The God of Highschool ep. 12 – Losers

You guys all know what the expression “jumping the shark means”, don’t you? You know what, just in case I’ll sum it up for you. It when something, usually a so, that use to be very popular attempts some type of crazy gimmick to get the audience back and it just makes it super obvious that the magic is gone. It comes from an old American sitcom that actually had a character jumping over a shark.

In a way, this week’s God of Highschool pulled out all the stumps and just about jumped the shark boy! You know what, that joke wasn’t really worth all the built-up. Also, I kinda liked this week’s episode so it doesn’t even really make sense in any way. It was super over the top though. Can we start over? Look pictures!

I’ve been working hard on trying to improve my picture mosaics. I’ve tried cropping certain images before uploading them to my gallery. I’ve tried to crop them in the WordPress editor. I’ve tried all sorts of resolutions when taking screencaps. I’m not sure any of the differences are visible to the human eye. But you know, it’s good to keep busy.

When this week’s God of Highschool started out, the actual title of the episode is FOX/GOD, by the way, I thought I had missed a bit. Like not an entire episode or anything but a few scenes here and there. Which I may have but considering how many screencaps I take, I figure I would have noticed.

Like weren’t Nox defeated and their enderman god sent back to… heaven I guess… like 2 episodes back? Why are they all still around like absolutely nothing happened? I remember the weird gimp demon angel things getting released at the end of the episode but I hadn’t noticed the God coming back in full force. And why hasn’t anyone hit that white-haired dude yet?

Maybe it’s just that the editing was a bit harsh or maybe it’s all on me. Either way, the effect it had on my watching experience was this vague impression that I was missing something like 30 seconds to a minute’s worth of story. It’s no big deal or anything, just a touch jarring. It usually happens when scene transitions don’t quite line up

I have mentioned before that I personally like God of Highschool best when it’s all high action nonsense. I mean that lovingly. As in just fun embracing shenanigans that don’t take themselves too seriously. This is by the way some of my favourite characteristics for most forms of entertainment.

And this is a big part of why I liked this episode. I mean there were a few plot holes and a few moments where I was wondering why a certain character was acting this way or that but ultimately, I didn’t really care that much. I was along for the ride. And that ride happened to be full of action and extravagant.

By the time Mori was finally confronting shark boy in that nice forest they got teleported to, I was just having a grand old time. If someone had asked me right then and there to explain the show to them so they could follow along with me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to.

Now, I don’t mean that the episode was confusing or hard to follow. It’s just that the God of Highschool goes off in so many directions that narrowing it down to a simple explanation is rather tough. And sort of misses out on a lot of the fun of the series. At least in my opinion.

My original post title for this week was going to be “Symbolism”. And there might be something to be said for the Americans immediately launching an obscene amount of nuclear weapons at a densely populated Asian metropolis the minute they get a bit antsy. Or how those nukes are then melded together in what looks like vaguely classical Europen god statues that smash into a giant Shiva. you could even read something into how the key transformed good guy Ilpyo into a kitsune or kumiho spirit (I had to look up the Korean name) but changed very bad guy shark boy into a withe feathered angel suspiciously reminiscent of Christian iconography.

Some people might even call it in bad taste. But those people are the type to think a show like God of Highschool is actually trying to convey a serious message here and you probably shouldn’t listen to them. Let me reiterate, God of Highschool was 20 or so minutes of glorious nonsense! I really liked it.

I mean, there was spermy angel looking things that tried to eat a dragon. That’s almost as awesome as the lady that had a giant cross full of evil armed teddy bears as a weapon. It seems that in these last few episodes, God of Highschool is starting to fully embrace the camp and I am all for it. I can’t wait to see what happens next and I’m honestly sold. If they don’t make another season, I’ll read the rest. So if this was meant as an extended commercial for the webtoon (which a lot of anime are for the mangas), then congratulations, you got yourself one more reader.