It’s time to talk about one of the greatest webtoons of all time! It’s second only to Tower of God and it was real nice to have the two as rivals for a long time. This series eventually ended though and Tower of God looks like it’s got enough energy left in the tank for at least another 10 years. So I guess this one won’t be taking the top spot but it is still an elite title. There are just so many great fights here and the artwork is fantastic. In terms of power levels I don’t think any Webtoon will ever pass this one. It just got so crazy in a good way. It was really an experience reading through this one.
The series starts off with several characters being invited to the God of Highschool tournament. It’s a big tournament to find out who the strongest fighter is. Naturally everyone wants in on this because it’s a huge opportunity to fight for pride, money, or just about anything really. The world will really open up to you if you are able to win the whole thing so you can’t let an opportunity like this slip you by. The main character of this story is Mori Jin. (The way they say the names it can be hard to tell which is the first name and the last name at times but either way you’ll know who I’m talking about) He loves fighting so this is right up his alley. Maybe he will even get to make some friends as he goes through the matches.
The first arc is really all about the qualifiers to actually make it to the world stage. As you can probably guess, it’s a lot of wins in order to even make it that far which is why this takes up the entire anime. You’ve got multiple rounds and of course this is also where you get to meet the main characters and learn a lot about them. It’s an extremely important intro and even within this arc you have several mini arcs like a wedding, the first battle with the supernatural, etc. This is a very busy series and I can assure you that it only gets busier as the series goes on. You won’t be finding much downtime here but of course that’s just the way that I like it!
As the main character is Mori Jin we will talk about him first. This guy is based on the same origins as Goku so it’s pretty fun to see the similarities. Mori loves fighting and having a good time. He’s generally a pretty easygoing guy who isn’t complicated. Mori says what is on his mind and just keeps it moving from there. He is someone you can easily respect and also someone that you can really count on when the chips are down. There is a whole lot to the guy. As the series goes on we learn more and more about him. There are tons of twists about his true character and for fans who read the original legend, it’s fun to see all of the references. It’s played a lot closer to the original source material than Goku ever was.
As the series goes on they incorporate more and more of the legend and Mori’s character gains more and more depth. This does unfortunately mean he has to be reset quite a few times in connection with the legend. It’s a series where I highly recommend reading the comments after each chapter because it adds a whole lot of context and depth to each scene. This is one of those series that won’t really spoon feed you the information. You either know it or you don’t and you will get left behind. There are really no negatives to be had with the character though, he is an amazing lead and a complete credit to the series.
Then we have Mira as the main heroine. As the series goes on there are a few other characters who try to steal that slot but nobody ever quite comes close to her. She has a really good character arc as she initially starts off as the weakest of the trio. She loses a number of fights and has low confidence but this gradually changes as she fights more and gains experience. Mira consistently gets stronger as the series goes on and she is an absolute top tier threat by the end. It was always fun waiting to see the big 3 team up again as the series went further and further. Since Daewi and Mori are always super focused on the fighting, she helps keep them grounded when there needs to be time for some emotion.
Finally Daewi wraps up the main trio. He has a bit of a rough start as his friend gets injured and so he really goes all out against Mira. In the show especially they made a big deal about how violent he was but this part I never fully understood because it was a tournament match. All of his attacks were well within parameters and Mira had no complaints about this either. Sure, in a normal situation he may have gone easy on her but that would have probably just been plain insulting. So I didn’t have a problem there. As the series goes on Daewi does make some really questionable decisions though.
Aside from Mori who tends to see things in a black and white view, most of the other characters get corrupted and have to sacrifice part of their morals. So I didn’t agree with some stuff here but for the most part Daewi was doing his best to help stop the villains and save the world. He also gained quite a lot of power by the end of the series and is one of the only characters who is really a main character in every part of the series. It was always fun to have him around.
Go Gamdo is one of the first tournament fighters to show up and unfortunately for this guy he is really just used for hype. He is dismantled rather easily and unfortunately for him he had to fight a particularly brutal opponent. It’s why you should really only enter tournaments like this if you are absolutely crazy because there’s always one jerk who’s going to try and torture you there. I give Go props for not giving up right away but he definitely needed more experience.
Ma Miseon is another early tournament fighter and she was pretty fun. What I really appreciated about her is that she was a strong fighter who had a good honor code. She would stay in there and fight fair all the way to the end. That’s something I can really respect and her fighting style was fun to watch. She may not have gotten to appear a whole lot in the series but she did end up being memorable as a result.
Baek Gang is one of those characters who started out really minor but really got big by the end. Uma helped keep him relevant for most of the series. In a way he started to even take over Ilpyo’s role as the strategist. His fighting style is fairly simple but effective and he has a good share of emotional moments. He even gets to use Charyeok. Wait, what is Charyeok you ask? The most underdeveloped power system you can think of. It barely even matters to be honest so I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t dislike it or anything as it leads to some good twists but I feel like it didn’t have much of a reason to exist by the end. You could skip it and nothing really changes about the series. At least nothing significant except that it is used as good foreshadowing. So I guess I’m sort of talking both ways here. Hmmmmmm, okay in the end I suppose it’s good that we have it here…I guess. It is a way to have some good cameos from historical figures and everything.
Byeon is one of those characters who is technically really strong but had the unfortunate luck of having to fight Mori Jin. So he’s basically used as a hype tool although I can appreciate that he made it pretty far in the tournament. The guy clearly has skills even if he was doomed from the start. He seemed like a likable guy for while he was around.
Ilpyo Park is one of those characters who started out as an extremely awesome character but got a little dicey from there. He made for a super good rival with a terrific backstory who helped Mori get better. He stole the show in all of his scenes in season 1. Unfortunately after a point he became like Shikamaru where he was willing to get super corrupt and go through with some bad plans. I know we had a ton of twists with the guy but I still felt like he went way too far the whole time. Also he didn’t keep up with the power creep as well as you would expect and really stopped doing things early on. I would have preferred he got less of a role if it meant he could have been less of a yes man though. He sort of got stuck with the worst of both worlds the way that it all turned out.
Seungah was a good supporting character and she definitely did a good job of following Ilpyo’s orders. She is a strong fighter in her own right which is how she was even able to execute on his plans. Her role isn’t very large but she is an earnest fighter and it was fun to have her around. She definitely had a rough time of things during the series but still didn’t give up. Ma Bora is a fighter who showed up early on but didn’t do as much as you would expect. Her sheer physical abilities are impressive but she doesn’t have a lot going on for her beyond that. I’d say she entered in one of those awkward spots where she was really strong at first but couldn’t keep up with the power creep and ultimately got overshadowed before she could show up for more fights. Not really my kind of character though so I didn’t miss her much.
Taek Jegal is the first really serious villain in the series and he was a lot of fun to have around. Yeah he’s basically your classic kind of villain and the guy has no honor code. That said, he has a cool design and his shark abilities are absolutely brutal. The guy is obsessed with power and continues to hone his skills a whole lot. He may have gotten power creeped rather quick but while he was in the spotlight you were always guaranteed a good time. He had a lot of aura and it’s always important for your first big villain to be memorable like this so I was really satisfied.
Gang is another one of the early villains to show up but he’s not nearly as impressive. Basically the guy is super petty and one of those bully type characters who likes picking on the weak. Once it’s time to fight a strong opponent he breaks down and it’s all over for him. I was surprised when he returned at one point but he never really made it to the top of the verse. There’s nothing to really like about him either. He’s just an obstacle for Jin to take down.
Jugok is a character who got a little too desperate and it cost him. He needed to be stronger in order to protect his family and his friends so he effectively sold out his soul and that still wasn’t enough. I suppose that touches into the darker side of any universe where there are massive power imbalances. The depressing thought here is that Jugok could train for the rest of his life or even 1000 years and never come close to the rest of the characters. He’s not a god or demon so he just can’t bridge that gap. Replicating the steps that someone like Mujin Park took would also likely be impossible. So you feel bad for the guy when he starts to lose everything but there isn’t much that can be done for him.
Hyangdan is just one of many characters who gets a raw deal as a result of this. It’s why there is always so much tension and characters wanting to murder each other here. The villains are absolutely ruthless the whole time. If you get in the way then you will be destroyed, straight up that’s how it goes. Jeon was at least a more powerful character who was able to indirectly get some revenge. As one of the Six (That group gets a ton of hype but it’s not always earned) he has a great amount of magical ability. I think he referred to it more as alchemy but the conversions let him summon giant rockets and things like that. The fact that he could stand up against angels and everything showed off his power well. I would have liked some more direct revenge but yeah this was a good character.
One team that felt a bit like a waste of time was Jang, Jin, and Na. Basically one of these characters was a dropout from ages ago so he decides to get back into high school. People mocked him for a while but he never took it to heart. Jang ends up falling in love with him over this but the age gap is way too crazy for that to ever work out. They get the emotional moments and everything but this group was absolutely doomed from the start. You knew from the jump they would never be relevant either which is why it’s borderline a waste of time. You can’t win with all of the teams of course but yeah I didn’t miss this group when they were gone.
Gwum is one of those characters who is a victim of always fighting powerful opponents. The guy is a beast in his own right but is just completely dominated when it counts. I liked the confidence at least and he grew on me a little bit but just not enough in the end. There are so many characters in the series that you have to be more than decent to really stand out. He’s yet another character where just one more fight could have helped to push him over the top. Marin Lee is one of those random villains who is so petty and off putting that it’s almost funny. He uses beach tanning cream to keep opponents from hitting him. I mean it’s crazy silly but it actually works so I guess I have to respect the hustle here. It would have been nice if he could have been a little stronger and more competent though. Give him more to do beyond just being a random villain to be taken down you know? His whole group were basically scrubs though and cheap shots and hostages were the only things that kept them in the game for a while there.
This pretty much wraps up all of the big characters from that opening arc. From this point on the cast would only continue to expand more and more as the series went on. The story had 6 main sagas, each one being fairly long considering that the series had over 500 chapters. I’ll go into some of the later characters now but considering the tournament style of the series there are also a bunch of characters that are basically one shots and never got big. Others are fairly big but it’s been long enough where I don’t fully remember them. It’s definitely the kind of series that has tons and tons of replay value whenever you want to read it. It’s what I love about a long series like this. The better it is, the more replay value it gets automatically. Now lets jump into some of these characters:
Mori Hui is probably the most tragic character in the series. You knew all along how his character had to end but he was just so awesome the whole time. The series does a great job of making you real attached to him all the way through. I won’t say he is higher than Mori Jin or anything like that but you could sympathize with him more. It’s hard knowing that your existence is really just that of a replacement. In a lot of ways he reminded me of Roxas from Kingdom Hearts. Through it all though, no matter how many times things got tough or discouraging, he never gave up. Mori Hui fought for his friends all the way through. I’d definitely like to see him return some day in a sequel series or something. This series has so many different magic abilities and supernatural elements that you can’t tell me it’s impossible.
Dante is definitely one of the big standout villains who came in later on. He felt like a hero in the way that he would adapt and get stronger after every single fight. He was never static and wouldn’t just stay at the same level. So he would lose and keep on coming back. It was done in a really effective way so I never felt like he had lost all of his hype or anything. Gaining more and more strength was just how he fought and it’s a copy style like Amazo. The guy also has a great design which never hurts.
There’s not a lot to say about the 3 America fighters: With Hawk, J Doggy, and Anna but I did like that they were going for a full Supergirl homage with the last one. They each represented different parts of America and I always love how we’re portrayed in any foreign media. They really have a very specific view of us that’s for sure. The President showing up in the first chapter with the nukes was absolutely brilliant. As long as you can have fun with this kind of thing then it’s a blast and I always like to have good fun.
In general I’m not going into depth with most of the global fighters but it is pretty fun. More so than the characters, it’s fun to see how each country fights. I feel like the author actually put in a good amount of work to try and make every country authentic to their fighting style. It is a tournament so naturally a lot of countries do lose in round 1 but that was inevitable. I feel like the author treated them all fairly. Perhaps there are a lot of stereotypes in there but that’s a way to easily recognize each country.
Mori Dan is a really good character. There is some extra context to this guy for sure but the main thing you have to know is that he loves a good fight but is very resourceful and clever. He’s good at not picking fights that he can’t win while at the same time still stepping in if anyone is being too shady. It can be a bit annoying seeing some more powerful fighters trying to mess with him the whole time but Dan never backs down and only continues to get stronger. I tend to be on his side for pretty much every situation.
Then we have Dean who basically ends up being his rival. Dean looks real impressive all things considered. The guy starts out as basically a nobody but keeps on polishing his skills until he’s a top threat, at least for the portion of the series that he was in. He helped to keep Dan sharp all of the time. Unfortunately Dean would usually be on the wrong side of every debate which did not help him out at all. I would usually lose quite a bit of respect for that guy.
All of the original judges tend to be pretty fun. Judge O had a cool dragon even if it didn’t get a whole lot of screentime. Judge P was one of the only people who could actually talk to Mujin Park openly without fear or having to mince words. They had a good dynamic there even if Mujin often looked pretty bad by the end of the scene. The guy just couldn’t be honest with himself all the way to the end.
Judge Q is definitely one of the guys to get the biggest role here. His cards were fun and the guy was always looking pretty good. I would say he never struck me as being quite as strong as the story wanted you to believe but to make up for this he did get several super forms. They at least helped to put him in the conversation more than he would have been otherwise. The guy also had a lot of confidence the whole time which I always like to see in a character.
The real standout hit was definitely Judge R though. His powers were absolutely crazy by the end and he had some good plans. Obviously he is rather insane like a lot of the other villains but he would really flaunt this and the way he went about his goals was good. He was definitely extremely impressive when he first showed up even if he would eventually get surpassed as most characters do.
All right Mujin Park is one of the central figures of the series and easily one of the coolest characters of the series. He made for a super excellent villain all the way as he just kept on grabbing power up after power up. It was super impressive and one of the things I liked about him is his versatility and resistance. At some points he had absolutely no shot to do anything and he knew it so the guy would just buy his time. He wouldn’t worry about anything until the time was right. He would team up with Mori and anyone else as needed. His ultimate goal was to protect humanity and while this had some holes poked into it by Mori and the others over time, it was a good goal at its core. Humanity could easily be wiped out with all of these powerful threats around.
He’s a villain through and through with no real wiggle room there. You absolutely can’t make any kind of case for him being a hero or even an anti hero. He wouldn’t even dispute that. The whole idea is that he is being a complete villain in order to unite everyone. Mujin Park believes that only an extreme route like this will allow the humans to survive and the series makes some compelling points in his favor. Ragnarok is a huge one for example as the gods show up and start murdering humans in the millions in only a few short hours. Humanity was completely defenseless without Mori Jin showing up to help. The thing is, it’s hard to just have one hero be the only thing standing between you and complete obliteration. So Mujin Park wanted to eradicate all non humans and at the same time do whatever he could to make humans perfect. This involved a lot of really dangerous experiments and unethical actions. His origin story also ties into this.
In a way it’s an inspiring story about how a normal human literally surpassed all of the gods due to his own creativity and determination. It’s an absolutely insane feat and I don’t think anyone else has even come close to what he pulled off here. So he is a villain to be sure but you can definitely admire the strategy that went into this. It’s why even Mori Jin respected the guy a lot even after he nearly murdered the hero’s friends like 20 times in a row. There’s just a big difference between respecting someone and actually agreeing with what they do. You want to be careful about how you do that though because people who can’t handle nuance may come at you real quick.
Kim Ungnyeo was a fun mentor figure. Unfortunately due to the way her powers work she doesn’t get to appear as much as I would have liked. In her true form she could definitely deal quite a lot of damage but I suppose the series had no shortage of top fighters. Na was another mentor type figure who didn’t get too many fights. He definitely helped Mori get stronger though so he did his job. You know that he could fight really well as one of the Six even if he wasn’t one of the main starring roles though. Seo wasn’t too remarkable though. He was good for his connections and intel. He could get a whole lot of people to rise up for a fight but on his own I never thought he was all that.
My favorite member of the Six was definitely Kim Dooshik. This guy was always ready for a fight and had a ton of guts. He definitely would not be hiding behind anybody or anything like that. Whenever he was on screen he was going to be taking names. There was one fight in particular later on where he was clearly weaker than his opponent but he just kept on getting up over and over which was really impressive. Definitely a good way to show how determination is key here.
Taejin gets a ton of hype when he shows up. After all, he’s related to Mori and this guy has insane amounts of power even without a summoned spirit or being part god. He just relies on natural strength and that kind of character is always a lot of fun in any medium. The more gimmicks and supernatural powers you have, the more it becomes easy to really celebrate a character who is just fighting on his own and still doing well. It’s just really impressive and speaks to his absolute power. I would have liked him to have done more though. The amount of hype he gets from his first appearance is impressive to be sure but it’s maybe a bit overplayed. By the 20th time we see it referenced, you feel like you just get it already and want the whole thing to move on. I would have liked even just one more big fight for him.
The King is one of those guys who may be old but he’s still a super strong fighter. The guy absolutely mastered all of the various elements to the point where even the more powerful fighters had to respect him. He stayed relevant for a very long time. I may not love him as a villain but I did love the moveset. So when a certain character became the next king I was definitely stoked because we got to see the attacks used in a more dynamic way. Yeah that was definitely a lot of fun!
Sujin Lee is a very interesting character. She was absolutely awesome for when she first showed up and was a super threat for an entire season. She gave Mori some killer fights and was an amazing rival. Then out of the blue she put on a ton of weight and became more of a comic relief character. It was easily one of the most disgraceful things I’ve seen happen to a character. I thought they couldn’t be serious but she never recovered her former hype. Instead she would talk about food and get wrecked. This kind of plot is never fun to me. Do that to one of the lame characters but not the cool rival! So even though she fell off rather hard, I remember her good moments very fondly.
Then we have Mandeok Sang who was like a weaker version of Mujin Park. One thing I appreciated about this guy is that he kept on returning over and over again. He was extremely persistent and actually kept up with the power levels for a while before he was ultimately shut down. So I give him massive respect and props there. It would have been nice if his goals were a little better though. It felt like he wasn’t truly thinking for himself and was more of a puppet by the end. It weakens the whole premise of his group to be honest but I did enjoy having him around as a wild card. He stayed relevant for a very long while.
Xiaochen is a pretty fun villain who really got a super big role as the series went on. Not only was she really powerful but she was a loyal friend. She was doomed to a large extent because she fell for guy who already liked someone else though. Still, she remained chipper the whole time and never let herself get down about anything. She’s one of those side characters who really made a name for herself despite the smaller screen time.
Drake is a character who does better than I would have really guessed. He’s introduced as what I can only call a two bit villain the whole time but surprisingly he does some real damage. With a last name like McDonald it’s easy to poke fun at him as well but I suppose in the end it’s undeserved. Still, I never quite ended up liking the guy. He’s just not my kind of character I suppose.
Saturn is a lot more fun although you may overrate her abilities based on the title. Most of the other planetary characters are incredibly powerful but she just happens to have the name and is a normal villain. She’s definitely got a mean side and really starts cursing at random points once she is done eating. It’s an amusing gimmick and also one that makes her memorable so it was definitely smart of the series to do this to keep her relevant the whole time.
Axley was the most interesting of the villain trio but as bad luck would have it, he was also the one with the smallest role. It’s a shame because he had a great intro and the most interesting abilities so I wanted to see him use more of those. He’s consistently around but never really the focus if that makes sense. I still liked the character though.
Dan Ahan was a really good supporting character. She’s not a big fighter like most of the cast but she really provides good help to Dan the whole time. I don’t really care for how the series ended her character because it went in a really weird direction but beyond that she was solid. There aren’t a whole lot of human characters who left a mark on the series so that was already impressive.
Mori Jung is another rather tragic character. In some ways you could say he is even more tragic than Hui because they have similar character arcs but this guy had no kind of support network to help him out. So he ended up really being all alone which sucks. The guy is strong and held himself together well but ultimately was not in a good spot from the beginning. I liked the guy, he made for a good wild card.
Uma is a character who got introduced fairly late into the series but was a lot of fun. Her power level was just high enough to stay relevant even as the series started to approach the end. She ends up doing a lot more than I would have expected, especially considering that the rest of the fighters in her group didn’t get to do much at all. It’s always good to have at least one member repping a group pretty well though so she definitely did good there. When Uma shows up you always know somebody is about to get clubbed to death.
It’s really telling just how crazy the series is when you have Satan showing up as one of the more hype characters. I remember people cheering in the comments when Satan had his big return. People were stoked to see him and he ended up being the big ray of hope for the heroes. It certainly underscores how fierce the new opponent was. God of Highschool loves to really increase the power ceiling and what better way than by having a villain absolutely dumpster the previous strongest in the verse right? Get used to it because this happens a whole lot. Yes, the power levels go so crazy here that I often have power level issues with the series. It almost goes without saying but yeah whenever one of the old characters shows up and takes a hit from these guys, they should be dead instantly. That’s just common sense imo. Satan is unironically a pretty fun character here though. He just loves having a good fight and constantly evolves as he fights. His fighting style is crazy and his battle with Mori is still one of the best in the series. I may even have that as the absolute best fight in all of God of Highschool to be honest. The name of the series gets funnier and funnier as the power levels go higher and higher to be honest.
Odin’s character here was definitely a lot different than you might have expected going in. For starters he seems more like a complete demon than one of the gods. The guy is absolutely insane much like all of the other cosmic characters in this series. You really can’t trust any of them but he does stay as one of the top threats throughout the series. At no point does he get power cliffed too hard. I suppose excluding the final battle of the series which power cliffs everybody by a wide margin. You can’t really count the final fight in these things as they always make sure to go all out.
Beelzebub is another real powerful guy but lets talk about Zeus. One of the fun things about Zeus is that he’s easily one of the more emotional villains. This guy absolutely hates humans and isn’t afraid to say it. He wants to put the absolute fear of god into them and goes around murdering people like crazy. Out of all the gods this is probably the one that you want to fight the least. It’s also unfortunate for the heroes that he is easily one of the strongest as well. So if you go up against him, odds are that you are not going to be walking away. He is just going to decimate the competition.
Michael is another one of those really strong cosmic beings and naturally he’s rather twisted the whole time. It was fun seeing him show up even if by this point he was quickly getting surpassed by the others. The guy loves his cheap shots and is definitely not the type to play fair. He has a killer design though which really helps to keep him memorable the whole time compared to the other fighters like Uriel.
Tathagata is one of those villains that was hyped up for a crazy long amount of time so you were really looking forward to seeing him get some action. His power levels are also crazy high. It’s no exaggeration to say that this guy could solo many different manga and anime verses. The series does not hold back with him at all and that’s part of what makes the fight so much fun. There is also this constant back and forth with him and Mujin Park on who the actual final boss is. They keep you guessing all the way to the end with both characters getting massive amounts of hype. You will have to read the series to see who ends up getting that spot though.
Okay so that was a lot of story and a lot of characters! Definitely feels like you went through a full adventure there and I can assure you that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Read the whole series yourself to really see all of the characters and events. When you’ve got hundreds and hundreds of chapters like this series does, you can see how it’s easy to squeeze a ton of content in here. The series definitely had its low moments as well but that’s where the length really comes in. There are scenes and even arcs here that could have doomed a lesser title down to a 2 or worse.
When this series fell into a slump, trust me when I say it was a huge one. Definitely like nothing I had ever seen before or at least something only in very rare circumstances. In a series this long, you’re not surprised to see it making all kinds of mistakes. That’s just bound to happen to pretty much any title of this size. You had babies getting murdered, some animal violence, and generally a lot of terror. The series goes out of its way to show that when the villains win, the universe really goes to a bad spot. Even when the heroes are winning, there is usually something bad happening. The main important thing is that the positives outweigh the negatives for the series though and they definitely do here. The sheer hype from each of the fights and arcs is just insanely impressive to the point where it’s just hard to top.
The final fight went on for months and the series even throws a few fakeouts in there. There were different points throughout the series where it felt like the whole thing was ending, only for a whole new arc to start. I will admit that sometimes this could feel like a bit of a waste with certain plot elements being incredibly overdone, but deep down I was just happy to see the series continuing to go on. As long as you don’t mind Mori getting nerfed a whole lot throughout the series then you should be good. Also, I do get why you would want to nerf him at times because otherwise it would be hard to write around his power. The guy really does Goku proud by the end of this.
The art is also really solid. It’s definitely not as detailed as something like Solo Leveling but it makes up for this with incredible fighting choreography. The battles all look amazing and you can really follow the movements. Each battle is something to be taken real seriously and because the series has such a global element to most of its plots it is nice to see the different fighting styles go up against each other. You’ve got karate, taekwondo, etc. They all get their shine which I appreciate. Of course Taekwondo tends to look the best since that’s what Mori uses but that’s to be expected. He’s the best in the business after all.
I also really like how the series changes backgrounds a lot. What I mean by that is at first you have people fighting within a stadium, then they’re jumping through the city having fights outside, finally you have battles in outer space. With the exception of Mori Jin, you tend to feel the power levels gradually rising as the series goes on. It also rises by enough of a sizable difference where it’s fun to compare the past with the current. The series really has a good balance there. Now as a whole there are a ton of power level complaints I would have. As the series gets higher and higher this is yet another inevitable thing to an extent. Nothing that would hurt the score but yeah I was skeptical for a lot of different outcomes.
One of the big debates/topics that keeps coming up in the series is about which side is truly good though. You have 3 main groups: The humans, The gods, and the demons. You’d think this should be pretty straight forward but it’s tough. The humans for example have tons of villains all over the place. We’re talking domestic terrorism, psychopaths, mass murderers, etc. Basically the humanity you’ve all grown up with. The series is not subtle about its critique of humanity and how they will always be starting new wars and are ungrateful. No matter how many times Mori saves them, they continue to try and hunt him. Additionally, humans are particularly cruel with their experiments. When they capture a god or a demon, it’s usually a fate worst than death.
Then you have the demons led by Satan…obviously they’re pretty evil. They tend to just murder everybody so it’s not as dark as humanity. At the same time, survival of the fittest is the only way they have ever known how to live. They all keep murdering each other until they rise to the top. They have to keep their strength up or they will be destroyed by the gods or humans. I wouldn’t say they ever get sympathetic though, at the end of the day they are probably the worst of the 3…maybe. I would rather get caught by a demon than the others as my death would at least be quick but there really aren’t any heroic ones.
Then you have the gods, well they really don’t care about anything except their own greatness. They like hunting humans for sport and pick a lot of the fights. Like the demons there don’t seem to really be any heroic ones. They’re just perpetually bored and their idea of a good time is just murdering the various humans and causing a lot of problems. So in some ways you could say they’re the worst because a lot of the issues are their fault. Since Mori Jin basically represents all 3 forms at one point or another, he gets to make nice with some humans and demons (Not really any of the gods though tbh) which leads to some interesting plot points.
All in all, I thought the series did an excellent job with the world building here. After all, no group is ever purely good when it becomes large enough. There will inevitably be some traitors within or people who just get tempted by the dark side. These people are often very motivated to keep moving up the ranks while the kind ones get content. That happens again and again here so you really can’t trust anyone in the series. We even get the Superman type debate here.
Mujin Park feels like Mori can’t be trusted because he’s just too powerful. As the series goes on Mori can throw entire planets. He could eliminate Earth if he has a bad dream and gets up the wrong way. With that kind of power, Mujin feels like there can never be peace unless they are all terminated. He’s big on the whole “Earth is for Earthlings” thing. Ultimately he becomes a complete dictator as you can probably guess but he made for a very compelling villain. I tend to love it when villains really have a whole misguided sense of justice like this. You can root against them while totally getting how they came to this spot. He was really a true highlight in the series.
The series had so many “endings” as things kept ramping up again that it’s hard to say which would have been the best one. I don’t love the actual ending we got because unfortunately I would say they chose the wrong person to be with Mori in the end. It doesn’t really work even when you look at it in the best interpretation. Still, the characters mostly all got closure so the series definitely has that going for it. You can’t say that it was rushed, I remember a bunch of people kept begging for the series to be over for months and months before it finally ended. Meanwhile I was just enjoying how comically large the fight was getting. Look, the best kind of final fight is where every cast one by one goes up against the main villain and gets crushed. That’s always absolutely epic and this series had such a massive cast by the end that it makes sense how long it all was.
Overall, I could go on for sure but that’s enough for now. This is absolutely the kind of series that has a lot to say even if the fight scenes are the top priority. I would definitely recommend checking out God of Highschool as soon as possible. It may seem like a daunting task at first glance but once you get into it then the series will really go by quickly. It’s got a fun tone to it and especially in season 1 there is quite a bit of comedy to balance out the serious moments. It never totally goes away of course but the latter half of the series tends to be so serious that there just isn’t as much time for the comedy. So definitely enjoy it while you can but the series excels in both tones.
Overall 9/10
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