The God of High School – 04 [marriage/bonds]

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.

Can anyone explain why a tournament-based brawler would pursue a hastily-introduced marriage plot just one week after shaking up its entire combat system? It’s not as though the show forgot about the massive spirit fighter from the previous episode, since this one features a villain with a similar ability (though he hardly had a chance to show it off before Mira cut him down). I’m guessing the series composer wanted to take this subplot off the table early, so it wouldn’t interrupt the momentum built up by later installments. To be fair, it does come hot on the heels of Mira’s history and the appearance of the hooded cult, both of which had to be established before the marriage story could be told. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, and GOH definitely shouldn’t have approached Mira’s nuptials at this time or with this accelerated pace.

The timeline is one of the biggest issues here. The opening scene informs us that Daewi and Mira are set to fight “this weekend,” but between that first scene and their eventual fight, we get way more than a week’s worth of content. Mori delivers a throwaway line about Mira intending to drop out of the tournament, but even if she went through with it, I doubt they’d pause the event for her sake. So, we’re meant to assume that Mira meets her husband-to-be, is convinced to marry him over the course of several meetings, and sets a wedding date, all inside of one week. That’s too much for seven months, much less seven days. But forget about all of that – her prospective husband’s wealth and fame would help revive her family’s dying sword style, so Mira is just doing her duty, right?

No, she’s not. Instead, she’s following a loose script, the way an actor on a reality TV series would. She’s got a sad backstory involving a dishonored family, and along comes a man who could aid her in restoring that honor, thus they must be joined in holy matrimony. It feels robotic, which could have been addressed by making Seongjin (her almost-husband) a more conniving suitor. If he’d taken steps to manipulate Mira into the marriage, rather than plying her with promises of the Moon Light School’s rebirth, she might have earned some sympathy points at least. But who am I kidding – this whole wedding plot was a misfire from its inception. The show itself didn’t even take it seriously, as evidenced by Seongjin driving away with Mira’s treasured sword mere minutes after she knocked him out cold. Her response? “It’s fine, I don’t need it anymore. My dad’s spirit lives within me.” Maybe so, but do you really want a slimeball like Seongjin hanging on to your family heirloom?

If tanking Mira’s character was the only sin this episode committed, it’d still be a big one, since it consumed 80% of the episode. But what happened in the last few minutes did a comparable amount of damage in just a fraction of the time. After giving Daewi a chance to unleash his rage against Seungcheol last week, GOH decided to double down on his anger, but opted for a much more sympathetic target in Mira. Give his cancer-stricken friend a heart attack to destabilize him emotionally, bring back the bullies from last week to get under his skin, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for violence, right? No, and there are so many reasons why not. The bloodiness of the fight and Daewi’s unrepentant attitude are the big ones, but there’s also the fact that we just hit these character beats last week. Also, Mira went through some shit in this episode, so she could have used a win at the end instead of a ruptured spleen.

By the time I reached the post-ED selfie scene, which flashed back to Mira posing happily for the camera with her pals Mori and Daewi, I was nearly in awe of what I’d just watched. Where does an episode director get the balls to conclude on that uplifting note, after a man beat his “friend” bloody just minutes beforehand? Plenty of anime series have disappointed or bored me this year, but GOH episode 4 avoided both categories thanks to a mesmerizing string of bad decisions. It put me in mind of the Seinfeld episode where George realizes that all of his instincts are utterly wrong, and he begins to do the opposite in every scenario. If The God of High School can learn the same lesson, its next nine episodes will be excellent viewing. If not, I hope its failures remain as strange as this one.