which is the primary reason I decided to give this anime a try), and just by watching these matches and watching Kiruka give the girls tips, I was able to pick up some tips and tricks and actually improve quite a bit. It was also quite interesting to learn about each character's individual play style.

The characters are all amazingly likeable, and fit together so well. Usually, with an anime like this, you get a group of characters: the typical go-lucky genki doormat, the incredibly annoying tsundere, the shy (if you could even call it that) kid who is picked on by everyone else, and the annoying tease/pervert that acts way more mature than they actually are. I was expecting similar stereotypes in this anime, but I was thankfully very wrong.

Usually, I can't help but cringe when I see tsunderes on screen, as most of them are very poorly written. But Agari was one of the best tsunderes I had seen in a while. Her dialogue never felt awkward, she actually has insecurities and is capable of forming relationships, and her personality doesn't boil down to that one trait. The same is with Koyori. She isn't your typical shy character, she has a more energetic side as well that only emerges when she plays ping pong.

I noticed that quite a few of the characters were amazingly unique, too. Kururi is one of my all-time favorite anime characters thanks to this show. Her personality is so interesting, and I couldn't help but smile every time I saw her on screen because her insecurities and worries about Zakuro leaving her perfectly resemble my insecurities. She's also an actually well written yandere. So there's that.

And of course, while I didn't pay too much attention to the BG, the OP and ED songs were both decent, particularly the OP, which, in my opinion, perfectly fitted the contents of the anime, which isn't common.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this anime, and was left wanting more at the end. It felt like the first season ended on a cliffhanger...and the fact that they have yet to announce a second season worries me. I desperately want to see how each school performs at Nationals, and if they have the strength to finally beat the mysterious team shown at the very beginning of episode one. While there isn't much hope considering how long it's been (and how the manga has ended), I'd like to still hope that I'll get to see Death-chan again.

If you want a good hobby, Shakunetsu on Takkyu Musume is the perfect anime for you. The 24 minutes of each episode passes without you noticing and when you realize it already is hoping that the next episode will come soon. It was really surprising how much the anime managed to arrest me, being that I just got to watch with curiosity and already thought about dropping soon in the first episode. It turns out that the chronology of the anime is very simple, it is basically a girl who has just transferred from school and loves table tennis, and there, she makes new friends ... and next to these, she will go through all the obstacles to be the champion national.
Calling shallow may be appropriate because everything goes very slowly (which is a serious defect of the anime), and this meant that 12 episodes were not enough to cover everything he promised. It can be said that it was misdirected in fact, because the anime ended up just where the climax of everything would be: the national tournament (it was as if everything that the anime portrayed was not absolutente at all, because everything was happening all over Cast going through difficulties to overcome its weaknesses for the tournament, which did not happen). The big truth is that the anime was extremely stagnant and what really would make everything run as it should have lagged behind because as I had already quoted it was misdirected or else they should have released money for a two-cour production or else split- Cour, because anything was better than the ending that the anime had, unfortunately. It failed to meet its original premise and eventually the end was deplorable and meaningless.

The anime has a soft presence of fanservice, but a heavy presence of an inexplicable moe. Anything that the anime had had a moe implicitly placed there that left in the minimum, the situation comically and logically, cute.

Visually speaking, anime is very simple; The traits of the characters are well ... modest. This is made perfectly visible if you repair the eyes of the characters well. The graphic of the anime is quite normal too, nothing surprising. The scenarios are basic and play its part basically.
Already the animation, is well above average, which intrigued me, because the context that the anime brings, is usually something very basic or even bad, but in Shakunetsu was different. Everything was fluid, especially in the scenes in which they disputed their departures. Those scenes that I'm going to give a highlight too, because they are incredibly exciting. You really can get stuck there and get into the mood altogether, because in addition to a cool animation that these scenes had, the presence of OST was totally noticeable. What a good OST! It can give 60% of the merits of the 'key' anime scenes to the OST because it was surprisingly good.

The cast of the anime is cool. There is not a character you can really dislike. In fact, you separate the ones you found cool and the ones you really craved to see the terribly moist face every minute because I particularly had many.

In short, that's it. Shakunetsu on Takkyu Musume is an excellent pastime that you will love watching if you are dying of boredom and lonely. It is not something that you have to prioritize to watch in whatever the situation. One, two episodes a day is ideal, I mean, this is if you gotta start an episode or if you can stop watching the same.

This anime is sweet, innocent and lovely. However, when they are having fun playing their little ping-pong, their herat races and they blush extremely much (basically ahegao)
It's recommend if you have some spare time on your hands.
Its pacing is a bit too fast for me - However, if you like fast pacing, pingpong, sports and girls whose hair colours are vivid, watch this.

The art style is nice and "conventional." If you enjoy this, you might get left wanting more.

(Nothing compared to Ping Pong the animation - You can't compare them.)

Character: 4 - boring, plain and simple characters who are pretty.. as I said, mundane. ... HOWEVER, they have their own quirks, but it's obvious what's going to happen and who is going to win. Watch it. It's fun.

So this show how to put it, it's not the most outstanding anime, typical animation, moe style anime but worth a watch.

The story is somewhat typical a girl joins a club for table tennis and turns out to have a skill with it. She slowly improves and joins the team to help win tournaments, nothing too special there. Characters as well are standard school girl anime.

What does give this show some redemption is the animation. The animation does come through in some of the tense ping pong matches which if you do like some sports anime or even something competitive can get you gripped. ... They only get better as the show goes on, especially in the last few episodes where they are finally challenged by another school.

In all it is a pretty average show, but if you are open to some nice animation and whether or not you like ping pong or not I would say to give this show a watch. If you make it through all the hearts and "doki doki" which is referred to SO MUCH you can find a nice little show to geth you through.

One of the most underrated sports anime

When I was scrolling through the Crunchyroll catalog, Scorching Ping-Pong Girl’s caught my eye, and I'm still glad I started it.

Premise of the show:
Suzumegaha Middle School has a mediocre table tennis team where no player has ever made it past the quarterfinals of the city tournament. One day, a new student named Koyori shows up who loves table tennis and will change the club. On her journey she finds new friends with whom she can play table tennis, but also makes enemies.

Characters:

Koyori Tsumujikaze is the new shy transfer student who joins Suzumegahara Middle School's table tennis club.
She loves table ... tennis and was a prefectural semifinalist at her previous school. Because of her shyness, she has a hard time making new friends, but she is well-received in the Club as she messes up the rankings in the club internally.

Agari Kamiya was the ace of the team prior to Koyori joining the club. Koyori and her become rivals, but as they find out that they are well suited to each other, they play together. She is proud of her achievements and sometimes seems a bit aloof, but after watching more and more episodes you realize that she actually loves her team and enjoys the sport to its fullest.

Hanabi Tenki is an energetic girl with spiky hair who loves to mess with the other players of her team, she is the best friend of Hokuto. You will see her with Hokuto most of the time since they have known each other since their childhoods. Ever since she was a child, she has helped Hokuto in her parents' ping pong store. She possesses an offensive playstyle which involves fast returns.

Hokuto Itsumo is a rather untalkative girl that always covers her mouth. Her cleverness is seen in her calculative playing style that allows her to manipulate her opponents. Another trait of her is that she can also guess the type and color of underwear someone is wearing by touching their paddle. Because her parents own a shop, she knows how to handle money what leads to her greediness.

Mune Oomune is a third year high school student and the vice-captain of the club, due to her large breast her nickname is munemune (ムネムネ). She plays aggressively, but due to her breast she runs out of stamina fast. She’s a rather minor character who doesn’t get as much screen time as the others. You often see her being teased by Kiruka Ushirode.

Kiruka Ushirode is another third-year high school student and the captain of the team. She plays fast which often leads to confusion for the opponents. When she isn’t playing Table Tennis, she is teasing her teammates. She likes imposing penalties on her teammates, such as wearing cat ears.

Kururi Futamaru She is the main antagonist this season, she is obsessed with her captain and wants to be praised by her all the time. During her match with Koyori she has great character development which you don't see this often in "cute girls do cute things" shows. Her playing style is quite unique as she spins the balls. character development which you don't see this often in "cute girls do cute things" shows. Her playing style is quite unique as she spins the balls. Overall she's a great antagonist.

There is a constant Yuri bait throughout this anime, you can see it as bad or good. In my opinion it helps this anime a lot to get the characters across. It also adds a certain spiciness that is very desirable.

Art/Animation:
The character designs are beautiful and look super cute, every character has their own traits, and they don't look forgettable rather unique. The animations are great you sense the power in the hits and feel the effort involved in the match. You can still how much physical effort is involved in a game of table tennis because they are literally drenched in sweat. The anime also uses a lot of symbolism while showing the different traits of the characters and how they play.

Sound:
The opening is catchy, with a great climax. The animations look well, while showcasing each character's strengths. One of my favorite things about this anime are the soundtracks. They are well-chosen EDM tracks that just bang. They lift the mood enormously, but don't overdramatize it either. You feel how hard each girl tries while hitting the balls
Overall:
Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume is a cute series with many interesting characters and a solid story for a moe series. I recommend this anime to anyone who enjoys the sports or slice of life genre

Thanks for reading this review

Holy cow someone on the animation team likes sweat. Maybe it's like a common thing it all sports anime, but once I noticed it in this show it was pretty hard to un-notice. Every time the girls were in a serious match and the stakes were high, I was having trouble focusing through all that sheen and near see-through layers of clothing. If that's your fetish, look no further I guess.

Other than that I'd say it was a fairly standard "underdog" sports anime. Or it was trying very hard to set up an underdog story with the other team they were facing. It has a ... lot of build up to a match that ultimately ends with our plucky new recruit figuring out the secret is to just hit the ball even harder. I honestly love how the medium of anime manages to make even the most mundane little techniques or changes in attitude so dramatic. The over-the-top voiceovers and framing just wouldn't work at all in live action, or really any other medium I can think of. I don't know how else you would make ping-pong more exciting, and any traditional film that tried would probably just rely heavily on a bunch of CGI slowmo close-ups. I don't know if they'd be able to get enough sweat in frame though to tell it right.

It's a decent sports anime 7/10

Saki meets Ping Pong!...no seriously.

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume at first might look like your average "cute girls doing cute things" just add ping pong to the mix, but for what Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume shows in the foreground, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume shows ALOT more in it's background than you realize.

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume focuses on Koyori Tsumujikaze voiced by Yumiri Hanamori, a shy transfer student who joins Suzumegahara's ping pong club, naturally we quickly realizes that Koyori is an amazing table tennis player even rivaling the best player of the club Agari Kamiya voiced by Minami Tanaka, later on the Suzumegahara ping pong club ... goes into the tournament and high speed ping pong action ensues, that really is the basis of Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume, but where the plot lacks, the characters is where it is at.

In terms of characters, the main cast of the Suzumegahara main core members of Hokuto Itsumo voiced by Yuuki Kuwahara, Agari Kamiya, Mune Oomune voiced by Ayaka Imamura, Hanabi Tenka voiced by Marika Kouno, the newbie transfer student Koyori Tsumujikaze and Kiruka Ushirode voiced by Hisako Tojo. Let's get analyzing!. Hokuto is a defensive player who essentially analyzes her opponent's angle and tries to pull the ball outside of her opponents range, her blue hair and her shy yet knowledgeable personality fits into her "battle style". Munemune has an aggressive yet error-prone style and is therefore an excellent smasher. Hanabi is the speedy fighter and is the second to almost best speedster fighter in the club, her yellow hair and her outright genki personality fits into her "battle style". Koyori, our ace and her red hair brings semblance to "main protagonist" status, she although her personality doesn't match with her battle style, her "battle style" essentially allows her to adapt to ANY of her opponents play style...she however "doesn't ALL WIN", she still has some weaknesses actually focusing on her shy personality. Agari having her purple hair and twintails...well she is a very prideful and tsundere character, her play-style focuses more on a jack of all trades and using her kind of "smashes" for the deal-breaker, because of this Agari and Koyori have good battle style chemistry even if their personalities are diametric opposites. Finally we the captain of the Suzumegahara ping pong club Kiruka, who focuses on a unique kind of "chop" and although her battle style is more calculated, she however doesn't have any "killer shots", she and Mune are also Doubles Partners which makes them a double pair to be reckoned with what with both of them covering each others weaknesses. Really what this analyzes was getting at is that even if the plot is really simple, it is the characters and their character and battle style chemistry whether they are fighting against one of their own or another opponent and heck even finding out the Suzumegahara's opponents they face and THEIR unique battle style which affects their personality and battle style makes the characters unique across the board. Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume's definitely lies in it's characters. See why LA said at the beginning of this review, that it's like Saki meets Ping Pong?.

LA talked more the characters game-wise than the characters themselves, let's start with Hokuto and Hanabi, they themselves gets character development through their forming of their friendship. Hanabi is your hyper genki to Hokuto's deadpan, however the one problem with Hokuto is her "Panties" gag, in which she "knows" what kind of panties each of the character wear and it converges into nickname basis, it depends if you like this gag as a weird quirk for her, as for LA...LA found it quite annoying much like how Agari points it out. Hokuto even with this gag, it doesn't destroy her character as her backstory helps her get out of the annoying character and because of this, Hanabi also gets a bonus in development because of Hokuto. On speaking of Agari, she at first is extremely prideful of her skills and becomes quite jealous of Koyori and becomes her defining trait, thankfully once she realizes Koyori's "just have fun and have a great game" belief, she gets MUCH better and realizes that she can get even better and her prideful, jealous trait taken away and turned into a "working ace" and yeah she became LA's favourite character due to her huge development. Koyori gets some but it's more or less goes back to her philosophy of "just have fun" and it does get conflicted in one battle but nonetheless her meek demeanor doesn't really change but her getting some ping pong friends and her drive to have fun makes her an ok dimension character. Finally we have Munemune and Kiruka, they too get their character development similar to Hokuto and Hanabi, but in greater detail but it's in more of a focus to their battle styles and WHY they want to go to Nationals and once again the similarities of Hokuto's running gag, Munemune has one too and it's a bit less annoying than Hokuto's, but nonetheless, Munemune's running gag is her big boobs -sigh- and the multitudes of characters that recognizes it...again less annoying than Hokuto's. Nonetheless, these characters do develop and helps outside of the great ping ping battles.

There are some more or less awkward fanservice mainly from Hokuto's "I know what panties your wearing" (no seriously), but the only other fanservice Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume has are well, but it's not as blatant, there is fanservice it's just not the focus, it's more focused on the characters and the ping pong battles. The only contextual fanservice LA rather endorsed was the yuri undertones towards the main cast especially Koyori and Agari "friendly rivalry".

The ping pong battles has it's ups and downs, the strengths comes from the variety of characters "superpowered ping pong abilities" and how they work and conflict with each other a la "Saki mahjong battle" and LA can clearly see that the animation and detail worked into that. The weaknesses comes from the truncatedness of the battles and LA does get it as it has 4 to 5 matches lastly the first to reach 11 points for each match, yeah LA can see why, but nonetheless some of the opponents and battles felt truncated even more on how "fast" the matches go (this is more or less LA saying LA wanted to see more of the match really), but it does well to balance each other out because of each of the strengths and weakness of the ping pong battles. LA most definitely thought that the anime's strengths definitely goes to it's ping pong battles and where the attraction to the anime goes to.

The animation by Kinema Citrus, if anything LA thought that the matches were the best presented animation, sure it's ping pong but once the superpowers comes in, the adrenaline does add in at the same time, the character designs does have the "marshmallow"-esque facial designs but average body designs, but the character accessories does add in some unique character designs. It does come in that the character designs are moe, but they do try to fanservice these characters through sweating and fanservicey-character-jabbing so LA thinks that from this the fanservice is kinda misguided in some respects because of it, but not to the point of being distracting...ok maybe a little, but still, even with the puni-ish character designs with good match animation, it more or less compensated itself into making the animation "ok" at best.

The voice acting has some decent voice acting all round, from the stereotypical archetype character roles, genki, deadpan, rival etc. with some ignorable squeakers Yumiri Hanamori as Koyori and Marika Kouno as Hanabi. Standouts towards Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume's vocal cast would go to Minami Tanaka as the wide-vocal ranged Agari and LA's wild card favourite Shiori Izawa as Kururi a rival Koyori faces.

The ending really left on a non-conclusive note with hints littered throughout the final episode, making sense as Suzumegahara hardly entered their tournament stage by the end of the anime and rather went from training their own club and had training sessions with other more powerful school clubs to their own training camp by the end of the anime's run. But nonetheless even as LA says it this way, it's not as the anime left us with "nothing" by the end of it and IT DID go somewhere definitely character-wise. So if Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume can get another season, LA wouldn't mind it at all. Yes the ending left on a rather dull note and threw hints in trying to conitue the anime with another season or *cough* read the web manga *cough* ending, LA didn't really think this kind of was a dealbreaker into being "horrible" as LA was kinda expecting this kind of ending and hell Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume's character strengths definitely won LA over with this kind of ending.

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume may look like another cute girls doing ping pong with it's usual structure of a sports anime, but in the background shows how in the line of ping pong that even characters with flaws can improve and not be one-trick ponies, also for Koyori is the good old "have fun!" philosophy added to it. Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume like all media has it's flaws but for LA, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume saved itself with some solid character development from their strengths and flaws (another words, acknowledge they're not perfect and need to improve is the "flaw" LA is trying to say) they have in many elements of anime as well as the adrenaline packed ping pong matches. LA won't say this is one of LA"s guilty pleasures of Fall 2016, but it's a decent anime nonetheless if fans of the "all girls sports anime with superpowered players" is anything to go by.

I watched Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume. Here are my thoughts:

Really fun series. Puts a smile on my face. I really enjoyed watching this.

Great direction, both on-court and off-court. The ping pong matches are engaging and fun to watch, and the off-court drama is well executed. The great direction is a major positive in my view.

Decent soundtrack. Decent overall audio production.

Cute characters. Cute character interactions. Good chemistry among the cast.

... Decent character development, particularly for a single-cour sports anime with a somewhat large cast.

Animation is unremarkable with occasional poor-quality moments, but this is no big deal to me. CGI is used briefly during some of the matches. Animation is not a strong point in this series. I'm indifferent to this but still it's worth mentioning, particularly for a sports-focused show.
The overall visual production quality for this anime is low. I don't value animation that much but the bland art style is a missed opportunity for sure.

I should mention that the climax of the series is around episodes 9 and 10. The last two episodes were still good but there were a few 'hooks' added to try to draw you into the manga. This is fairly typical of manga adaptations, for better or worse. I'll also point out that the team talks about wanting to go to the national competition multiple times, but they never actually go in the anime. This might bother you if you care a lot about plot.


Overall I rate this anime 8/10. Really this is just an incredibly fun series and a joy to watch.

Great example of a low-budget anime done well (especially impressive considering that it's a sports anime). Low production quality can't ruin a well-directed anime, but poor direction can cripple any show.

Great OP song! I found myself singing along every time it played.

Would recommend if you like CGDCT or sports anime, especially as a means of bridging the gap between the genres.

Sooo... Scorching Ping Ping Girls...

Well I'll keep this short, I think this show is pretty good for a Low Budget show and what it manages to accomplish.

Animation is great for the low budget, little details like the sweat and little movements you find are great, facial expressions and animation is passable nowadays and most of it doesn't look distracting or lacking.

I think my biggest gripe with the show is that it lacks in areas where the setup was excellent. The character dynamics of some of the characters are great such as the Agari and Koyori relationship, especially at the beginning but feel a little half-baked ... in other characters like Mune or Kiruka. That and the middle point of the show... was a bit of a slog to sit through.

I think if it had more character development in some areas, a more interesting middle arc and maybe some more episodes to flesh them out more... it could have been even better and potentially up there as one of the greatest sports x slice of life anime ever made.

But despite everything, I'd still recommend it for what it managed to accomplish.