You know if the God of Highschool is going to keep throwing new characters at me and expect me to care about them, they are going to have to slow down a touch and let us get to know each other a bit. You know, share some precious moments. Smell roses, talk about our feelings and hopes for the future. Maybe we can just spend an evening chatting over a cup of coffee. No string attached. Taking it easy and all that.
You can’t just wham bam me like that straight into a fight and then peace out without so much as a look back. I’m a dedicated flower. I need to be wooed…
I know I said last week that I really didn’t think Q was dead but I still expected that they would keep us n suspense a tad longer. What was the point of making us think he was a goner if you’re going to undo it in the first 2 minutes of the next episode? I say that but I sympathize. I have to buy presents no more than a few days in advance or hide them from myself or else I end up giving them to the person ahead of their birthday… I would totally fake kill a character and revive them in the next scene.
But just because I’m an impatient doofus doesn’t mean everyone else has to be! This brings me back to my opening paragraph as well. Readers have been commenting on my God of Highschool posts for a few weeks now that the pacing is out of whack in the series and I have to agree. More precisely, I think the show is impatient. It’s not giving us the time to get to know any of the characters. We barely know the main cast. It’s not letting the plot elements simmer. It seems deadset on moving on from one fight and antagonist to the next as fast as possible and I wonder why that is.
Sometimes that can be a sign that the writers think their audience won’t have the attention span for too much development. Like if they happen to be very young for example. But it can also be a sign that the deeper context and development simply doesn’t exist. You know how sometimes a plot or character is just a loose collection of cool ideas with nothing to really held it together.
and there are some really cool elements. I liked that Jin was out of the match before it even started. That took me by surprise and it made me smile. Of course, when I thought about it, I realized he was the only one of the three that had nothing to prove this week and by Sports! anime rules, one of them had to lose a team match. You can’t just have a full sweep victory. That’s no fun!
Also, the new Nox members seemed entertaining. I always loves me an angel-like character and a girl with an elaborate Woldwoood cross-filed with evil teddy bears that shoot energy balls from their mouths! Just writing that sentence was fun! But it went by too frantically and was part of an already crowded sequence so I couldn’t properly enjoy the moment. I still enjoyed it though. C’mon, evil teddybear energy cross weapon. That’s gonna make for some great cosplay.
In theory, I’m more interested in the Nox confrontation than the actual God of Hiighschoool competition at this point. But I also don’t really care that much about it. Like I don’t really care about Nox or even know who they are and I’m not sure if I want them to succeed or not. I’m also not sure what it would change in the grand scheme of things. This is starting to sound like a me problem.
You know what, I guess my personal issue here is that I don’t have anyone I’m rooting for. I can get passed a contrived or not fully thought out narrative. I can accept underdeveloped or even mildly annoying characters. I could easily watch this show as a mindless distraction to enjoy the pretty colours and fight animation and leave it at that if I just had some mild investment in who won those fights.
And it’s not like I don’t care because they are all great so I’ll be happy no matter who wins. It’s that I just don’t feel the stakes. Yeah, I wanted that nice guy to have his dream and go back to high school. But he still can right? It’s not like he’s barred from all high schools now. And I wanted not Mira to… I dunno gain self-confidence was it? She already has though. And it’s cool that Dae won but also what would have happened if he didn’t? He doesn’t need the money now. Mira got a bit of publicity, I bet she could get her dojo going no matter what happens from now on.
I don’t know if I’m getting my point across. I guess I’m just not feeling the stakes and for me, that’s important in a series that revolves so much around winning fights from week t week. It seems we finally got another clear antagonist to root against though. I suppose that’s something. I liked his hair. I don’t see how they’re going to work him in since it seems part of the tournament is 3 vs 3 and another part is still one on one.
II feel bad for Q. Loosing 6 months’ pay has got to hurt!
