Ping-Pong Club | |
Cover of the first volume of Ping-Pong Club
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行け!稲中卓球部 (Ike! Inachū Takkyū-bu) |
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Genre | Comedy |
Manga | |
Written by | Minoru Furuya |
Published by | Kodansha |
Demographic | Seinen |
Magazine | Young Magazine |
Original run | 1993 – 1996 |
Volumes | 13 |
Anime television series | |
Directed by | Masami Hata |
Written by | Sukehiro Tomita |
Music by | Katz Hoshi |
Studio | Grouper Productions |
Licensed by | |
Original network | TBS |
Original run | April 1995 – September 1995 |
Episodes | 26 |
Ping-Pong Club (Japanese: 行け!稲中卓球部 Hepburn: Ike! Inachū Takkyū-bu?, lit. Go! Inahō Middle School Ping-Pong Club) is a Japanese manga by Minoru Furuya about the members of a middle school ping-pong club. In 1996, the manga won the Kodansha Manga Award for general manga.
It was adapted as an anime television series in 1995. The anime series was released in the U.S. by Central Park Media. Some episodes were first released on VHS in 2001, but it was never fully released on VHS. Later that year it was released completely on DVD in individual volumes, with both an English dub and the original audio track with subtitles. In 2002 was also re-released as a box set.
The episodes in Ping-Pong Club are actually split into 12-14 minute segments, combined together to form a typical 25 minute single episode. Seeing that there are 26 full episodes, when in fact all are split to a total of 52 episodes released on 5 DVDs.
When localizing the Anime for release in North America, Software Sculptors neglected to follow the 52-Episode numbering, deciding instead not to count the five two-part episodes as two separate episodes. Their official episode count on the DVDs is instead 47. Also, volumes in the series have had name changes when re-released, with Discs 4 and 5 in the series being renamed from "Ping Pong Club - Goes for Broke" and "Ping Pong Club - Assorted Shorts" to " Ping Pong Club - Goes Too Far" and "Ping Pong Club - Rots in Hell".
Disc 1: Make Way for the Ping Pong Club
1. School Boys/Evil Plot
2. Half-Baked/The Worms
3. Maeno Germ/Seductive Snob
4. The Purchase/Hot Summer
Disc 2: Love & Comedy (Die! Die! Die!)
5. Training Camp/Curse of Takeda
6. Sixty Years/Burning Spirit
7. Inachu Vs./Sex Ticket