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Solo Leveling Review

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It’s time to dive into one of the titles that really made a lot of waves in the anime world. The original story was a pretty big one thanks to its legendary art and nonstop battles so you figure it would have a very smooth transition to anime so long as the budget was good. Fortunately the anime does have great animation so I would say that it is absolutely keeping up with the greats right now. I figure the series will only continue to get better and better as we jump into the future arcs.

The series starts with introducing us to Jin-Woo who is known as the world’s weakest hunter of all time. What are hunters? Well, in this world there are portals that open up all of the time and hunters are the ones who go in to destroy the boss which causes the portal to close. The boss has to be eliminated quickly or the monsters from inside of the portal will crawl out and destroy everyone. A large portion of the people on the planet are Hunters, you get to be tested once you are of age and then your ranking is determined. You are not able to increase or decrease your rank no matter how much you train. So if you are one of the super rare S ranks then you are in luck. You have fame on the level of a top end celebrity and of course your physical abilities are crazy high. If you’re an E rank…well you might be able to tackle the weakest portals and make enough money to be like a part time job.

Well, Jin-Woo is an E rank hunter and a super weak one at that. He’s weaker than the average person and always gets super injured in every dungeon. He has to rely on his friend to heal him every time. Well, one day the dungeon he goes into ends up being a legendary double dungeon so naturally he is murdered. He ends up being revived somehow though and now he has the ability to level up. It’s as if the world has become a video game so he starts out as a modest level 1 but beating enemies allows him to move up quickly. Does he now have the chance to become an S rank fighter??

Right off the bat I can tell you that I always enjoy a classic level up system. It’s amazing in any video game because if I’m stuck somewhere then it just means that I need to apply myself and get some more level ups. At the same time in a TV show it’s really fun to see because I like to watch the character’s skills improve. I can see immediately why this became such a big hit. It’s the kind of premise that is just a whole lot of fun to watch. The action always remains a pretty big part of the focus as well which is definitely key although I enjoy the talking moments as well. This is what I would call a very well rounded series that excels in just about everything.

So you’ve already got good world building and an intriguing premise. Then beyond that, the main character is really good. In his weaker form Jin-Woo was only okay. You felt bad for him when he was getting beat up but at least he was trying. In his more confident mode, he’s suddenly ready to take everyone down. I like his enthusiasm and determination. He has a scene near the end where he even gets confronted with his older self. At times you do feel like he gets super lucky and should be absolutely crushed by the villains but he always gets up which is the important thing. I would also say that the confidence doesn’t corrupt him with one exception.

There is one scene where he bullies one of the executives with a lot of veiled threats and tough talk. It’s the one time that I thought he was really out of line the whole time. It’s not like this was a villain who was threatening his family or anything. I get that threatening him will really make sure that the guy stays in line but it seemed extremely excessive. So that was Jin-Woo’s only bad scene and while it was a doozy, he has so many great moments that he is absolutely still on top.

Also, while this is more of a positive to the show as a whole, I enjoy Jin-Woo’s fighting style. An Assassin build can be a lot of fun with how quick it moves and the amount of lethal attacks up his arsenal. I thought it was a pretty fun mix-up from the usual swordsman class. In a lot of ways it might feel very similar but Jin-Woo does use his stealth skills to great effect. So that part is a big bonus to him.

Like I mentioned before, the animation is definitely great all around. There are a ton of great fights here, I would say they all looked great. In particular I want to say the two best fights were the ones against Taeshik and Igris. The movement was just so clean and this looks like a brand new anime the whole time. No corners were cut here and I can definitely appreciate that. There will be a lot of pressure on season 2 to look this solid as well. We definitely don’t want to see a drop in quality.

Then the show also has a great soundtrack. I would say my favorite track is Dark Aria that shows up when Jin is taking care of the dark hunters who are messing around with the heroes. It works perfectly in the scene and shows just how messed up things are. The opening is naturally really catchy as well and there are a number of other good tunes to be found as well. So this is another area where the show excels.

Aside from all the general action which is awesome, I do have to take a minute to talk about how great the fight was between Jin-Woo and the evil hunters led by Dongsuk. Technically it’s not rare to see the MC taking out other humans in a show like this. In fact you would expect it but there’s something about this fight that feels extra special. I think it’s because before now all of the fights were against monsters. The whole world’s setup is built around that as well. You’re never supposed to fight any other humans and so the attacks and spells are all trained to work on monsters.

Seeing Jin-Woo essentially turn into a boss battle for the villains was really intense. Definitely a reminder why you should absolutely not mess with this guy. Dongsuk and the other evil hunters may not be super memorable as characters but the scene definitely ends up being one of the most memorable parts of the series. Perhaps it’s the ease with which Jin-Woo destroys them all or the fact that he did not hesitate in the fight. At the end it was a battle to the death though so the villains got what was coming to them.

In the fight with Taeshik it’s also intense because this time both fighters are going for the kill. Taeshik is strong in his own right and has been doing this for a really long time so he’s not going to go down as easily. The fight has a lot of back and forth with high stakes the whole time. I’d have been cool with seeing Taeshik showing up more often since he was a fun villain. Also, as evil as he was, you were glad he was around to take down the other villains since the justice system failed everybody. Solo Leveling definitely strikes you as the kind of world that really incentivizes vigilante work.

In terms of violence, the series can definitely be on the high side at times. There’s absolutely a ton of blood flying around as the enemies are being shredded. Limbs are being lost left and right. It never gets mean spirited on the level of Attack on Titan or too civilian focused which would hurt more though. For now I would say it’s a bit excessive but not quite at the point where I would really be cautioning folks or lowering the score. It could stand to hold back a little though. The monsters always get me a little worried to be sure but at least we’re focusing on those and not having any animals running around. The wolf type creatures get me nervous when they’re destroyed but for now the series is good about keeping them fairly differentiated. I’m not even sure exactly what makes that difference for me. It’s probably a mix of realism and emotions. Like the more it acts like an animal or seems to be in prolonged pain then that could do the trick.

So the series is okay on that front right now. I’m also proud to report that the series really does a good job of avoiding fanservice so far. I’m not surprised, this is a series that was always really good about not having just about any of that. Tower of God didn’t have much at all either so I wonder if it’s just a lot rarer for Korean series to focus on that. Definitely another big win for this series so we can focus on the action the whole time. The show also has some time for some horror elements like in the first episode. The Double Dungeon is absolutely terrifying and they did a great job with the statues there. The big one that smiles is an iconic villain to be sure and I look forward to seeing more of him.

The series also has a lot of mystery aspects at the ready right now. We still have no ideas why Jin-Woo has this level up system. We don’t know who is talking to him through the messages or anything about it really. We’re as in the dark as the main character and the rest of the heroes which works really well. I definitely enjoy a good mystery like that. Really gives your mind something to sink its teeth into while you wait for the next fight scene. As for the side characters, some like Hae-In and Gun-Hee haven’t gotten a chance to do much yet. Hae is a promising S rank fighter who seems like she will be a lot of fun to watch. Gun-Hee may be one of those corporate figures but so far he’s actually rather reasonable and someone you can count on.

Jin-Ah is the main character’s sister so she’s around but hasn’t done a whole lot yet. She’s mainly around to humanize Jin-Woo a bit and remind us that he does have a life outside of all the fighting. Jin-Ho is a rich kid who really wants to prove himself to the company and his father. He works well as comic relief to an extent while also being deceptively smart. The guy has a good head on his shoulders and isn’t just along for the ride. He’s a fun character and you feel a little bad that he’s still rather scared of Jin-Woo so far. Hopefully soon their friendship will be more genuine where there aren’t power dynamics at play. He gets major points from me for still striking up a partnership even while he was probably shaking on the inside.

Chi-Yui is a wise mentor type figure from the opening episode. He actually returns after that later on and has a good fight. I give the guy more props than most of the other supporting fighters since he actually listened to Jin-Woo from the start and didn’t want to ditch him. The guy may have taken the situation rather hard but he performed better than around 90% of the characters. He should be proud of himself and he’s a character who has good development by the end.

Then you have Joo-Hee who doesn’t look great. She’s a solid healer who even reached B rank but gets scared easily and can be off of her game. This is not good since in a dungeon you need to be able to trust everyone with your life. Any hesitation can cost you big time. Ultimately she knows her limits though and makes the right move. It may not make her super likable but it’s better than freezing up when it counts.

Finally you have the final boss Igris. This guy was definitely great. Not much in the way of character at the moment but he makes up for that with an absolutely elite design and superb fighting skills. Right now he seems to easily be one of the strongest fighters in the series. There’s just no question about his incredible skills. He was a great choice to close out the season as the last big named fighter.

The show ends with quite a few new plot points to explore and a lot of world building that was already around. Throw in the obvious cliffhanger and you can tell that we’re really just starting this big saga. Even in terms of power level, Jin-Woo is clearly still not close to S rank yet despite how powerful he is. That’s definitely something that should get you really hyped because it shows that there is a lot more ground to cover.

I guess if you needed another weakness for the series, right now the supporting cast isn’t super memorable. As you could tell from my write up above, it’s not like I was really a big fan of any of the other heroes. Some of them have a lot of potential but haven’t done much yet. Gradually you would expect the other characters to do much but just keep in mind that the show is called “Solo Leveling”. It’s not your standard party type show with all of the fighters teaming up. I will say that we will definitely see more cool characters eventually but the cast isn’t generally one of Solo Leveling’s strong suits. That’s why it is important that you like Jin-Woo as the main character to carry the series.

Overall, Solo Leveling is definitely a great series. A lot of the best parts from the original story are still coming up so I’m definitely hyped for when that gets animated. This season did a good job of covering a lot of content though and I don’t really have the main events in the series memorized so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in season 2. Of course the cliffhanger involving the insect island is going to be big and that was an awesome saga in the manwha so I’m really excited for that. If you haven’t seen Solo Leveling yet and are in the mood for a lot of action then you definitely need to check this one out!

Overall 8/10

RWBY Volume 9 Premiere: What Happens Next?

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So RWBY has finally returned! We’ve waited actual years for Volume 9 so it feels like a true accomplishment to have it back. It’s a shame that the season will only have 10 episodes so I’m still hoping against hope that the writers come out and say this was a mistake and they will still have the usual 13-14. If that doesn’t happen though, it does seem to strengthen the theories that this volume is more of a sidestory event just focusing on Team RWBY and their character development while the outside world is being terrorized by Salem.

So with 1 episode down I thought this was a good time to do some predictions on how the rest of the volume might end up playing out. After all not much has happened yet and we got the theme song so this is absolutely the perfect time for theory crafting. It’s been nostalgic going to the RWBY subreddit and reading up on all of the theories popping around over there. I think some of them do have a lot of potential and I’ve got a few thoughts of my own. I’ll have a review up for the season once it’s over so I won’t be diving much into the actual episode. What I’ll say is it’s already introduced us to a fun new villain which is cool. Unfortunately I’m probably not going to love the setting because Alice in Wonderland type areas usually aren’t my favorite and it’s more of a jungle type area than the intense world of remnant. It kind of reminds me of the wacky world in Tenkai Knights.

It is a chance for Team RWBY to catch up and relax though. I do hope we still get a lot of big action scenes though. After Volume 5, 6 started off strong with recovering on the hype fights and this continued to the next two volumes. The only action scene in this episode wasn’t very impressive but I don’t think it was really meant to be. It’s a quick minion fight after all, not a big event. This premiere would end up losing to most of RWBY’s other premieres though because not a whole lot happened as I mentioned earlier. This felt more like a random episode in the middle of the season as opposed to the opener because it was also very short. Fingers crossed the next episode dials things up real fast. Now it’s predictions time though!

1. We really won’t be seeing the outside world at all except for the very final episode.

I am hoping this is not the case as I really want to see what’s going on above ground but I think the fact that nobody showed up in the opening is very telling. I would have expected them to have at least appeared a little bit if we were going to go up there. I assume things are still going on up top unless time is frozen while RWBY is in this realm so you have to imagine that the heroes are in a really dire spot right now. Cinder is more powerful than ever and Salem will be sure to be on the attack soon. Without RWBY the heroes’ forces are much weaker so I just don’t see them even being able to hang on for very long. I’m sure the story within this fantasy world will be fun too but it’s just tricky timing because things were really heating up outside.

2. When RWBY returns to the upper world, there will be a big time skip much like the ending of Resident Evil: Retribution

Any of you guys remember that movie? This is my worst fear by the way so it’s a prediction I hope doesn’t happen but if the team wants to hurry to the climax then it would make a lot of sense. We’d have the team return to the human world only to find out that Salem’s forces are completely annihilating the heroes. You can either go full dark with all of the heroes mainly being obliterated and only a small resistance remains or they are all being defeated when Team RWBY shows up with their new power ups and crush them all.

On one hand of course it would be cool to see our heroines make a big entrance like that but on the other hand time skips are always really risky. A lot of times the content you miss is just so big and drastic that you always wonder how it could have possibly gotten to that point. Absolutely the villains have the edge but if we go back to the surface and see Raven and Winter already defeated it would be a bit annoying because I still want to see how they actually end up fighting against the villains. They have a whole lot of abilities at their disposal after all and I consider both of them to be top 5 in the verse.

3. The new girl from the opening is Ruby’s Scythe

This is a popular theory from Reddit and I think it makes a lot of sense. In the opening we see her leading the group similar to how Ruby was always at the front back in the day with her enthusiasm. When the Scythe washes up to the beach the new girl is the one in front of it. It could be sort of like Bleach where your weapon actually takes up a personality and a sense of self. It will help Ruby gets out of her head and finally regain her fighting spirit. At this point it can be a little annoying how Ruby is quickly brought to tears and faints when bad news comes up so this will be a way for her to finally get past that. I don’t need her to enter rage mode all the time (Although I wouldn’t mind) but it’s time she keeps a stern face about this and this would be an effective way to do it.

4. Each member of RWBY is going to get their ultimate power up by the end of the volume

I think it’s time for the heroines to finally get equipped for the battle with Salem. This is in part because I see us jumping to the climax after this so for the big entrance it makes sense to get their final forms now. I think they will each get some introspection here and by mastering who they are and what they want to do, they will be able to level up their semblance into its final form. Effectively they will gain powers equivalent to that of the maidens without becoming maidens. Main reason for this is because at this point I’m not sure I see all of Team RWBY becoming Maidens. I could totally see Winer and Raven giving Weiss and Yang their maiden powers but Blake and Ruby don’t have the same connections like that. Cinder giving the power to Ruby would be a bit cheesy unless she just hates her so much that Ruby is her last thought. But I think either all 4 will get the Maidens or none will so separate power ups makes sense.

5. Jaune has turned evil and will be one of the main antagonists of the volume

This was a popular fan theory the instant that the first teaser came out with the knight but it makes a lot of sense. Ultimately he made the wrong call in murdering Penny and once you murder someone it’s a quick trip into the dark side. I don’t think Jaune would have had the strength to fight that and so he did turn completely evil. It will be similar to the Supreme King in that the heroes will have to fight him to conquer his inner darkness. Ironically Ice Queendom already did this with Weiss and Blake so basically grab that whole plotline and use it for Jaune instead.

6. Neo will get her origin story and then she will die

Yes Neo already got the book which deals with her past a bit but I don’t think the showrunners are going to take a chance on people not reading it. So we’re going to see a full origin story in the show. It doesn’t have to be long, it can be half an episode like Cinder’s origin but it will give us some more knowledge on who she is and how she got to this point. After that she will die in the fight against RWBY. She won’t be redeemed and will go out as an evil villain to the end which is how it should be. I’m really looking forward to seeing her fight because I still rank her very highly in terms of power levels.

7. This world is attuned to RWBY’s emotions so the way to get out is just to wish for it

As people noted on Reddit the world seems to change based on how the girls are feeling. When Ruby is getting sad and faints then rain starts to fall all around them but when Blake tries to cheer them all up the sun shines in her face. I think it makes sense that the world is sort of brought about by their psyches but it’s a mix of all of them which is why Jaune and Neo are going to turn things for the worse. Again there are quite a few fun parallels to Ice Queendom here. This one may be a stretch, it’s a bit early to say how this will go for sure but I think the theory works as well as any. If this does happen to be the case I’ll assume Neo murdered all the random civilians so their weak imaginations wouldn’t wreck this for her.

8. Weiss will be the only member of the team not challenged emotionally

This one might be a bit bold but I’d love for this to be the case. Weiss has conquered every single one of her demons already. I would argue that she is the most mentally sound of member of the whole group at this point. So nothing this place does can shake her. I could still see the world messing with Blake by bringing up how things haven’t gotten any better for the Faunus. I can see it trying to convince Yang that she isn’t strong enough since she’s still missing an arm. Yang may also believe that it’s her fault that everyone else had to jump in after her since it sure sounded like that from Ruby’s explanation. We already know Ruby is getting knocked out quickly so Weiss being the strong one would make sense.

9. Neo will still be too powerful for any member of Team RWBY individually

I still say Neo is too powerful for any of these fighters one on one. Yang is the only one who I would say has a shot here but even then Neo should be too powerful. She was holding her own against Cinder 1 on 1 in volume 6 and to date has never flat out lost a fight. She crushed Yang in Volume 2, crushed Ruby in volume 3, and continues to dominate. If she loses one on one then it won’t really be satisfying at all if you ask me.

10. We will see what happened to Penny’s body as well as the civilians who fell off the bridge

Okay so I’m going out on a limb here but we absolutely need this to be acknowledged and I don’t think the show has forgotten. This is one where I’ve seen quite a few people saying they doubt the people who fell off the bridge will be acknowledged but that wouldn’t make sense. A bunch of people fell aside from the main 4 and Jaune so I do think they will appear. Whether they were mentally dominated and turned into minions or murdered I do think this will be addressed. Likewise Penny’s body should be somewhere on the island. Who knows, maybe they will revive her a second time although I wouldn’t count on it.

So those are my 10 predictions for the volume. Some are fairly cold takes while others are more bold predictions. We’ll see how it all turns out. Ultimately RWBY is always the greatest show out there so whether this volume loses to some of the other volumes, all of them, or beats all of them, I’m ready for a lot of hype. Having the great discussions and reactions to watch online will be great because now there’s going to be an avalanche of new content to absorb. Hopefully there isn’t a long break until the next volume though. Not sure I’m ready for another multi year break like last time. The RWBY adventures must continue! As a final note, it was a great idea for them to release the full RWBY opening early this time so I can have it on loop every week.

God of Highschool Review

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It’s time for another Webtoon adaption. The God of Highschool got a ton of promotion back in the day. I dare say that from the 3 Crunchyroll productions they gave this one the most publicity by far. It’s a tournament with a ton of action so what’s not to love right? Well, after seeing it I can definitely say it’s a great title. I did have a bit of an issue with the art style but the animation itself was great without a doubt.

The show starts with some politicians making a deal only for the entire island to literally be slammed with a giant hand and those guys are murdered. With nobody left in the way, a tournament is announced called the God of High School. If you win this tournament then you will get whatever you wish for. Anyone can enter it as long as they’re in High School so people flock to the tournament from all over. Winning this will take skill but these characters are ready. Still, the whole situation is rather sketchy…is there more to this tournament than meets the eye?

The God of High School is a show that goes fast and doesn’t mess around so you really have to make sure you keep up. You can probably identify moments where there are scenes that would be skipped to make the pacing work better but you always get the key details. I haven’t read the Webtoon yet although I plan to do that shortly. So I can say with confidence that even without reading the source material you’ll be able to keep up.

The last few episodes are also the best ones in the season so this really ends on a high note. You’ll absolutely be hyped for season 2 by the time you’re done with this one. It almost feels like they would need to change the name soon though since it seems like it won’t really be relevant to the next season. I guess if you think of the title as being a title in universe as opposed to referring to the tournament then it works out pretty well though.

Since I mentioned the art style lets knock that out now. The thing I didn’t like is how everyone’s nose and ears are always shining bright red as if this is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I haven’t seen a show do that before. The closest I can think of is the permanent anime blush in shows like Accel World. I dislike that art style as well, I dunno it just doesn’t seem natural and it can be a bit distracting.

It takes away from the visuals in general. Interestingly, I quickly took a look at the original trailer for the show although I think it was a conceptual trailer since the animation studio looked totally different and it shows events from the complete first season which is an odd choice. There were no glowing noses/ears there so I don’t know why they were added here. Perhaps this is how the art looks in the Webtoon and they wanted to be accurate but it just doesn’t work. I do like the chibi scenes when they occur though. I think Chibi works really well for quick humor bursts. We see similar techniques used in Tower of God and Demon Slayer to great effect as well.

The animation is great though. There’s a lot of finetuned hand to hand combat here. It’s easy to see how this company would then go on to do Jujutsu Kaisen later on. That show took this one’s fundamentals and then improved the animation with a lot of great energy effects and even more wrestling type moves. In a way you could say the studio used this anime to train and then mastered it with Kaisen. There are definitely no complaints with the animation here, the fights are all very high energy and get you in the moment. The shading on the darker moments also helps show the intensity of a scene very well.

I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot as well. The theme song is great and the more you listen to it, the more into it you get. It’s got a lot of replay value that’s for sure. The images for it are also hype. Then you have several great themes in the show like the Young Tiger theme as well as Mujin Park’s music. Each one helps to build up the hype and as this is completely a battle story, it’s not surprising that the music would be geared that way.

Now lets talk about the characters here. The main character is Mori Jin. He loves fighting and is trained in the arts of Taekwondo. Mori is very confident in his abilities and believes he can take on anyone. Winning the tournament is prize enough for him so he has no real wishes to be granted. He’s a nice guy who sometimes projects sob stories onto others but always does his best to help his friends.

Mori’s a pretty charismatic guy and I was definitely a fan. He’s quick to jump into the arena when a match is going too far and that’s something I was glad to see. Mira loses some points for trying to constantly tell her teammates not to jump in. It’s just the right thing to do. It goes against the spirit of the tournament to be torturing your opponent and for Mori I imagine it was especially personal since the villain was using Taekwondo.

The show doesn’t go into it a whole lot but I do like how each of the different hand to hand fighters use unique fighting styles here. You’ve got Karate masters, self defense, sword style, etc. Mori never falters throughout the whole season so he was a great lead from start to finish.

Then we have Mira who is one of the first characters to appear in the show. She doesn’t crave battle the way that Mori does but her sole goal in life is to get the Moonlight sword back into the spotlight. She wants to prove that this style is good and it was her father’s last wish. She will do whatever it takes to make the sword popular again which is a good and bad thing. The good thing is that it gives her drive and something to fight for.

The bad thing is that it limits her. She seems to fight a lot better without the sword most of the time. Her enemies seem to be able to use it with more skill than she does. Additionally it also sidetracks her from her goals like when she was quick to jump into a wedding with someone she didn’t even know. That was the weakest part of her character arc to be sure. How do you marry a random celebrity when you’ve known him for 5 minutes?

Mira was quick to throw her friends away at this point too so it’s good that they beat up the guards and forced the issue. Mira also doesn’t believe in interrupting matches as I mentioned before so that ends up hurting two. From the 3 characters she had the shakiest resolve to be sure, but she can fight and tends to do well in battle. Eventually maybe she can catch up to the other two if she masters her sword.

Then we have Daewi as the third member of the crew. He is fighting to save his friend who is currently dying. It’s a pretty rare condition so even the nanomachines that the GOH tourney providers have only may give him a chance. Daewi is the mature member of the 3 so he usually tries to calm the other two down or just stay out of the way so they don’t embarrass him. For the most part he’s a rather decent guy.

There is one point though where he loses it and very nearly becomes a villain. He beats up some random punks but they initiated so I don’t even count that to be honest. You can’t pretend to ignore them forever so take them out and that’s that. Now if he murdered them that’s different, but I didn’t necessarily get that impression. It’s hard to say though, I suppose they might have been dead.

Daewi even attacks Mira in rather savage fashion but I would say it’s in a completely different league than what Manseok did in the first episodes. Daewi didn’t torture her or anything, he landed a few solid blows and then she went down. Now, he was about to attack again before he was stopped which would have crossed the line but ultimately no extra hits were landed. Perhaps this is something where it’s more dragged out in the Webtoon but from the anime it doesn’t seem as shocking and savage as the characters acted.

I suppose you’d expect him to hold back more when fighting a friend and yet the characters always talk about how you better not hold back or they’ll take it personally. It might be an unspoken rule where you should still hold back I suppose. Regardless it wasn’t quite as crazy as you would expect so I didn’t lose a ton of respect for him the way I would if a character really turned traitor like that. It does mean he’ll likely never catch the top tiers of the series like Mori, Ilpyo, or Taek but he’s reasonably in the middle somewhere.

The resolution to the plot did feel a bit cheesy and perhaps unearned though. Mori was really mad at Daewi at first and then a few minutes later they’re back to being best friends. That part I will say felt rushed and it seems like they wouldn’t get along so easily like that. Additionally, I don’t see how Daewi was looking so good. Mori seemed to be way stronger but more on that later.

Ilpyo was easily the best character in the series though. I liked his confidence and he’s just a classy guy. Ilpyo felt like he would be the main character in another title. He has cool fire powers and even a nice super form that he can use at will. The guy’s hand to hand skills are completely out of almost every other character’s league. He misses the first half of the season but once he shows up at the end he gets a great role.

It’s clear that he would have beaten Mori if he wasn’t sandbagging to teach him the whole time and at full power I would have gone for him over Taek as well. That guy’s abilities are hard to deal with but the same is true for Ilpyo. I hope he gets a lot to do in season 2 as well because he’s just a blast to follow.

Then we have some of the various fighters from the tournament. First is Seungchul who likes to fight using intelligence and wit over brute strength. This makes him difficult to defeat although at the same time it doesn’t seem sustainable. At the end of the day you need pure power to back up your moves. Then there’s Gamdo who is a martial artist that likes fighting with honor.

Unfortunately he’s in the wrong tournament for that because these fighters are too desperate to win. They don’t have time for honor or things like that. I liked the guy but I feel like he may never appear again. Then you have Manseok who was surprisingly weak. Seriously the guy talks really tough and after getting embarrassed he breaks down into tears and never appears again.

I’m sure he will return but it’s going to be hard to take that guy seriously. He’s like a textbook bully who can take on weaker fighters no problem but ultimately gets outmatched by the stronger ones and doesn’t have the confidence to continue. I didn’t like that guy so I don’t mind him getting taken out. It was just really surprising.

Taek is one of the big villains of course so we have to talk about him. Now this is a villain I could get behind. He made for a great antagonist who kept on getting stronger and forced the heroes to keep up with him. Hi goals about wanting to be the strongest and proving that he wasn’t a loser was intense. The guy is whining a lot in a sense but he continues to get stronger on his own so at least he’s doing something about it.

His rivalry with Ilpyo just worked really well and was the best dynamic in the show. Whenever he was around you knew things were about to go down. The scene where he nearly took Mori down with a single strike was a very intense moment and was also good hype for Ilpyo. I also liked how he kept remembering how Ilpyo beat him up that one time. Shows why he wants revenge on everything. It’ll be hard to top him as the next arc villain.

Taejin is worth mentioning because he’ll clearly be getting a big role soon but this was not a very impressive start for him. He got beat up pretty quickly. Yes, he left big craters in the ground and looked strong but Mori could probably pull such things off by the end of the series with his impressive power ups. Taejin gets a ton of hype so to see him tied up and beaten so early on…it was surprising to say the least.

Then we have the tournament organizer Mujin. This guy’s pretty interesting right now. He’s clearly not a hero with how extreme his actions are at the moment. It’s strongly implied he’s the one who took out the island in episode 1 although we don’t know for sure. He’s searching for the Key and it doesn’t sound like this is for heroic reasons. Perhaps he is a hero who just seems shady at times but right now I see him being a very interesting third party character who keeps everyone at the ready.

It’s a shame he had to play defense for the whole season though as we couldn’t see what he could really do yet. The fact that he was able to put up barriers to block the giant summon from the villains was impressive though. The guy’s tough without a doubt but I want to see him in the ring. He has a bunch of members in his organization who are powerful as well but most don’t get to do a whole lot yet.

I expect we’ll see them all fight more soon. They beat up on the random monsters but anyone could do that. Q gets the biggest role as he shows a lot more emotion than the others. He gets upset when one of his comrades dies and even confronts Mujin. There’s a lot of life to this guy and he disregards procedure if it gets in the way. It costs him a lot of money each time but he doesn’t back down.

There are other characters running around here of course like in the tournament and assassins from the mysterious organization that is also trying to find the key. I won’t go into those guys because they haven’t done a whole lot yet. You’ll want to watch the show to see what they’re doing. I am pretty interested in how that will play out since it seems like that will be more of a focus in season 2.

While the tournament was the main plot there were definitely times where the outside world was more interesting. There’s just so much happening out there and I love tournaments but the other parts were so appealing too. It’ll be fun to see how the heroes contribute since in theory most of them are still weaker than the grown ups. Mori is probably an exception to that though.

The Power levels in the show could be rather suspect at times though. From the start Mori is portrayed as being so much stronger than Daewi and Mira that you can’t believe it when he is having an even fight with Daewi. Particularly since given the circumstances Mori shouldn’t be holding back and is going in hot to make Daewi regret attacking Mira. Somehow Daewi is not only holding his own but even winning at times. That didn’t make a lot of sense.

Then you have the celebrity who had his own Charyeok manifestation and yet he got knocked out in one blow. How? This guy is a part of a dangerous organization and had a lot of abilities. That didn’t make a lot of sense. Granted, in general Charyeok seems like a pretty vague power scaling system. Effectively you borrow power from some kind of legendary figure and turn that into power. One character uses Lu Bu for example while another one has Jaws. (Or just a random Shark) Then you have Mori who doesn’t need to borrow anything since there are other factors at play here. Way I understand it is Mori is the legendary figure, I won’t say who for now. It’s a pretty good way to explain why he is so strong.

Charyeok has a lot of different manifestations so the best way to think of it is just as a form of Ki and then you get any kind of special ability. I don’t see how you can lose with it so quickly though. Power levels aside, I do like how the characters just launch into the fights. A benefit of the fast pacing here is there’s no time for chitchat so often times the fighters just start swinging their fists and don’t stop. The opponents have to figure out each other’s abilities in silence. Nobody stops until one person is on the ground.

The God of High School may start out fairly realistic but it jumps up into superhero world by the end. The last episode or 2 in particular suddenly turn this into something like DBZ and I’m all up for that. It was a pretty powerful match-up at the end and the designs were really good for the powered up modes on the hero and villain.

Overall, The God of High School is a great anime that I would recommend. You won’t be disappointed here. It’s really over in a flash at only around 12-13 episodes but each one covers a lot. You’ll likely end the show with a ton of questions since it doesn’t mind opening up a lot of plot elements that don’t go anywhere yet. It’s why you just have to wait until it’s continued or check out the written version. You’ll get introduced to a lot of characters but I dare say you’ll actually remember most of them. They’re all fairly unique and have their own personalities. It may take a little while to fully learn the names but that will come in time. My only real gripe here is that I wish they would take away the Rudolph nose part of the art style. It just doesn’t fit so maybe in season 2 it’ll be cut. With this review done I’d say it’s a good time to check out the Webtoon and see how the adventure continues.

Overall 8/10