God of High School might be the least sensical anime I have watched to date, and I watched Himegoto. Where it succeeds in super cool fight scenes and largely slick animation, calling its story a flop would be something of an understatement.
Premise: 4/5
If you've seen my profile, you'll know that I love a good tournament arc. That's the main reason I picked this show up: I wanted a show with fast-paced fights that I got cucked out of watching Naruto. No matter what you say, it delivers on this, with a wide variety of styles and fighters. I wasn't expecting the special moves (or charyeoks), and I feel like it could have done without them, but I guess they add a little flavour to what would otherwise be a Taekwondo demonstration with people cheering in the background.
Story: 1/5
If I'm honest, I would have given this a far higher score if the show had stuck to the whole high-schooler fighting tournament thing. I even would have been open to the charyeoks if they had been explained well and integrated smoothly. But The God of High School has a major storytelling problem.
Within an episode, it went from a fighting tournament to some kind of Bird Person-ass shirtless man flying around the city and claiming to be a god, without any explanation as to what happened. The whole marriage thing was completely out of left field, and resolved far too quickly. Even the staff that Jin pulled out in the final fight against the aforementioned Bird Person wasn't at all explained.
Throughout, I felt a little lied to; I started watching because of the enticing tournament arc, but the whole thing was just a bait-and-switch in favour of some kind of grand magic-style arc that was, in my opinion, unneeded.
Honestly, the story felt like a first draft; it had all the major plot points, but the segues between them were nonexistent, and the whole thing was just sloppy. I don't want to say that it's because it was based on a Webtoon - I'm sure that the Webtoon was far better and that this was caused by time and budget constraints - but I will say that it is something of a confirmation for my previous biases of Webtoon authors.
As for character development, there is almost none to speak of. Particularly the protagonist, Jin Mori, remains pretty much the same through the series, with the occasional teasing glimpse into what could be an interesting backstory and motivation that are not nearly well expanded upon. I guess Han Daewi gets some character development, with him going from wanting to win God Of High School to save his dying friend to wanting to help Jin Mori in his quest to... do whatever he's doing, it's not very well explained.
Music: 4/5
The opening song is an absolute banger, and it's one of those animes that I actually sit through the OP just to hear that song. The ending is OK; it's unexpectedly chill, but it's a decent wind-down for such a high-octane show.
The OST is pretty good; it's generic in places, and some parts don't really fit what's being shown on screen, but it largely adds to the show without encroaching on it.
Execution: 3/5
The art style takes a little getting used to, and there's the odd 'background face' here and there, but I think it looks pretty good. Nothing outstanding, just good.
Again, the voice acting is good. It's nothing to write home about, but it's pretty solid throughout.
The script is meh. It isn't that bad, it's just a little awkward. I feel like there's a little too much 'Engrish' which detracts from the seriousness of certain scenes, but it probably can't be helped. I don't know too much about script-writing or Japanese.
Overall Rating: 12/20
To be honest, I don't really have a favourite quote. Nothing that was said really stuck with me, maybe because I was too busy trying to figure out the story.
There really isn't much more to be said about the series. I do want to talk a little about the whole Webtoon thing that I mentioned before, though.
Obviously, anyone who is able to put so much dedication and talent into a piece of work deserves commendation; I would struggle to draw an anime eye, let alone a full fight scene with detailed backgrounds and accurate lighting. But for some reason, I decided to lower my expectations for this series because it was based on a Webtoon. Maybe it's because I've read a couple of pretty weird Webtoons, but I often equate them to doujins or fan fictions.
Most of the faults of this series are probably due to timing stuff: I don't know how many Webtoon chapters were adapted into the anime, but I've heard that it was a lot, and I learned from the Toaru series that, no matter how good the source material is, studios will prioritise budget and timing over quality of the adaptation if the material is long. To be frank, I'm not willing to read the Webtoon, as I have far too much stuff on my hands to do so, but I've heard that it's better.
But I doubt reading it would change my disappointment after expecting a simple tournament arc and getting some kind of BDSM cult, God power, Japanese presidential candidate story.
Altogether, I feel like this series could have been really good. Throughout its course, I've wanted it to be good, and I was constantly waiting for it to get good, but the good part never came. I hold out hope for some kind of sequel where things a) make sense, and b) are more interesting. But until then, my view of The God of High School remains utterly mediocre.
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