The first thing that I want to talk about is how absolutely great the characters are. I changed my best girl a few times as I was watching it, and it took me a bit to actually settle on one. Outside of that, besides one character whom I dislike due to personal bias, everyone else is fantastic. Every single (-1, you get it) named character is a blast to have on screen at any given moment. Their interactions with one another, and just their general portrayal is great. They're far and above the strong carrying point for this series.
Beyond that, the music choice is pretty great. While I didn't notice it as much during the calmer segments, the music during the matches really picks up. The series uses some pretty dope EDM style tracks to hype up the games, and it works. There's something strangely appealing about the mix of EDM and something I see as traditionally boring like table tennis. They killed it with that.
However, my main gripe is how short the matches feel. While I know that it doesn't necessarily fit in with the others, I can't help but see it as a sports anime. It tries to build up the hype of each match, it tries to give you the tense, heart-stopping moments. It tries to really portray each person as a valid competitor. In a number of ways, it falls short in doing so. The matches typically play out in a fashion where there's a couple of hype moments, maybe someone unleashes their traditional sports anime "super duper awesome but actually kind of normal" technique and then...
It's over.
The amount of times that there's a good scene of a match, something to really get the blood pumping, and then we "fast-forward" to the final score or to the final points of the match is annoying. It's frustrating because the series tries its best to get you into the idea of it, and then just kills all that hype as it is reaching its climax. If it weren't for the characters themselves being fantastic, the constant cuts to them and their reactions would be a huge detriment to the series as a whole.
I am, undoubtedly, a little bitter as we never get to revisit this. That whole introductory scene serves absolutely no purpose, except perhaps to introduce an endgame villain that we...never end up seeing again. I'd have understood if we get even a tiny shot of her confronting the main characters, saying something like "ha, try and make it to nationals so I can crush you too," but we don't get even that. The following scene has the girls fawning over a newspaper article where it's like "championship team loses hue hue hue" and the anime could have just as easily opened up on that scene. I prefer my teases to be tittilating, not to induce hype blue-balls.
One small thing that I was actually largely fond of during the course of the series is...sweat. They seem to put a lot of care into showing wet spots on the characters' clothes after a practice or a match. While it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, I think it adds a lot of atmosphere. It shows us that the characters are actually working hard, that they're pushing themselves and their bodies, striving for something higher and better. It's easily one of the "little things" that I've noticed which I'd say I appreciate the most.
Overall, I think there's two different people who could get into this, and there'd be two different takeaways. If you're the type of person who likes cute girls with a side dose of actual plot, I'd highly recommend this series. It's enjoyable all the way through with some positively adorable girls. If you're the type of person who likes sports anime with hype boners, I'd still say that SPPG is worth a shot; just prepare to not go into maximum overdrive with the hype, as one would with something like Haikyu or Hajime no Ippo.
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