With its second episode, “renewal/soul,” we get something of an idea of what The God of High School might look like going forward. The bad news is that the show doesn’t seem to entirely understand its own strengths. The good news, conversely, is that when it does get a handle on them, we get some really solid stuff. Last week, I said that The God of High School‘s premise presented an interesting writing challenge. In “renewal/soul” we see how it might handle that in the weeks to come.
One Moonlit Evening
One way is to directly interrogate the characters’ motives for participating in something like this in the first place. A scene early on in the episode has each of our three protagonists directly state why they’re fighting. All three have fairly stock shonen motivations. Jin simply wants to get stronger. Hant wants money–an ill sibling or something similar is implied–and Yoo wants to pass on her family’s Moonlight Sword Style to a suitable heir. This whole scene is interesting but also a bit of a mixed bag.
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Jin and friends don’t do anything here to grow out of the standard tropes for the genre, and perhaps it’s a bit much to expect that this early on, but it is noticeable. In particular, there’s a rather dull exchange where Jin calls Yoo a “gorilla” (referring to her great strength) and is then slapped and called a “monkey” in turn. It might uncomfortably remind viewers of Fire Force. A series that also had a running gag about essentially this exact thing. My hope is that The God of High School simply doesn’t bring it up again, but I suppose time will tell.
Kick, Punch
Elsewhere, the part of “renewal/soul” that actually involves fights is more positive. We don’t get any full fights involving the main characters unfortunately. Their brief victories in the titular tournament are generally given only a cut apiece. The real fight here is actually between Gang Manseok, the Taekwondo practitioner with his arms tied up we met last episode and a Tai Chi master, Go Gamdo.
The God of High School‘s decision here is an odd one. Having a fight between two characters we don’t know a lot about is fine. But making it the first full fight of the series is peculiar. “renewal/soul” does engage in a classic bit of fists-first character-building here. As the fight goes on we see flashbacks of the trauma that helped mould Gang into who he is, making him just the slightest bit sympathetic even as he goes way too far in fighting Go. The fight itself is, of course, quite well done. If this is what The God of High School does from here, it’ll be hard to complain too much.
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Interference
And really there’s not a lot to the episode other than that. Jin interferes in the fight between Gang and Go (much hay is made of the fact that Gang’s style of Taekwondo is very different from Jin’s and involves a lot of what might be considered dirty tricks), and is accosted by the tournament organizers. Where do we go from here? It’s hard to say, but for now, The God of High School remains worth following.
Until next time, The God of High School fans.
Catch up on our The God of High School coverage here!
- MAGIA RECORD Season Finale Recap: (S02E08) You’re Not Strong - September 25, 2021
- MAGIA RECORD Recap: (S02E07) You Don’t Know Anything - September 11, 2021
- MAGIA RECORD Recap: (S02E06) This Is Something Only I Can Do - September 4, 2021
