Well, viewers should already what’s in store for this week. The battle between Agari and Zakuro is expected to (and does) take up an entire episode, hooray!
(Spoilers in this review)
That sentence basically summarizes the entire episode. We do get to see a bit of backstory for both Zakuro and Kururi. Kururi was considered a progidy at table tennis even as a first-year in middle school, but her other teammates couldn’t handle her intense practice drills. As a result, everyone resigned from the club excluding Zakuro.
Agari manages to turn the tides by freely using her drive (which pops up the ball), her powerful forehand smash, and her precise backhand smash. Her motivation to win? She wanted Koyori’s heart to race and she wanted Koyori to have a chance to play today. After all, if Agari lost the match then the other school wins the overall match and our main characters would all have to go home.
Thanks to Agari, Koyori realizes that she only plays table tennis to get her heart racing. She tells her answer to Kururi and says that she hopes she can get Kururi’s heart racing, too. Kururi, however, is convinced that everything she does in ping pong is for Zakuro and merely snatches the first point with some amazing spin. She turns her back to the table and basically becomes a cyclone. What the heck is this?
That’s about it, folks. I think I have to mention that the animation is even poorer than usual. The studio is taking a lot of shortcuts by reusing the same frames over and over. Hm.
The showdown between Koyori and Kururi will probably take the entirety of the next episode, too. See you next week.
The Lily Garden 