Category: The God of High School

These two episodes delivered exactly what I wanted from The God of High School at this late stage: nonstop action between ultra-powerful fighters. They also abandoned all pretense of caring about story or characterization, which isn’t a bad thing – the cast’s believability has been on the skid since late July, and the plot hasn’t fared much better. Now that celestial combat techniques and carnivorous tentacle monsters are the show’s main concerns, it’s free to blow itself up in the season finale, and I won’t feel obligated to watch a potential sequel. Plus, we’ll get some nonsensical, animator-driven action along the way, as we did this week. Many shounen fans will have bailed on GOH by this point due to its lack of cohesion, but I’m still here, and vaguely looking forward to the conclusion. If you’re with me, hit the jump and witness my futile attempt at parsing its most recent pair of episodes.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 10-11 [oath/meaning, lay/key]” →

This is the first time I’ve missed a week of GOH-posting, and that’s not by coincidence. The show isn’t bringing its A game to the fight scenes anymore, and since it maxes at a C in most other areas, it’s become a bit of a dull watch. These two episodes tread a lot of familiar ground, as well, making them doubly uninteresting. Mira getting beaten up again, Mori earning the title “tiger cub” as elite martial artists admire his potential, a sketchy art switch-up during a tournament match, Taejin’s relationship with his grandson – we’ve seen all of this before. If I’m being honest, I’d prefer for the plot to go supernova and give all the main characters charyeok so we could get this show on the road, already. Guess we’ll have to settle for just one of them awakening to their new power for now.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 8-9 [close/friend, curse/cornered]” →

It’s never a good sign when an anime has you thinking, “What’s the point?” in the middle of an episode. Realizing afterwards that it wasted your time is bad enough, but to prompt the question during an initial viewing? Unless you’re watching some sort of mystery series where generating questions is the goal, that’s probably a bad look. Consequently, The God of High School was looking bad at multiple points this week – except for the part where it looked incomparably cool.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 07 [anima/force]” →

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?

Continue reading “The God of High School – 06 [fear/SIX]” →

Now that the Bride of High School arc has ended, we’re back to business with the GOH finals between Mori and Daewi. Their fight is flashy, fun, and brings the three main characters back together after a phase of bitter enmity – but it’s only a success if you willfully ignore episode 4’s nonsensical detours of plot and character. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do! No talk of Mira’s nanomachine-enhanced recovery, or the baffling encouragement she gave to Daewi just days after he beat her to a pulp. No dwelling on the disappointingly brief fight between Mori and Jaehee, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu user whose name we’d all forgotten before reading this sentence. No thinking about the fruit that Mori ate two weeks ago, which really should have taken effect by now, given how critical its framing was to that episode. It’s time to “get hype,” as the kids say, for some noncritical combat animation appreciation.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 05 [ronde/hound]” →

The God of High School is nobody’s idea of a “smart” anime, but this episode was stupid even by the standards of the first three.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 04 [marriage/bonds]” →

After three episodes, The God of High School still has no intention of explaining why its martial arts tournament is of such earth-shattering consequence. Top Korean politicians are involved in its operation, the Pentagon is monitoring its progress, and now a religious cult is planning to hijack the tourney for its own gain. In all three of these opening scenes, the links between those organizations and the tournament itself have been purposefully vague, which has surely frustrated a portion of the series’ audience. Personally, though, I’m not sweating the details at this stage. The fights are still fun, the tone is still dumb, and the story is moving at a faster-than-average clip. That narrative speed may be pushing us toward the threshold of Big Reveals, or it might blow past the governments and cults without a reason for their appearance. Either way, GoH is the kind of show that doesn’t need to justify its detours – just its developments. And boy, were there a ton of the latter in this episode.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 03 [wisdom/kingdom]” →

The God of High School is far from my usual blogging fare. I’m not averse to action series by any means (Dorohedoro is one of my favorite anime of 2020 so far), but something so brashly combat-driven would usually fall outside my strike zone. And yet, I can’t deny the raw energy on display here, which stems mainly from the fight animation. After just two episodes, the list of ADs and studios providing 2nd key animation already spans plenty of virtual parchment, and it’s easy to see where their efforts are going. GoH’s lawless brawls are fast and furious, accounting for 90% of the show’s highlights thus far – but there’s a bit more to the show’s structure than endless martial arts matchups.

Continue reading “The God of High School – 02 [renewal/soul]” →