The God of High School

The "God of High School" tournament has begun, seeking out the greatest fighter among Korean high school students! All martial arts styles, weapons, means, and methods of attaining victory are permitted. The prize? One wish for anything desired by the winner.

Taekwondo expert Jin Mo-Ri is invited to participate in the competition. There he befriends karate specialist Han Dae-Wi and swordswoman Yu Mi-Ra, who both have entered for their own personal reasons. Mo-Ri knows that no opponent will be the same and that the matches will be the most ruthless he has ever fought in his life. But instead of being worried, this prospect excites him beyond belief.

A secret lies beneath the facade of a transparent test of combat prowess the tournament claims to be—one that has Korean political candidate Park Mu-Jin watching every fight with expectant, hungry eyes. Mo-Ri, Dae-Wi, and Mi-Ra are about to discover what it really means to become the God of High School.

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Characters & Voice Actors

Jin, Mo-Ri

Main

Tachibana, Tatsumaru
Japanese

Han, Dae-Wi

Main

Kumagai, Kentarou
Japanese

Yu, Mi-Ra

Main

Ohashi, Ayaka
Japanese

Commissioner Q

Supporting

Hamada, Kenji
Japanese

Park, Il-Pyo

Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki
Japanese

Park, Mu-Jin

Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke
Japanese

Commissioner R

Supporting

Kobayashi, Chikahiro
Japanese

Jegal, Taek

Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou
Japanese

Commissioner O

Supporting

Kaida, Yuki
Japanese

Jin, Tae-Jin

Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu
Japanese

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Simone, Jamie

Producer

Park, Seong-Hu

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Animation Director, Key Animation

Koizumi, Kisuke

Sound Director

Geshi, Yasuhiro

Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

"Contradiction feat. Tyler Carter" by KSUKE

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Ending Theme

"WIN" by CIX

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Sep 28, 2020

lt_wassile

Not Recommended

Spoiler

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Two words: MASTER-PIECE
When you thought that your favourite anime had come to your top to stay for a long time, when you conceived that your life would not be enlightened again by an artwork of such caliber, God of Highschool soon came knocking on everyone’s door, what am I saying knocking!, breaking down the door and establishing themselves as the best anime ever.

Where should I start? Its pacing and story-telling? Marvelous. Who else doesn’t love when things are so rushed that after 13 episodes you don’t have any idea of what is the main goal of the series...or even the main goal ... of its characters? Is it world destruction? God supremacy? Supporting the case of why taekwondo should continue being at the Olympics? No determination whatsoever!
As a matter of fact, us members of society can recall that WE ALL LOVE pointless fights without any meaning nor backstory; why wouldn’t we, if I may ask? Devices such as plot twists, showcasing character motivations, displaying impactful moments or executing contrasts properly in order to build up/shift momentum, change characters status quo, conveying emotions through the screen, or just for the sake of having an interesting, meaningful action scene are things that GoH NEVER contemplated, which, in my humble opinion, sets the tone on how things must be done on any anime which places value in providing quality content to its viewers. Greatness.

Speaking about greatness, we must ask ourselves about the integrity of the “plot”. It had been awhile since the last time I’ve watched a show which had such an organised, perspicuous and easy to follow plot, with no plot holes or unexplained sudden events whatsoever. For example: Seoul's population looks doomed because the good guys seem incapable of dealing with <<Nox>>? No worries, Alchemist-san saves the day transporting the whole city to a cliff out of nowhere. Already not convinced? What about if I told you that the show has a mysterious aura around it (however I have not been able to grasp it yet)?
And don't get me started with this show's coherence -one of its strengths-, like for instance, when the show it's stuck in a cul-de-sac, as they display their marvelous scripting techniques to solve the sticking point masterfully (e.g. kyuubi-power recovery from Ilpyo despite the key being detached from him)

And what about the GoH universe itself and its mechanics? Nothing notorious, just a normal society with its ups and downs, a little bit corrupted and all...oh, did I forgot to tell you that it's based on Ancient Rome? Such an elegiac tone! I mean, it’s pretty obvious when you notice how people love to rock the dome to see how high school students martial-fight to death...where the lions at? Oh, before I forget! Did you think this was a martial arts-esque show? Nothing further from the truth! By episode 8 you realise that EVERYONE has something known as “Charyeok” -kind of a borrowed power from an ancient God who had appeared twice in previous episodes- and that they are going to fight with it pretty much for the entire time. Greatness.

Nevertheless, I personally have to say that the major asset of this series is its originality. A mysterious organization stages a tournament in order to find the strongest high school student in Korea, but apparently it's all staged, being their “main goal” to find a “key” (which, apparently, is well-known that has to be inside a highschool student) that will help them fight a more mysterious and darker organization (as you must infer, because it’s never said due to the complexity of the plot and how they play mind games with us) who wants to destroy the world as we know. It is not my role to discern for you, but allow me to say that I had never heard of anything like this. NEVER EVER.

And let’s not forget about the originality of our characters! Whether it's our MC Mo-Ri, an oblivious, food-lover, meathead, “don’t you dare touch my friends” who just wants to live life fighting strong people, for the sake of becoming stronger; Mi-Ra and her pursue of power to prevent the ostracism of her family’s hallmark or even our s1 antagonist, a guy who wanted to feel relevant by any costs and rejected his personality and liveliness for the likes of a third party. Amazingly unique, isn’t it?
Speaking about this, highlight the ability of the writers in God of Highschool to avoid breathing life into their fictional characters. Motivations, backstories, RELATABILITY...the writers could had made the mistake of believing that these would have helped them develop a marvelous, compelling story which made the audience empathise with the cast on a personal level, laughing/suffering/crying with them as different events took place during the show, but, fortunately, they were quick-thinkers enough to avoid using these devices.

Backtracking a little bit, talking about the artistic component of the show, it’s obvious that MAPPA made sure that the quality of the animation in God of High School was good enough to support their OFF THE CHARTS job in the plot and characters counterpart. Fluidity and choreography looked, for the most part, good enough -especially during fight scenes-, sakuga animation was carried out surprisingly well, backgrounds were depicted nicely, characters were designed properly...art and animation was quite good, with the only complaint on how camera rotations and 3D movements were often overused, making it, on those specific moments, something really hazy to watch.

By the same token, music has had a leading role in the “success” of this season. Good job enhancing the different emotions that were on display during different moments, whether it was hyping up the moment when a fight was taking place, intensifying the sense of urgency, ...yet I really missed a banger as OP. Voice actors did a notable job, felt like it had to be said.

So, at the end of the day, I guess that if you've reached the end of this review you'll have the same opinion as myself: GoH is a great piece of rubbish.

"There's a resistance for people to talk about things that make them feel guilty. When natural disasters happen, it's easier not to feel guilty about it."

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Sep 28, 2020

Stark700

Not Recommended

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 anime ... was 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.

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Sep 28, 2020

Ryuseishun

Not Recommended

Spilled Paint.

Two simple yet effective words that perfectly describe The God of High School, the ultimate travesty from Summer 2020 and yet another defective product via the courtesy of Crunchyroll. With their recently established “strategic” partnership, Crunchyroll and Webtoon took full advantage of the pandemic of the year 2020 to collaborate and present their lineup of products of “original animated content” known as “Crunchyroll Originals”.

With the second coming of a webtoon adaptation, The God of High School, they’ve managed to fool tens of thousands of people all over the world into thinking this is one of the best action fantasy series to start ... off the new decade of anime. Just like its webtoon sibling Tower of God (otherwise known as Kami no Tou), it became popular enough to be adapted for the sole sake of being Crunchyroll’s summertime gravy train, and with the help of studio MAPPA, it pressed for “style over substance” to wow and mesmerize the audience into thinking quantity is more important than quality.

In terms of plot and worldbuilding, God of High School is an absolute mumble-jumble of loosely tossed-in parts. The story starts off looking like a “dumb fun” setup of a mixed martial arts “high school” tournament, where the winner will be granted a single wish as the ultimate prize. Tournament arcs in anime are the ultimate easy-to-make selling points, so on top of that, Crunchyroll and Webtoon also shamelessly slap their self-promoting logos all over the tournament itself, even though it doesn’t even really make much sense to do so, so it just looks silly onscreen in a bad way.

The MMA setup then quickly morphs into a superpower free-for-all, cause superpowers also sell well. The power system in this series, known as charyeok, literally meaning “borrowed power”, is inserted into the plot with barely a damn shred of helpful exposition or background context; lacking any sort of tangible foundation, it’s literally a shitshow of randomly inserted abilities and powerups whipped out left and right for the sake of getting oohs and aahs from the viewers.

The choice of pacing in the series is infuriatingly rapid and unruly. The staff apparently chose to mash or omit whole truckloads of chapters within single episodes for the sole sake of “getting to the good parts”. All it does is add to the chaos, as the scenes shift back and forth between the tournament and the underlying conflict in an unruly fashion; sure this may appeal to many people, but there’s no sense of organization or sophistication for enough, if any, of the showcased content to make sense.

New characters keep showing up at random or in the masses, void of any sense of depth, purpose, creativity, or novelty. They are just simply there to make the main characters look good when defeating or assisting them, and are written off or ignored when no longer needed. The show tries to give empathic appeal to them via brief instances of “flashback jutsu” in half-hearted attempts to manipulate the audience into relating or feeling for them. Any motivation or backstory is simply glazed over, if not just completely cut out altogether.

The story tries to have mystery elements to add suspense, but it’s hollow and predictable. It just serves to make whatever plot there is look more compelling and engaging in nature. To sum it up, everyone wants to challenge “God”. The whole tourney itself is controlled by an undercover organization whom wants to use it to gain a “Key” to reach “God”. They’re opposed by a cult group who wants to use that same “Key” to world domination. Yet we’re not given any helpful background context to explain the whole history. Then there’s also the typical jackass one-dimensional villain with a bland excuse of a background and motivation to be “super-bad”. I personally HATE these sort of villains in particular. They’re simply there to get on your nerves, flaunt around their ego without any sense of metaphorical or philosophical significance, and ultimately make the main protagonists look good when they fight and finally beat them. They have no actual depth character-wise and their purpose is superficial just like any other side character, cause once the plot is done with them, they’re disposed of like litter.

There is no sense of coherence or order in the story. It’s a bunch of raw ideas and references dumped into one big pot without any consideration to follow a specific recipe step by step. Instead of an organized well thought-out story with great quirks, the narrative direction is akin to a pool of chaos. An incomprehensible collection of abstractions, it’s like an unholy crossover of a hundred different TV shows mashed together in discord. Grotesque and terrifying, it’s like an abomination of an entity taken right out of the universe of Cthulhu Mythos. Nothing but nonstop, mindless, soulless conflict and fights with no charm or quirk to speak of their own.

Going back to the characters in general, they’re nothing of originality. They’re typical, generic, bland, and rehashed as part of a continually looped presentation of mediocre shounen tropes. The main cast is extremely dreary in particular. Jin Mori is your typical happy-go-lucky main protagonist who would always get the biggest upgrades and plot conveniences and keeps saying he wants to fight strong people, with nothing really going for him on an empathic level besides his ties to his grandpa...not like I haven’t seen something like that before. Han Daewi is your typical loner in the secondary main character role. His initial motivation to fight for his ill and dying friend, while initially promising, was not well thought-out or executed, and instead the show does a quickie fix for him with the regurgitated and cheap “friendship” clause. Yu Mira has that ubquitious character role where the inner conflict comes from family-related issues, which can be often get too conceited and grating in general. Her character work is simply glossed over within one episode and wasn’t given enough exposition and empathy to really be worth caring about on an emotional level. Jegal Taek is the bland-ass main villain mentioned earlier; he is ultimately inserted just to quickly set up your typical final battle to make Jin and co. look good, and he has absolutely no redeeming factors backing up his ego-filled composition. As for the rest of the other characters, they are merely plot devices to pull and yank the disoderly narrative along in its hasty tempo and also make the main characters look good, only adding to the chaos.

God of High School is supposedly praised by many for its amazing looking animation quality, which is obviously the primary selling point. However, it’s not all that’s cracked up to be. One half of the time, the animation looks smooth and impressive with great camerawork and utilized calligraphy/ink style drawings. The other half of the time counterbalances most of the positives when the camera panning and rotating becomes redundant and overused. During many of the fights, characters are tweened lazily and sloppily, with seemingly a good amount of frames missing in a bunch of parts, resulting in awful-looking choreography and motion inconsistency. The animation also seems to lack enough impact frames to really sell the authenticity of the battles, which make nearly every “body blow” look comical instead of painful. In short, the animation quality is only slightly above average compared to your usual shounen series. The character designs have to be one of the silliest looking things I’ve ever seen in anime. Everyone who can fight has red noses and red earlobes, and some of them have their noses elongated. Why such an impractical design? Why do they need to look like Rudolph? Or even Pinocchio? Are they all sick with the flu or something? Why couldn’t they stick with a normal looking design like in the games based off this series? I can understand the fidelity to the character design in the source material, but it goes to show that the creator apparently didn’t think things through with their ideas on even basic standpoints.

The soundtracks themselves are your typical battle shounen music, some good, some passable. The OP theme “Contradiction” is literally ear-rape, and my only good suggestion for listening to something like this is for maybe a workout session or as a form of Chinese-style torture. The ED theme “WIN” is notably better and gives a really nice and chill summer vibe to settle down the viewers from the chaotic scenes of each episode, but it’s better as a standalone soundtrack. The sound effects attempt to be fancy especially during certain “special moves”, but they’re nothing that special, and in fact, they feel out of place at times quite often, especially during parts when physical impacts are shown. As for the overall voice acting, it felt very stiff, unmotivated, and tone-dead; it’s like the voice actors are reluctantly giving out their lines in an apathetic manner, knowing how badly adapted this show is.

I wouldn’t say I didn’t totally enjoy it at first. I initially wanted to embrace the series as “dumb fun” MMA series where the term “God” was just a metaphor and it’d be all about breaking down different types of martial arts with a little bit of hax here and there. It was not the case, unfortunately. When the series drastically turned onto its head, my enjoyment level grew less and less, even when I try to turn my brain off. It gradually went from rolling along leniently with the schlock setups to hurting my head trying to follow and comprehend what the actual hell is going on. It quickly became a huge mental endeavor just to really get myself to up to date with each week’s episode. I like action, but not mindless, soulless, emotionless, purposeless conflict like what God of High School committed. And oh yea, this is very subjective, but one more thing: I HATED the comedy. "Chibi-fied" comedic skits don't equal good tonal shifts; it's so obnoxious, sudden and forced that it's literally a walking bag of cringe.

In the end, God of High School was one of the worst shows to come out of 2020. It had nothing to show for itself nor anything in general worth its weight in gold. Rather than sticking to simplicity and charm with compelling and inspiring presentations, it lacks any sort of substance, flavor, or genuine beauty and winds up as a head-scratching failed product brand. With practically no redeemable factors from this show other than a few great looking animated parts, this show is one I absolutely cannot recommend to even the hardcore action fans or novices. I will suggest to you to look elsewhere for a much more sophisticated anime, and steer VERY clear from the likes of those damned “Crunchyroll Originals”.

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The God of High School

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