The God of High School

The second webtoon anime comes to a close. Definitely say I liked this one better than the previous. God of High School does have some problems no doubt but I enjoyed this anime so damn much. Didn't quite know what was coming with this show other than a big tournament and some cool looking fights. Well we got that in spades and then some! This show didn't let up off the throttle for even a half second! Kept going and going and going jumping the shark at every turn and I loved for doing that. Where we started and where we ended were completely differentplaces in such a short amount of time but that didn't bother me so much, least not as much as I'm sure it did others. The way I value and rare anime is absolutely themes then characters then story then visuals. That being said I think this show is one of the rare exceptions for me. Because the themes and story aren't quite there imo but holy hell are the visuals amazing to look at constantly and the characters are a lot of fun. There's tropes out the woodwork with this but it didn't seem to bother me. The story kinda shoots itself in the foot multiple times but skimming past things that should probably be explained. This is definitely one that would benefit from being 23 to 26 episodes opposed to just the 13 we got. But not gonna judge something by what it didn't give us since that's dumb. Better to just look at what were got and judge that. So I'll say the characters are awesome and easy to root for. Our main trio of Mori, Daewi, and Mira are all badass who I love to see on screen. They all get great moments to shine throughout the show. Even with Mori being centerpiece the other two still get highlights. The supporting cast with Ilpyo being my favorite of those and the other tournament competitors being pretty cool especially early on. Park Mujin was always a mysterious dude who seemed to be up to his own thing but I liked his style and how he helped the trio out more towards the end. His squad with the commissioners and SIX were cool. Nox as a main antagonist group were kinda meh since they didn't do a whole lot. Jegal however I really liked the more we saw him. An easy villain to despise and want to see the heroes beat. His powers were cool too. Of course I'd be dumb to not rave and gush over the incredible animation. Mappa basically outdid themselves and keep putting out quality work over and over again. Can always trust them to make a show look great with its fights and this amps me up even more to see Jujutsu Kaisen animated later this week! Overall I'd say this is a fun kinda just enjoy the fights type anime with some good characters and a middling plot that coulda just used some more time to flesh out. But I thoroughly enjoyed this show for what it gave us. 85 out of 100.

If the title, “The God of High School,” sounds lit af, dude, then this shit’ll be poggers, dude, deadass. However, if you cringe at the thought of a self-serious television show which seeks to actually entertain you whilst unabashedly pandering such an embarrassing name emblematic of all the little it has to offer, feigning such a shallow pulse of engagement with such radically unbalanced production values for those physical and mental children whom its cacophonies somehow excite, then you will cringe at the reality of this product all the same, because I promise you this can of worms is everything it advertises on the tin andmore. The battle-high comeback The Asterisk War wishes it could’ve lived to see. Please don’t make this review out to be hatful or any more negative than it actually is. All this review is saying is the content of the show is so vacuous, you can tell whether or not you will enjoy it based on your emotional reaction to the title alone. Any review offering a greater discussion of its template plot or cardboard characters is likely leading you on with the idea there is more to this show than what I’ve stated here. I’m sorry; there isn’t. Thank you for reading, and you’re welcome for making it easy on you.

Well there’s no stopping this train, Crunchyroll are going full steam ahead into adapting webtoons. With this, last season’s Tower of God and next season’s Noblesse, things might be looking up for webtoon adaptations right? Weeellll...not exactly. Tower of God is good show that’s HEAVILY relying on a sequel season to make it all worth it (which if I’m aware, hasn’t been announced at the time of this review), Noblesse is a wait and see at the moment and this show has been a truly mixed bag. There are some stuff that this show get right and there are some stuff that this show getswrong, badly at times. But this show has become the epitome of a phrase that I go by when grading a show. “High quality animation and sound can only carry you so far before your story and characters have to hold up their own weight.” Sit back, relax, grasp your own power within you and summon your Perso...i mean Charyeok as I present to you the anime review for the The God of High School. Let’s begin. Story: 2.5/10 The God of High School tournament has begun and high school students all over Korea flock to prove their worth as the strongest fighter. This includes our three main proagonists Jin Mo-Ri, Han, Dae-Wi and Yu Mi-Ra, each with their own fighting styles and techniques. However, with the commissioner, Park Mu-Jin, looking for something and a shady group working in the shadows, they will soon learn that there is something more than meets the eye to this tournament. So there you go, a simple tournament with something more going on in the bigger picture. Simple and solid stuff right? Yes, but the execution of this is certainly one to behold because the pacing of this series is utter dogs**t as it is all over the place. It started out nicely in the beginning to set the premise, setting and establishing the bonds between our main leads, but then it blitzes through to get to the big picture. And that is what honestly killed the story for me. This show wanted to get to the big picture as quickly as possible instead of developing what we already got in front of us. It’s almost as if it was obsessed to tell you that there is more to this story than meets the eye, but doing that sacrifices context and some much needed context at that. When the show does explain some things though, it’s kind of blink and you will miss it because good luck trying to understand if you did miss it. But ultimately, it trying to get to the big picture leaves to a lot of, “what the f**k is going on?” moments. We get introduced to this villainous group that believe in god, abilities that can only be described as Personas or Stands for you Jojo nutters and a “key” that holds great significance. This stuff happens with little to no build-up or context to it so it just happens and you are probably left confused. It changes your attitude towards the fights and honestly makes them less enjoyable at the end because you are trying to wrap your head around as to what is going on instead of just enjoying the spectacle. Characters: 4/10 There isn’t anything inherently hateful with the main trio as they do a fair job of being characters I can rally behind and they do get some character development. Dae-Wi and Mi-Ra definitely do get some time dedicated to them to get invested into them. But it feels like they get tossed aside by the end and their importance to the plot is dwindled as the show goes on. More focus is placed on Mo-Ri as time goes on as he is the true main protagonist but in my opinion, he isn’t as interesting as Dae-Wi or Mi-Ra in terms of motivation or backstory. He is under the class of Gerenivutus Shounenanatus (aka. Generic shounen protagonist). He likes fighting and getting stronger just so he can fight stronger opponents and get even stronger himself. A tried and true formula sure, but one that has become tiresome and it is no different here. His motivations aren’t really compelling compared to the cast around him and his growth isn’t really as noticeable where it feels like his strength just gets stronger just because at times. That actually kind of relates to the majority of characters at times because they get stronger just because most of the time. This is another side effect of the lack of context and consistent pacing in this show. The lack of natural growth when it comes to getting stronger is obvious when characters do acts that they have shown no signs of before. I think the lack of training montages kind of hurts this show. Going back to the cast of characters, there is one that I think would have made for a more interesting main protagonist. Park Il-pyo is much more compelling than Mo-Ri as he has a much more legitimate and interesting motivation while also having similar generic shounen elements. Probably because he gets the most attention out of the cast of characters in terms of backstory. Sure, it is rather cliched but at least is has depth unlike the majority of the more important characters in this show. The rest of the cast is rather meh. They fall under their roles to do their part of the story but I will say that the main antagonists, Nox, are pretty weak as villains go. Not including Taek Jegal who is decent as an ultimate main rival. But Nox is as uninteresting as shadowy groups get. Their main leader is a literal who and their motivation to summon god into the world to destroy it is as generic as bad guy goals get. In fact, the majority of the cast falls under the cliched shounen troupe and while some do expand on it like Il-pyo, Dae-Wi and Mi-Ra, the rest kind of just fall in line, honestly making the cast shallow in the process. Animation: 9.5/10 Is this the best work MAAPA has ever done to date? Probably. There’s no denying that the animation for The God of High School is fantastic. Fights are fluid and pack quite the punch with it oozing with sakuga everywhere to make the fights themselves fun to watch. But it’s not just how it animates, how the show frames the fights with dynamic angles and shots to give it a different feel each time. Watching from a distance as a guy with a straight jacket runs in fast to kick guys in the head, or it zooming out of Dae-Wi as he turns around and blows people away with his fist. It makes the fights themselves that fun to watch and are easily the highlight of the show for me. Art style and character design wise, it’s solid, although I don’t know why everyone have such a red nose. It’s like they all have the sniffles or something, I don’t know. It’s something that particularly bothered me, it’s just something that just looks kind of weird. Each character have their own unique look that translate well into the fights so it doesn’t become a hindrance and they are rather distinct from one another and the art style translates well into the action. So overall amazing job by MAPPA. Sound: 8/10 Honestly, the ost really matches the pacing and emotion of the fights to make them that extra enjoyable from a pure spectacle standpoint. It does what it needs to when you got action like this and enchance a scene that you are most likely engrossed in to keep up with the tone of the scene. The sound effects as well have a nice punch to it to make you feel the force with each hit, knowing that it’s going to hurt. The opening, "Contradiction feat. Tyler Carter" by KSUKE, is interesting. I like how it builds up the opening and then flurry it out with action and how the opening is styled, with it starting like it’s an intro to the tournament and the neon filter when it shows off the action. The song is give or take. I’m not the biggest fan of techno music but I do like how it builds up with the visuals on screen. BUT, the opening does lose points for the action being just scenes taken directly from the episodes instead of showing off it’s own action to make the opening more independent from the rest of the show. The ending I like as well. "WIN" by CIX, is a nice way to show off the growing bond between Mo-Ri, Dae-Wi and Mi-Ra and is a nice way to calm down after the relentless action. Just a nice solid ending. Conclusion: “High quality animation and sound can only carry you so far before your story and characters have to hold up their own weight.” It’s a line I came up with when I did my review of Sirus the Jaeger back in 2018 and it’s always stuck with me when it comes to shows like this. No matter how good your animation and sound is, if your story and characters don’t do as well, then your show will just be a hollow shell of a technical masterpiece. The God of High School is a show had a lot of promise. If it was able to make sure that the story and characters match the quality of it’s animation and sound it would easily been one of the best anime of the year. But it didn’t. If anything, it bought into its own hype and tried to prove that this show was more than it meets the eye but without establishing why. What’s left is a show that feels very shallow and honestly a waste of MAPPA’s best work to date. Poor pacing and context to the story, underdeveloped and shunted characters, a rather boring protagonist and very weak villains leaves a show that feels half full. While the fights on their own are very good, without a good narrative to back it up, it leaves the fights feeling very hollow. I do believe this is a case of 12 episode syndrome where they tried to cram it into 12 episodes to save time and budget and move on to the next. But this show badly needed at least a 24 episode run time to help establish key plot elements and character growth. But it didn’t (probably due to budget) and there’s no changing it now. What we are left with is what we got and what we got is honestly, a show that I am disappointed with. My Personal enjoyment: 4.5/10 Overall score: 5.7/10 Recommendation: Consider it (VERY, VERY BARELY, Consider watching it for the action for the first 3-4 episodes and see where you go from there.)

It has become apparent now that webtoon anime has become a failed experiment. The concept of adapting these highly praise webtoon series was amazing as we viewers get to see South Korea based anime. It was frankly a breath of fresh air as the webtoon catalogue is filled with various genres that were produced by passionate authors that cared about their works even if the works vary in quality. Unfortunately, the overall execution has been bad, really, really bad. Tower Of God was released in the Spring 20 anime season in an awful and unfinished state filled with non-existent worldbuilding, laughable power system, empty characters, outstandingawful production values and horrendous writing. It was a series that I deeply despise to the core it made me wonder if the source material was bad but, I have been told that Webtoon itself was good and the anime was an utter bastardization to the source material. Honestly, if Crunchyroll did not hamfist the living crap of the show right down my throat on social media then I wouldn't have hated it all that much. Sure I still would have heavily disliked, but I wouldn't have it in my top 30 worst anime I've ever completed list. One season later The God Of High School was released, and it sucked. It like Crunchyroll never learned their lesson with Tower Of God and decided to crank up to 11 and that is sad as I really wanted to like it as I love my shounen animes like this. Before I go over all the problems about The God Of High School I will be talking about the good as there's a quite a bit of good in it that prevents it from being in my worst anime list. What The God Of High School Does Right. The art and animation by Studio MAPPA are fantastic as always. Character designs and colourful and distinctive from each other. There were some rough scenes every now especially towards the end with the jarring use of CGI but the show still remains consistent with its art style and animation. This is one of Mappa finest works when it comes to art and animation. The fights scenes are excellent and really gives the fights series justice that they deserve. Special mention goes to the Jin and Hau fight in episode 5 that's filled with a lot of cool sakuga that resembles a comic book. The soundtrack is generally good all around and fits the tone of the series. The opening and ending themes are okay I guess, and they decently fit the tone of the series. Also, both the sub and dub are amazing. That's pretty much it really. What The God Of High School does wrong. Where do I even begin with The God Of High School maybe with the characters? The main 3 characters look very promising and appealing on the surface however the moment, they started talking, my positive expectations went down the drain. I grandly feel bad for both the Seiyuus and the English Dub for wasting their amazing talents voicing these shells of characters. Jin is basically Goku 2.0 who loves fighting. Other than his generic dad backstory, there's nothing special about him, and his character design reflects that. Yu is your typical tsundere glasses action girl that wants to find a suitable husband to carry on the school bloodline. Han is the typical quiet hard-working third well of the trio who wants to save a friend life. On paper, the trio had the potential to be fascinating and charming characters but the horrible pacing and especially later on the writing don't give these characters justice, as a result, these main trios feel empty and half baked. I wanted to see these three go past their character traits so I could love them but they sadly don't. This is what happens when you have crappy pacing that moves at a rapid pace where you don't have time to develop your characters. As for the story itself well it has no story to speak off. It's just a bunch of one-dimensional character entering The God Of High School tournament because self insert cliché … backstories There's nothing more beyond that. Now, this wouldn't have been a problem if the characters were fun or at the very least interesting but their not. As I stated before Jin, Hau and Yu bland characters but the side characters are the worst in fact calling them characters would be a massive insult as their actually like robots that are specially programmed to fight while ditching spit out they self insert backstories by inserting robot voice clip. They are that empty. Due to the characters being empty shells the show becomes a depressing slog filled with abysmal writing. Non-existent worldbuilding, a messy power system that goes out of control half way in, endless meaningless flashbacks that only exist to break the pacing of the fights that are happening, unfunny chibi comedy, annoying tonal that are on par with Your Lie in April, consent asspulls, cheap power-ups, lack of overall stakes, tired shounen tropes and cliches up the ass I could go on. Here's a perfect example of this empty writing is how the main three grow a bond with each other. Jin meets Yu by accident during a chase of the thief. Yu yells at Jin for breaking her glasses, A couple of minutes later in the case Hau stops bag thief, and they're all introduced themselves before the qualifiers started in the waiting room. After the qualifiers the main three argue with each other yet again then Jin accidentally throws Yu family sword in the river causing Yu to get pissed off at Jin telling him to back off. Then Jin comes to help find Yu looking for her sword in the river giving her light to make it easier to find it then moments later Hau joins in the search to find Yu's sword by bringing in a big light that brightens the rivers in a large scale. This is on paper is great having our main leads look for the sword as well reconciling with each other through inspiring dialogue that builds an eventually creating unbreakable bond and to its credit the show did that in the beginning but the moment when Hau shows up it that intriguing character-driven scene breaks. Instead of the show actually showcasing the trio finding the sword as spending some decent time to get know each other like most character-driven narratives it transitions into a tournament scene in the waiting acting they are best buds. This is where The God High School School true intentions start to rear its ugly head that simply does not care about substance. I really wanted to like these characters as they appeal to me more than anyone of Tower of God especially Yu and Jin but due to terrible directing the anime totally disregards their character writing in favour of fights and, as a result, the story becomes a tedious slog and the characters become empty shells. When the show decides to have a story at the very end after a series of soulless fights, you find out it's so contrived and convoluted you will wonder if a show was written by a 7-year old that has no understanding of writing and pacing. Speaking of the pacing my god it's a disaster. The show moves way too fast to a point where it became hard to comprehend what is even happening. Keep in mind the target audience for The God Of High School are teenagers who are into shounen's yet they can't do that correctly as this show is that empty that's devoid of passion, effort, and creativity. The final insult of The God Of High School is the hamfisted advertisements. For some reason, Crunchyroll thought it will be a smart idea to splatter their and webtoon logos all over the show especially in fighting arenas. I absolutely hated this every time I saw as it felt I was watching an ad and a lazy one on that. This is immersion breaking at it's finest and it already made the already terrible series even worst. The word empty perfectly to describe The God Of High School. It is a show that has nothing going for it other than showcasing fights that barely has any meaning or substance behind it. Sure the anime had decent moments but they ultimately don't save the anime from being terrible. Even though I ended up kinda hating The God Of High School I actually prefer it over Tower Of God. Least the anime despite having a lot of empty moments thanks to horrible pacing least wasn't completed bored or insulted by it. Crunchyroll please just end this failed experiment. If you're not going to properly adapt your source material then why even bother doing it. You're just making the source material and yourselves look bad. Have some pride of and admit defeat