Characters have no real strong motivations or personality, they just act however would be convenient. Like why is Mori fighting in this tournament to begin with? I get he enjoys fighting, but why? Did he suffer a loss and now chases strength because he's afraid of losing? Nah his grandad is a strong guy or something so I guess he is too and he wants to fight now. This makes the series feel like a string of events with no real weight or meaning to them, which makes it hard to care about the fights. The world building is also pretty lame since they just kind of dump random things on you with very little explanation. I have no idea what "human cultural assets" are or why they are so important or why they seem to have so much power, they just do.
Fights also get progressively more confusing. People complain about characters stopping to explain what they're doing every move in shounen fights, but this feels like it's the exact opposite. I have no idea if they I see fire coming from someone's feet if it's artistic flare, a "borrower" power (this series' magic). Like I don't even understand how the magic works because we see normal characters continue to fight after being impaled by magic shark teeth or something and I just don't understand what's going on.
Those are my gripes. It looks fine and the characters have distinct designs, so I wouldn't say there's no appeal to this series but it's just too poorly thought out for me to enjoy it. Power fantasies work for me when there's at least something of a struggle for our characters, when they have strong motivations, when the world is interesting and/or when the fights are interesting. I don't think The God of High School has any of that.
