The God of High School

I have already written regarding my criticisms of The God of High School in this discussion threads and in my journal, however, for the record, I shall write this review. This anime series is ridiculously paced! It makes no sense and it is an atrocity to try and cram over one hundred chapters of a manga series into a thirteen-episode anime series, it is going to inevitably suffer from it. At first, I did not mind it so much, I figured it was just going along as it should and dismissed the criticisms from people who had read the original about how there was a lack of motivation for some of the supporting characters. Did I really need to know the philosophy behind the fight scenes? Did I really need to know the American wrestler’s back-story? If these characters did not have an important role further on in the story, then I could not have given a flying shit! However, it started to really irritate me, for example, that there are no training scenes. Characters suddenly started using new powerful abilities, and they explained how they got them either with one sentence along the lines of "Oh yeah, I can do that now", or there is an all-too-brief flashback where they showed how the character got it. What I thought was lacking though was a demonstration of how the characters came by their powers. I think that training scenes, as boring as they are, are meaningful precisely because they give the audience a chance to see character development and the acquisition of their new abilities, and that it does not just come out of nowhere. In the second half of the season, new important characters were introduced, and this is where the screenwriters realized they needed to give them some back-story and depth because you needed to understand where these opponents are coming from. It was a short anime series, however, it was enough for me to understand the characters and their relationships at least partially. Then after that the storytelling dismissed a lot of changes and explanations of some important facts with phrases like - "Well yeah, that is just how it is!" which was inadequate. There is a big plot twist in the last third of the season, and I felt it was like at the end of Mortal Kombat when the gates to another dimension opened and then some insane shit started happening which I struggled to follow (= Mortal Kombat: Annihilation). The explanations of what was actually going on were, as always, scant, in the form of a few sentences... I understood that the anime series draws a lot from Eastern mythology, I recognized the nine-tailed fox (I am familiar with Naruto), The Monkey King (because I had recently seen that character in one of the worst shows ever - The New Legends of Monkey), and many other characters more-than-familiar to me. On the other hand, I took everything with a pinch of salt, thinking I should have read the original to have been able to properly appreciate the clusterfuck that was going on. However, despite all that, what I admired throughout this anime series was how good the fight scenes were. MAPPA animation studio pulls off a hench flex with the opening, showing that they have no problem being able to produce characters with seamless fluid movements during long fight sequences. Sometimes something that resembles calligraphy was used effectively and looked pretty stylish. Of course, they then had to go and use CGI to help things along, which let it down and did not look that great. In general, I would say the fight scenes are the main thing that makes this anime series worth watching, despite the fact that three-quarters of the show is just a martial arts tournament (again, kind of like Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter...). The portrayal of the main characters was pretty good considering they managed it in such a short space of time. I had no problem connecting with them, finding their camaraderie and how it came together quite believable, and I actually found the main trio quite endearing. So, what is The God of High School? It is a frantically paced and pretty action anime series, with a chaotic story that suffers from a lack of exposition. I enjoyed watching the fight scenes, even though on the whole the plot was really confusing so I do not really know if I want to see what happens next if it will continue at this frantic pace because I am still trying to digest what happened during this season (although I think I understand most of it now). 6.4/10. (2020.09.29) (kevesebbet) (több)