The God of High School? More like The God of High Speed. This installment introduced so many new stories and characters that I’d need five hands to count them all. The unmasking of the religious cult from several weeks back has begun, plus we were treated to reveals of “The Six,” a group of elite martial artists, one of whom became integral to the plot merely by implication. And hey, we’re already moving on to the next phase of the GOH tournament, so we got to meet a bunch of the high schoolers from other Korean cities who will be taking part. Oh, it’s also a team tournament now. And the pointy-nosed announcer from the previous phase? He was blind. I say “was” because he’s dead, as is the green-haired tournament organizer with the scythe-wielding spirit fighter. They were both killed by the same guy, a fire user from the cult I mentioned previously, and –
Is this sounding like too much material for one episode yet?
For many viewers, the answer to that question is undoubtedly “yes,” but personally, I’m not so sure. The God of High School’s strongest weapons are its fight scenes, and while this episode blew through a lot of content, most of it was not combat-related. For example, dipping our toes into the blind announcer’s backstory and then immediately killing him off was a hasty move. If his character had been critical to the tournament proceedings, it would have been doubly damaging – but we moved to the team phase of the story without issue, despite his death. Does it make your characters feel less real when you treat them so trivially? For sure. But God of High School is an unrealistic, trivial show, and unless it drops the ball with one of its protagonists (as it did in episode 4), I’m willing to follow it down some pretty stupid alleys.
Stupid though the show may be, there was a logic to this episode’s layout that made it digestible. Follow me for a moment: Mori’s new sensei Nah Bongchim, who hardly interacted with him this week, specializes in pressure points. Apart from fixing Mori’s busted ankle by sticking a needle into it, we barely see them together, but before the episode ends Mori is already capable of fixing Mira’s stiff shoulders with some well-placed prodding. Did we get to see him learn or perfect this craft? No, but I don’t think that’s a dealbreaker – a potboiler training arc would have been a waste of everyone’s time, especially for something so small. Similarly, the mass introduction of future high school opponents might have sucked the life from the series if it had happened more slowly. I’m not saying that bum-rushing your audience with new information is a foolproof strategy (in general it’s the opposite), but it’s the fights I’m looking forward to here, so “meet the fighters” sounds good to me.
The most interesting of the new combatants was Jegal Taek, the blue-haired dude whose appearance seems to match that of Manseok’s tormentor from an earlier flashback. He’s certainly ruthless enough to be the same person, summoning a hellish maw to swallow a security guard who interrupts his battle with a rival. Mr. Rival intervenes (using fire abilities – wonder if he’s in any way related to the killer from the cult?), but it’s a close call, which made me curious about both characters. Another thing I’m curious about: the fate of Mori’s grandfather Jin Taejin, who appeared to take a giant celestial weapon to the dome. After scrapping with a bunch of cult grunts, their leader summoned a huge sword from the sky with “I know not whose child it is; it existed before God” inscribed on the blade*, then brought it hurtling towards the earth at Taejin’s head. I have so many questions about this scene, and I’m afraid the show will leave it in flux now that a new phase of the tournament is about to start. But hey, that’s what I’ve been talking up thus far, so for now I’m going to roll with the punches.
