Stark700

No, my eyes aren’t deceiving me. I finished today, what I see as one of the most overhyped, yet underwhelming show of the year. The God of High School represents the type of show that is forced down our throats like the next big thing. Advertised as a Crunchyroll original, this anime has convinced me that there’s little hope for a decent manhwa adaptation in the future. Don’t let your eyes deceive you by the flashy animation and aesthetics. The God of High School is a show I wouldn't dream of recommending. As I sat here wondering what went wrong, my initial impression of the animewas actually hopeful. The first episode bought out the talents of director Seong-Hu Park as he’s able to craft together some lavishly animated scenes. In fact, it’s easy to say the first episode is an eye catcher of animation with the amount of ass kicking and fast moving action. We are introduced to 17 year old Mo-Ri Jin, a martial arts from the country of South Korea. The free spirited young man has the ambition of a fighter, and seeking out powerful opponents to test his abilities. This is where we are introduced to the God of High School Martials Arts Tournament, a place for fighters all over the world to showcase their skills. Despite being the main protagonist, the story also introduces Mi-Ra Yu and Dae-Wi Han. Both characters also possesses talent in martial arts with their unique fighting styles. It’s why both are also invited to the GoHS tournament although they have different motives. For instance, Han participates in the fight to help his friend while Mira seeks to find a suitable marriage partner. No matter what the reason, it seems GoHS loves pushing the characters’ personalities at every chance it gets. The most prominent examples are when Jin gets excited at fighting a powerful opponent or when he is motivated. Other times, it’s when Jin finds a reason to fight, such as crashing a wedding and helping Mira. It’s motivations like this that sets off an early impression of the show. But with every progressing episode, the show degenerates into a chaotic mess. It seems the more and more I watched the show, the less I feel motivated myself to understand the main purpose of the story. What is it even trying to get us to understand? The main characters? The tournament arc? Or perhaps some sort of reason for God of High School to even exist? The meat of the show remains with the tournament and different fights that occurs throughout the main story. It also seems these fights often feels rushed and lacking importance. Even Han, a selfless man, who fights for the sake of others becomes a chore to watch. How many times do we have to hear his unenthusiastic dialogues? Every one of his fight feels similar and furthermore, it’s easy to say he is the most boring character to watch in the entire series. As the story ventures forward, we are thrown into more chaotic storytelling involving supernatural forces such as the Nine Tailed Guardian, God incarnates, and plot to kill certain divine beings. When you try to make a show spin out of control in such way, it sets off a ticking time bomb of chaos. Outside of the main cast, don’t expect much character development from the other characters. This is advertised as a 13-episode one cour series. To make the story flow, we are introduced to some significant side cast such as IIpyo Park. Serving as a more logical member of the cast, IIpyo is observant and not often the one to rush into battle head on. He appears to be one of the more mysterious member of the cast but unfortunately, the anime doesn’t get the chance to explore the full side of his character. This seems to fall in line with the majority of named characters, including one of the main antagonists, Mujin Park. As being the head in charge of the tournament, you can expect him to be the master pulling the strings. Being manipulative and calculating, Mujin represents the anti-thesis of Jin and the main cast. And to add on to the rogue gallery, there’s Taek Jegal, a major threat who treats almost everyone as worthless. His power hungry personality fees on his ego to the point where he cares for no one but himself. It’s the type of stereotypical antagonist you can come up in less than 5 seconds in any type of anime. Taek’s main rival appears to be Iipyo, but from a storyline perspective, he represents nothing more than a generic villain. With all said and done, background storytelling even falls short with info dumps about the cults, Gods, and other divine powers. Because let’s face it, this anime serves as little more than being an advertisement for a glorified fight show. Well, if there’s one selling point of the anime, it’s the animation. In fact, I can say The God of High School is more about showing than telling. From the first major fight and every other forward, it looks like the anime pushes the boundaries of animation. It’s stylistic and dynamic with fast paced motion. The comic-like art quality also makes the important fights feel like major attractions. When the anime settles for a lighthearted tone, it bounces back into comedic scenery of cartoonish character expressions. Even the music accompanied with the action sequences makes the fights more dynamic. If you wanted to see a visual action flick, The God of High School will be a hell of a ride. Don’t let those flashy animation fool you. This show wanted to be something special and indeed, it some ways managed to do that. But beyond the typical main trio cast and the ass kicking scenes, this is no more than a mediocre story trying its best to sell its product to you. Even with the sufficient funding, The God of High School reminds me to always, and always keep expectations in check for manhwa adaptations.

Dukino

The second webtoon anime comes to a close. Definitely say I liked this one better than the previous. God of High School does have some problems no doubt but I enjoyed this anime so damn much. Didn't quite know what was coming with this show other than a big tournament and some cool looking fights. Well we got that in spades and then some! This show didn't let up off the throttle for even a half second! Kept going and going and going jumping the shark at every turn and I loved for doing that. Where we started and where we ended were completely differentplaces in such a short amount of time but that didn't bother me so much, least not as much as I'm sure it did others. The way I value and rare anime is absolutely themes then characters then story then visuals. That being said I think this show is one of the rare exceptions for me. Because the themes and story aren't quite there imo but holy hell are the visuals amazing to look at constantly and the characters are a lot of fun. There's tropes out the woodwork with this but it didn't seem to bother me. The story kinda shoots itself in the foot multiple times but skimming past things that should probably be explained. This is definitely one that would benefit from being 23 to 26 episodes opposed to just the 13 we got. But not gonna judge something by what it didn't give us since that's dumb. Better to just look at what were got and judge that. So I'll say the characters are awesome and easy to root for. Our main trio of Mori, Daewi, and Mira are all badass who I love to see on screen. They all get great moments to shine throughout the show. Even with Mori being centerpiece the other two still get highlights. The supporting cast with Ilpyo being my favorite of those and the other tournament competitors being pretty cool especially early on. Park Mujin was always a mysterious dude who seemed to be up to his own thing but I liked his style and how he helped the trio out more towards the end. His squad with the commissioners and SIX were cool. Nox as a main antagonist group were kinda meh since they didn't do a whole lot. Jegal however I really liked the more we saw him. An easy villain to despise and want to see the heroes beat. His powers were cool too. Of course I'd be dumb to not rave and gush over the incredible animation. Mappa basically outdid themselves and keep putting out quality work over and over again. Can always trust them to make a show look great with its fights and this amps me up even more to see Jujutsu Kaisen animated later this week! Overall I'd say this is a fun kinda just enjoy the fights type anime with some good characters and a middling plot that coulda just used some more time to flesh out. But I thoroughly enjoyed this show for what it gave us. 85 out of 100.