How familiar are you with the Creator Clash? That boxing event hosted by iDubbbz where various content creators box each other. Ever heard of that? Well remove the rules and the stage, remove the big names and huge payouts, move the entire thing to Seoul, South Korea and suddenly you have Kenka Dokugaku aka Viral Hit. Originally created by Tae-Jun Park, animated by studio Okuruto Noboru, directed by Masakazu Hishida and with music by Yutaka Yamada, Viral Hit is about Ho-Bin Yoo's quest to make money by fighting random punks in his community and livestreaming it on ~~YouTube~~ I mean NewTube, pulling himself up the social ladder along the way. Does that sound interesting? Do you want to watch knock-off LeafyIsHere get into a fist fight with Korean Logan Paul and slowly fall in love with fighting? Then read on, because that description is about the best sell Viral Hit gets.
Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Viral Hit. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents.
Lets start with the obvious, Viral Hit looks... ugly. Almost intentionally so in places. Characters have this weird shine and gradient on their skin, shadows are used to try to give depth and shape to obviously flat faces, and everyone's mouth has these oddly plump and glossy lips. Combine that with mediocre backgrounds and dull lighting and the best thing you end up being able to say about Viral Hit is that it occasionally has interesting direction and shot composition. Odd angles, good use of tight, enclosed spaces, and the existence of an in-universe camera as characters film the fights for their NewTube channel do give Viral Hit the occasional good scene. Not often, maybe once an episode, twice if you're lucky, but it does happen. Sadly, even these don't last long, as you are taken out of it almost immediately by the all but non-existent animation.
That's right! While Viral Hit is, ostensibly, animated, you wouldn't really be able to tell by watching the show, as most of it is just static panning and zoom shots. Even the fights are composed mostly of punch cuts, going from pose to pose with action lines or camera shake to mix things up. This isn't to say Viral Hit doesn't move at all, of course it does. It just doesn't move well, the action is actually some of the weakest I've seen in a long while. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Viral Hit is the complete inverse of Wind Breaker, the other brawl-style hand-to-hand action show of the season. Where that one is beautifully choreographed and has fluid close-combat, Viral Hit sort of just stands there and moves the camera around a bit. So if the combat is truly so terrible, what does Viral Hit have left? Well that's simple, the narrative is shockingly decent.
Initially, Viral Hit starts as this petty revenge fantasy. It's about Ho-Bin Yoo, a bullied highschool kid, pushing back against, and rising above, his bullies. Bullies who also just so happen to be NewTubers, who used him for all of their videos. So of course, what better way to get back at them than to ruin their channel and beat them up live on air? This first half of Viral Hit is simultaneously cathartic and ugly. It's always enjoyable watching a bully get what's coming to them, and Ho-Bins growing confidence in both physical and social skills is pretty fun. At the same time though, every single character in this show is kind of a terrible person. Ho-Bin is genuinely pathetic, Snapper, his eventual friend, is generally a two-faced coward, and his bullies are... well... bullies. It's lucky then that Viral Hit doesn't settle here for long.
About halfway through, once the bullies are dealt with and Ho-Bin has a modicum of self-respect, Viral Hit begins to shift into something more akin to say... Hajime no Ippo. While Ho-Bin initially fought for money and clout, all these vain, vanity-driven reasons, he begins to enjoy combat for the combats sake. To revel in that thrill of overcoming a difficult opponent, to see his growth as he comes up with his own strategies and others begin to recognize his skill, to enjoy the adrenaline pumping through his body. Ho-Bin changes from a self-aggrandizing pissant to a true athlete and sportsman who wants to test himself. It isn't perfect, Viral Hit still has some very base, childish humor in places, and the side "romance" isn't very good at all. But it's cool to see the series evolving and broadening in scope rather than simply sitting at "Beating up bullies".
As for individual arcs and the fights themselves, these are a mixed bag. Some, like the Pakgo bullying arc, are pretty straight forward and grounded. It's a reasonable situation for Ho-Bin to be in and win. Others, like the disgraced MMA Pro or the Ssireum champion, start to stretch believability a bit, both in how Ho-Bin wins and the fact he's involved with them at all. The Ssireum champion especially is a weird one, and the sexual assault jokes and stalking narrative were really unnecessary. It was filled with plenty of weird moments that don't add anything at all. I know that's some peoples style of humor, but it's definitely not mine. Still, they enable Ho-Bin's character arc and Viral Hit does use them to help transition the series from the previously mentioned bully revenge story to a more competitive one. So in the end, I'd say Viral Hit's narrative does a decent job.
As for the characters within said narrative, well I've already talked about them a bit so I'll keep this section short. Viral Hit has a shockingly large cast for what it's doing. Between Ho-Bin's squad like Snapper and Gaeul, the antagonists such as Pakgo and Taehun, and the various side characters like Bomi and Munseong, there's a fair amount of names to remember. Luckily, it really doesn't matter if you remember them because outside of Ho-Bin, Snapper and maybe Taehun, because none of them really do anything. Most of the antagonists are just one-note bullies who are easy to hate and have no motivations beyond being an asshole. Meanwhile side characters like Bomi are kind of just... there. They aren't even involved in the main plot, they are just spectators while Ho-Bin and co fight their way through Seoul.
Now I know this sounds bad, but really, it's just par for the course with anime. It's normal for background cast to not be fleshed out, this isn't anything new. It'd be far worse if they were actively detrimental to the show, like Kimetsu no Yaiba's Zenitsu who actively makes me want to skip any scene he's in. Viral Hit doesn't have any of those, it makes you hate people in a sort of satisfying way usually. One where you want to see them get beat up rather than removed from the show entirely. Mileage may very there of course, maybe Bomi is to boring or you absolutely hate makeup YouTubers, I don't know. But I can't think of any characters I myself actively hated in a way Viral Hit didn't want me to hate. So much like the narrative, I'd say Viral Hit's cast did it's job.
Finally we have Viral Hit's OST and Sound Design. This was easily the most surprising part about Viral Hit to me, though looking at the staff it probably shouldn't have been. Produced by Takatoshi Hamano and with music by Yutaka Yamada, of Vinland Saga fame, Viral Hit set itself up for success here. In particular I want to praise it's vocal tracks. Raps like "I'm Not a Loser" and "Cockfight" really sell the "From the streets to the top" narrative, and while rap isn't necessarily uncommon in anime, it still stands out to me when done well like it is here. It's not like Viral Hit is pure rap either, with Ashley Yoon and Emir Yurok contributing with tracks like the soul-rending "Angry At Myself" and the cute love song "Goddess".
Of course not every track is a winner. Some like "Adrenaline" and "Calling Out Bullies On Camera" are just basic background tracks, while others like "Hypocrite" are just seven minutes of noise. Still, those are few and far between on Viral Hit's track list. It's far more common to find the ear-worms like "This Time, It's Perfect", the easily loopable beats like "How To Win A Fight Against an Amateur" and the weird or interesting like "Definitely Won't Work". All in all, Viral Hit's OST hits well above its weight, and is far better than the other aspects of its production would make you expect. It almost makes me think the visuals were a conscious choice, a mistake, rather than incompetence or lack of confidence in the product.
As for the Sound Design, this is solid. I don't have near as many examples of this, mostly because Viral Hit's never really stood out, good or bad. Ultimately I think that's a good thing, because in my mind sound design is something where the better the work, the less noticed it is. Think about it, you know what footsteps, eating, cars or busy classrooms sound like. So when a show manages to get close enough that you don't register it as particularly immersive nor does it take you out of the episode, that's a pretty good result in my mind. Well that's exactly where Viral Hit finds itself. Just good enough to not be noticed, but not so good that I remember how its punches sounded like I do with Hajime no Ippo almost 25 years later. Seriously, Masafumi Mima is incredible, who uses jet engines like that.
With that we come to the end of this review, with only this last personal section to go. This is basically where I ramble about my experience with a show. There's no set topics, no focus, no point trying to be made or message to convey, it's just me trying to open the door into who I am and how I watch anime. But be warned! This is no-holds-barred spoiler-heavy territory. I will talk about the ending, and everything leading up to it. So if you don't want to know what happens, or just don't care about my personal experience, then skip it! But if you're interesting, read on, and thank you.
What I mean is, neither Ho-Bin nor his opponents are professionals, at least initially. They aren't using any complex techniques or strategies, there's nothing particularly special about what they do. Calf kicks do hurt, running away is valid in a real fight, and no one is ever really prepared to get punched in the face. What plans they do come up with go wrong, they have to improvise, and even then, they often lose. As someone who still remembers when they got into boxing, and how shocking it can feel to get in a ring with someone and how quickly your mental stack devolves into "Punch them back", it's rather satisfying to watch. Again, it's similar to the opening few arcs of Hajime no Ippo where we watch an amateur slowly figure out what is happening and what to do.
Of course Viral Hit isn't perfect with this. Somehow Ho-Bin managed to beat a professional Taekwondo practitioner, and stands up against a national wrestling champion, accomplishing this after only a month or two of training. The time frame, the athleticism, the skills, it's all dialed up by that "This is an anime" factor. But that's fine! Because for all that the time frame and achievements are unrealistic, the attitude still feels right. The desperation against a superior opponent, that feeling of adrenaline, that urge to compete. For all the issues it has, I think Viral Hit nails that atmosphere of self improvement and desire. It bleeds into the imperfect narrative and terrible people who populate this show. If fighting isn't something you're interested in, on any level, if you don't watch MMA or participate in a combat sport or something, I understand if this misses for you. But for me? It was satisfying enough.
So yeah, all in all Viral Hit is a show that really shouldn't be good, and probably won't hit for most people. But for those who are interested in an underdog sort of street fight narrative, and don't mind the excessive YouTube flavor to it all since every single fight is livestreamed and even the "mentor" comes from YouTube videos, it should be fun. At least assuming you can look past the lackluster visuals. Don't go into it expecting the beautifully choreographed fights of Wind Breaker not the visual direction or animation of something like Kimetsu no Yaiba or Kaiju 8, and definitely don't look for a deep and loveable cast. Just... sit down and watch a bullied kid get back at those who hurt him before moving up the social ladder via YouTube videos of him fighting bullies to make some money.
Thanks for reading! If you want to leave a comment, positive or negative, you can leave it here.
20.5 out of 26 users liked this review
