Thursday, March 28, 2024
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The God of High School Anime: First Attack!

Is GoH shaping up to be the new GoA (God of Anime)? So far, it very well seems so!

Greetings everyone! We are now in the month of July during a very interesting year. As such, I hope everyone is enjoying their Summer the best they can regardless! With the rather limited season for this year, I have to say that the Crunchyroll original, God of High School, stands out quite a bit for me.

The God of High School is an anime based off the popular South Korean webtoon of the same name. When I first heard about this anime, I saw animated gifs and pictures of a group of high schoolers beating the crap out of each other. I was instantly hooked on this idea.

The whole idea of “high-schoolers engaging in martial-arts with each other” serves as a niche, yet timeless, genre that often doesn’t get touched upon. When I think of series that fit this bill, I think of the classics such as Tenjho Tenge and Ikki Tousen. Both anime were examples of high school fighting other high schoolers because either they simply hate the assholes, like the former, or because of destiny via their ancestors, like the latter. 

Maybe one day we’ll see a complete Tenjho Tenge anime. I won’t hold my breath.

In the mid-2000s, anime such as these had their charm about them. Sure they were filled to the brim with fan-service, don’t get me wrong, but they captured the utilization of martial arts. Sadly, Tenjo Tenge was one of several series who suffered the fate of the “anime-finishing-before-the-manga.” While Ikki Tousen is surprisingly still ongoing, it’s honestly a perverted shell of its former self. Which, in all honesty, is my own opinion about it! I still love me some Ikki Tousen and Shimei Ryoumu as much as the next niche fan of the series. It’s simply not scratching the itch I never knew I had.

I mean, she’s even on one of my older arcade sticks!

When news got around about the anime adaptation of this Korean webtoon, I had to do the one thing I hadn’t done in a very long time. Watch an anime. Seriously, the last anime I’ve seen was Hi-Score Girl and so many people have already discussed that show, so I’ll just simply say; Watch it.

So, with all of that out of the way, here are my first impressions of God of High School

When I first started watching, I was expecting an anime that took itself seriously. A bunch of high schoolers are all attending this cool fighting tournament worldwide with preliminaries held in Seoul. Winner gets to have their wish come true.

That last bit instantly caused my skin to crawl involuntarily because it reminded me of this lovely piece of anime. This was another anime where it centered around high schoolers fighting to have their wish granted. The ending to this anime, however, was the biggest shock and swerve I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life of watching anime. To this day this is my most hated anime, but, please give Master of Martial Hearts a watch. It’s something to experience and what an experience it was.

A classic loaded with ecchi and bulls–t. I rarely curse too lol.

We’re introduced to our main character; Jin Mo-Ri. Jin covers almost every single main character trait within the first five minutes of his introduction. Late for the tournament? Check. Incredibly heroic? Check. An actual goofball? Check. The unique star-shaped eyes are just the cherry on top.

A good three-quarters of the episode involves him chasing a motorcyclist, on a bicycle, to reclaim an old woman’s purse full of money that the thief stole. Why? Because why not. Shortly after, we meet Yu Mi-Ra, who has an entire karate team simp for her.

Jin and Yu eventually meet each other in what is possibly one of the most hilarious introduction sequences I’ve seen in an anime. He crashes into her on accident while chasing after the thief, which in turn causes her to join him chasing after the same thief by riding on Jin’s shoulder. She then swats at the thief with the wooden sword like this was Road Rash.

Lastly we meet our final introduced protagonist, Han Dae-Wi. Of these three, he’s easily the most stoic and reserved of the bunch. While all of this chaos is happening, he simply strolls on by like “This is just another day in Seoul for me.”

Eventually he catches up to the thief (on foot???) and sends him flying in reverse with a single punch.

This was just the first episode. We didn’t even reach the fighting arena yet and an entire Durarara-esque sequence played out perfectly.

Clealy he learned from the best here.

When the actual fighting does start, it shifts to a small showcase of the fluidity of the animations through some of the characters. One character utilizes Chinese martial arts while another uses pro-wrestling. As everyone quickly learns, everything is permitted, including weapons.

Without spoiling the end, a new challenger enters the arena and he takes out the remaining competitors with ease like a raid boss. However, any hint of seriousness and urgency is thrown out of the window as the scene transitions fluidly to a comedic double-entendre joke that fans of Gintama would love and accept with open arms.

This was what surprised me. I came into this expecting action with a splash of fan-service as I am used to with anime such as this. You get that, plus an anime that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There were quite a lot of slapstick comedy cues in the chase sequence alone, which didn’t let itself up even when things got serious during combat.

Overall I’ll give this anime a watch, just to see how things turn out. I’m quite excited! 

Check it out on Crunchyroll each Monday morning to start your day!

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