The Monkey King

Oh look, the stuff that was spoiled for me came up in this episode. Imagine having such a low IQ that you think spoiling a series is being helpful. I’d say some other mean things in the hopes that he reads this, but it’s miraculous enough that someone that stupid can even read. I shouldn’t expect that he’ll be able to recognize that my insults are directed at him.

But seriously, the reveal of Mori being the Monkey King could have been pretty neat if I didn’t know about it beforehand. I don’t actually know much about the Monkey King’s mythology, but what I do know is that Enma from Naruto is based on him. Enma is literally the monkey king, wears the same tiger pelt, and can transform into a size-changing staff.

And since Naruto is a better anime than The God of High School, I have to say that Enma is a better Monkey King than Mori is.

So, one of the somewhat interesting things with Mori is that it’s stated that he is literally the Monkey King god in human form. He’s not channeling Charyeok like everyone else we’ve seen in the series. He actually is the Monkey King.

Originally, I thought this meant that he was actually the Monkey King at that moment, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The way the Six talk about him, it’s as if they’re saying he really is the Monkey King all the time. And if that’s the case, then there was a nice little piece of foreshadowing.

Earlier in the series, when Mori learned what Charyeok was, he stated that he was going to fight with his own power, not borrowed power.

Time to One-Shot Everything

Alright, so Jegal Taek is defeated by the end of the episode, and South Korea (and the world) is saved from destruction. That’s great and all, but doesn’t this whole development kind of put a damper on the future of the series? I’ll discuss the series’ future more in the next section, but isn’t Mori already too strong?

I get it, they “balanced” him by giving him two of the most common character tropes in shounen battle series: He gets really hungry and needs to sleep for a long time after using his power. But if the next arc is supposed to be a training arc, won’t he solve those problems?

If he really is the Monkey King, then I don’t really see how anything will ever give him trouble again. Sure, maybe he can’t kill God right now, but the guy who did kill God wasn’t even a god himself like Mori is. He was just some space-time-gate-opening alchemist. That’s nothing.

Once Mori is able to properly use his power, which seems like it will happen pretty quickly if the pace of this season is anything to go by, what’s the point? Unless he’s fighting other people who are actually gods like himself, won’t he just steamroll everyone? Even the main antagonist was too scared to move when he saw Mori awaken as the Monkey King.

When you’re so powerful after just the prologue of the series that the main antagonist is afraid of you, your job is done.

The one thing that interests me is that it seems like Mori will have to fight his grandfather in the future. Does this mean his grandfather is also a god on Earth? Is he the God on Earth? He has to be more than a simple Charyeok user if he’s going to pose any threat.

Resetting and the Real Plot

After the battle is complete, we meet the final member of the Six who’s apparently the one who can grant the wish of the winner of the God of High School Tournament. And, because why wouldn’t this be Mori’s wish, he wishes for everyone who was injured in the fight to be healed.

I have two problems with this. First of all, it’s a terrible plot device. It was terrible when it was used in Naruto: Shippūden, and it’s terrible here as well. At least this time the people who died remained dead — not that there were that many of them (4).

Second, the wish was for everyone who was injured in that battle to be healed. And yet, the one girl who was injured like a year prior by Jegal was healed as well.

Ungnyeo Kim can’t revive the dead, but according to her, that’s the only wish she can’t grant. But are there other constraints? What if she doesn’t want to grant the wish of the winner. She’s not exactly an impartial wish-granter considering she’s a member of the Six.

And doesn’t this mean that she could just grant Mujin’s wish? He could have just wished for the key if the only wish Ungnyeo can’t grant is revival. Wouldn’t that have solved everything? Can she even grant her own wishes? There’s too much about this power that doesn’t make sense.

In fact, her entire inclusion just seemed to be so that everything could reset before the real series begins. Because The God of High School isn’t actually about the God of High School tournament, apparently. It’s about gathering the scattered shards of the key from around the world.

Conclusion

Obviously, I didn’t think the final episode of The God of High School was very good. It had some nice animation, but that was about it. But what did you think? Did you like the end? Are you looking forward to a second season? I don’t think it will get one, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the full season is available here.

Fox/God

I’m sorry if you’re a fan of The God of High School. I’m sorry that the series you like received an anime like this, I’m sorry that you like this series, and I’m sorry for what I’m about to say about it. It’s literal trash. I don’t know what I just watched. Episode 12 alone was like watching a full 24 episode season of a shounen series in the span of 20 minutes.

It was actually worse than that. I think if I watched 24 episodes of something like My Hero Academia in 20 minutes, I’d have a better understanding of what I watched than I do right now. So, uh, let’s get into the review, I guess?

First things first, “God” is apparently actually a demon hiding inside a giant Buddha statue. I’m not really sure what that’s all about, but that’s what I understood based on what I saw. There was a Hannya mask inside the statue, so unless there’s something else inside that mask, I’m calling it a demon.

Now that we know what “God” is, let’s move onto some of the other things we’ve previously seen but didn’t have names for. Daewi’s Charyeok was revealed to be a haetae, which is basically a one-horned goat/lion creature. It has the ability to prevent fires, so I suppose that’s why it manifests as water.

The other one is Commissioner O’s dragon. Obviously it’s a dragon, but she(?) refers to it by the name Changsik. I looked up what a Changsik was and found nothing other than a Korean manga about a red dragon. There’s clearly some myth these are both based on, but I couldn’t find it in 5 minutes so I gave up.

An Impoverished Shark

Jegal Taek’s Charyeok is another one that was just revealed, but I think I need an entire section dedicated to it to attempt to make sense of it. So, before this episode, his Charyeok was always depicted as a giant shark, giant shark mouth, or giant shark teeth.

Obviously, his Charyeok is based on a megalodon, right? Wrong.

The official name of his Charyeok is “the Impoverished” and it allows him to summon large things with mouths, I guess? Suddenly, Jegal isn’t summoning a giant shark but is instead creating eyes and mouths all over his body and summoning giant humanoids with the same features.

When I see the word “impoverished,” I think of poverty — as in poor people. My guess is that Jegal’s Charyeok isn’t meant to compare the poor to ravenous beasts, though. So, what exactly is “the Impoverished?”

The other definition of impoverished is “deprived of strength or vitality.” I think this definition is the one we need to use to understand Jegal’s ability. Basically he’s starved for power, glory, riches, etc. and his Charyeok is the embodiment of this. To put it in terms that more people can probably understand, his Charyeok is Greed.

Characters based on the seven deadly sins are pretty common. I just wasn’t really expecting that from this series since that’s not a tangible thing. It’s not a creature, person, or entity of any kind. It’s a state of being which isn’t something we’ve seen Charyeok based on up to this point.

Who Would Win: 567 Nuclear Missiles or Zeppeli from Jojo?

While I was confused as soon as Jegal’s Charyeok was revealed to be “the poor” rather than a shark, I think the true confusion started when the United States military showed up. Apparently, they’ve been working alongside Mujin Park to defeat God or something.

But, when it became clear that God was too powerful for Mujin, they decided to send in the Air Force armed with — wait for it — 567 nuclear missiles. Yes, that exact number was given to us.

Nuking one of your strongest allies into oblivion in an attempt to kill God makes sense to me as an American, though. So that part isn’t really confusing. What was confusing is that some Zeppeli from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure look-a-like showed up to single-handedly kill God and save South Korea from annihilation.

He teleported the entire population of Seoul to safety, used alchemy to turn all 567 nuclear missiles into a giant, nuclear statue, and then summoned an asteroid through a portal to drive that nuclear statue into God. Oh, and the damage done by all of this to the surrounding landscape was surprisingly little.

The civilians definitely would have died despite being teleported away if something like this actually happened. I think they were still in the blast zone of the nukes. And even if they weren’t they all would have gone blind and been irradiated half to death. Oh, and that’s not even considering the literal asteroid that would probably have wiped the entire peninsula off the map.

But of course, Zepelli and the bad guy both survived all of this at ground zero. God wasn’t so lucky.

A New Human Evolution

The last thing I want to mention about this episode is Jegal turning into a new form of being after ingesting the key, which was apparently a literal, physical key. I’m not sure how that key was supposed to kill God though. Does it unlock the rest of the Buddha statue that the demon was inside of?

Anyway, Jegal inserted the God-killing key into his stomach mouth (as one does), reverted back into a baby, and then evolved into an angel/demon/Kaguya Ōtsutsuki cosplayer. So I guess that this is the demon referred to in the OP for the season, not that random side character who was turned into a demon.

I need to point out that this development feels like some real end-of-series stuff. Did we just skip from the first arc of the series to the final battle? We went from the introductory tournament arc to killing God and a new, god-like antagonist being born to destroy the world in the span of 2 episodes

This feels way too early for the final boss of the series to show up. And if Jegal isn’t the final boss and is defeated here, then the whole setup of him becoming this god-like being was for nothing. Either way, the series is in terrible shape and I can’t wait to see what kind of train wreck episode 13 is going to be.

I should also let fans of this series know that if it gets a second season, I’m not going to be reviewing the episodes weekly. This show just isn’t good enough to warrant doing that.

Conclusion

What do you think of The God of High School episode 12? Do you actually like this anime? Do you think these are good developments? Would you nuke South Korea into oblivion to kill God (or to stop terrible series like this from being written there)? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the final episode is available here.

Lay/Key

Episode 11 of The God of High School was all over the place. But, it introduced some abilities that weren’t outright explained to us, which means there’s a decent amount for me to speculate and theorize about. And if I’m being honest, that’s the only thing about this series that brings me any enjoyment.

However, as usual, let’s get all the “other” stuff out of the way first, starting with the explanation of the Nine-Tailed Fox Charyeok. So, the reason this Charyeok is considered to be super powerful and the “key” to killing God is because it once almost did just that.

According to the story, God created the Nine-Tailed Fox to basically keep everyone else in place. But then he got jealous of the Nine-Tailed Fox’s power and marked it to be executed. Obviously the Nine-Tailed Fox didn’t appreciate this, so it destroyed half of Heaven and went to live on Earth instead.

We also saw two main powers that Ilpyo was able to use thanks to his Charyeok. The first was either a super speed or short-range teleportation ability. The second was a fire beast ability, with which he can create fire wolves (though they should be foxes).

But, as far as the first of those abilities is concerned, I’m not actually certain that it’s directly related to Ilpyo’s Charyeok. While he didn’t use this ability until after awakening his Charyeok, Mori was able to copy it. The abilities Mori copied from Daewi and Mira weren’t connected to their Charyeok, so it may be fair to assume he can’t copy Charyeok abilities.

Also, it’s unclear if this ability to copy other abilities has anything to do with the Charyeok Mori awakened in this episode.

Odin? Zeus? Susanoo?

What deity do you think Mori forged a pact with? My initial thought was Odin, but then I also considered it could be Zeus as well. And later on, I figured that perhaps it could be Susanoo. Let’s be fair, there are a lot of deities from around the world that it could be, but I’m going to say it’s Odin.

To begin this discussion, we first need to briefly cover some of the “confirmed” hints as to which deity it is. Mori gains control over wind, lightning, and storms in general, and he also wields a spear. That’s basically all that’s been confirmed, but as I’ll get to, there are a few other hints.

Unfortunately for Susanoo, I think he’s out of the question already based on these facts. Yes, Susanoo is a god of storms and comes from Japanese mythology, which would connect it to the Kitsune. But, Susanoo wields a sword, not a spear. That’s enough for me to disqualify him.

Now, my very first thought was Odin. The spear and control over wind both fit Odin. However, control over lightning isn’t one of Odin’s specified abilities. But, look at the image above and tell me what you see. I see Mori wielding Odin’s spear, Gungnir, facing off against the giants who were Odin’s enemies.

To me, that makes a lot of sense since there was an emphasis on these creatures during the reveal of Mori’s Charyeok.

But as I mentioned, it could also be Zeus. Technically, a spear wasn’t Zeus’ preferred weapon, so that’s counting against him — but he has used one before. On the other hand, Zeus is a true god of storms, including wind, lightning, rain, etc. So on that front, he fits. Also, the “giants” we see could be the Titans Zeus overthrew.

Demon Charyeok

The demon Charyeok we see one of the random characters turn into really doesn’t make sense to me. I’d like to assume that the source material explained this better, but I’m an anime-watcher. So I’m going to base everything I say solely on what I’ve seen in the anime.

First, we know that this guy was already a Charyeok user. His Charyeok manifested in the form of elemental spells. We were never told what exactly it is, but I’d guess that his pact was with some legendary mage like Merlin or someone similar. What his Charyeok was, though, doesn’t matter. What matters is that he had it.

This is important because it means that Mori’s awakening of his own Charyeok didn’t awaken Charyeok in this other character. It either mutated the Charyeok he already had, or something else entirely happened to him. But, one hint may be found in that we saw him use an even stronger version of his original magic — implying that his Charyeok may have been overcharged.

I’m really not sure what would have caused this. There are two possible theories I can think of, but they both seem wrong. The first is that the massive amount of electricity Mori summoned caused the machine the other guy was in to malfunction. This in turn caused his Charyeok to go out of control.

I don’t think that’s correct, though, because I’m pretty sure we saw signs of the demon appearing before the electricity came into play.

Another thought I had was that if Mori’s Charyeok is indeed Zeus, could this demon Charyeok have been Hades? And if so, would that mean Daewi’s Charyeok could be Poseidon? Again, I think that’s also incorrect because it would be too convenient and it would also leave Mira out of the Greek god trio.

Conclusion

One thing that I think is safe to say is that this isn’t the last time we’ve seen the demon Charyeok. The word “demon” is featured in the opening of the series either right before or after the word “Charyeok,” so I think it’s fairly important. But, what do you think of The God of High School episode 11? And which deity do you think Mori’s Charyeok is? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Oath/Meaning

Right before watching The God of High School Episode 10, I actually looked at the cover art for this anime for the very first time. And that was surprisingly good timing, considering the cover art fairly obviously reveals the charyeok used by two major characters: Daewi and Ilpyo.

The cover art hints at Mira’s charyeok as well by giving her the two feathers coming off her head, but that wouldn’t have been enough for me to guess that her pact would be with Lu Bu. Maybe it would have if I had seen it directly after seeing Lu Bu in Fate, but even then I don’t know if I would have connected the dots.

Technically, I guess the cover also hints at Mori’s charyeok, but I can’t really comment on that too much at this point. His looks like generic charyeok, and he’s already stated in the series that he doesn’t plan to rely on someone else’s power. So my assumption is that maybe he just sticks with generic charyeok and never forms a pact with a deity.

As for Daewi, I don’t actually know what deity or legendary being his charyeok pact is with. It’s a water-based charyeok, but aside from that, nothing has been officially revealed. However, if we look at the image above and assume that the background is a hint, we can make a guess.

It looks like a dragon to me. So does that mean his pact is with some kind of water dragon? It’s possible, but I think that would be a bit strange considering Mori already has an attack that looks like a blue dragon. So if that’s not it, I have no idea what his charyeok pact is with.

Good vs. Evil?

We’ve already known that the organizers of the God of High School tournament want to awaken a “key” who will then help them kill God. And we know that Nox wants to prevent God from being killed. But aside from that, we didn’t have too much information on either side until now.

So, what do we know after the events of this episode? Well, even though it was already implied, this episode seemed to reinforce the idea that the god Nox believes in is the Christian God or at least a monotheistic god. Why is that important? Because their goal is to eradicate all other gods, which is to say the deities that charyeok users form pacts with.

This is a pretty understandable development. Over the years, I know I’ve mentioned in multiple reviews how the Christian church, or an equivalent thereof, is always the antagonist in anime. I’m sure there are a few examples where this isn’t the case, but in the vast majority of series, the church is the evil group.

What I find interesting about how The God of High School is portraying this trope, though, is that it blurs the line between good and evil more than usual. For example, in many cases (not all), the church is revealed to be some kind of front for a shady organization that takes advantage of people. But apparently Nox actually has a pact with God.

This implies that Nox isn’t some random organized crime group. They actually have the backing of a major deity that’s generally viewed as “good.” On the other side, we have Mujin Park, the apparent leader of the anti-god rebellion. We still don’t know exactly what his charyeok is, but it seems to be tied to Christianity in some way as well due to his cross symbolism.

But what’s stranger than that is that Mujin himself has a character design reminiscent of a devil. So the bad group, Nox, has the literal God on their side, and the leader of the good group, Mujin, seems to be a reference to Satan and wants to kill God.

Like I said, organized religion being the antagonist is nothing new. But you don’t normally see series go so far as to say that Satan is the good guy. I’m interested to see how this all plays out.

The Kitsune Key

The final thing I want to discuss is Ilpyo’s pact with a kitsune (nine-tailed fox). This is something that’s obvious just from looking at the anime series cover art. There, you’ll see that Ilpyo very clearly has multiple fox tails made of fire. But what I didn’t expect was that he hadn’t previously made this pact, especially when we saw him using fire-based attacks.

Also, it was revealed that Ilpyo awakened as the “key” when he forged this pact with the kitsune. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Kitsune are important deities, but they’re not the most important. So it’s strange to see a kitsune being treated as the most powerful deity when we literally saw God get summoned earlier in the episode.

I could understand it if they used a polytheistic god to rival the power of God, but that’s not what’s happening here. A kitsune isn’t on the same level as a god. It’s more like a high-ranking spirit. If Ilpyo forged a pact with a fire-based god like the Egyptian Ra, it could make sense because at least that’s comparable to God.

They could have even gone with Amaterasu if they wanted an Asian fire god. Why did they choose a kitsune?

Putting the fact that I don’t understand why a kitsune is the key to taking down God aside, what powers will this grant Ilpyo? Will he gain all the powers of a kitsune? Or is he basically just a fire user? We already have one of the commissioners who has a pact with a fire dragon, so I assume Ilpyo will be able to use other kitsune abilities like shapeshifting.

Hopefully, the charyeok of this series works like Devil Fruits in One Piece where there are actually differences that make would-be similar abilities unique. Like how the flame fruit and phoenix fruit are both fire-based, but the phoenix’s fire heals wounds instead of causing burns.

It’ll be pretty lame if we end up with a bunch of people with similar, generic abilities. I don’t want multiple standard fire users.

Conclusion

What do you think of The God of High School episode 10? Do you have a prediction for what Daewi’s charyeok pact is with? Do you think Mori will actually forge a pact or stick with generic charyeok? And, how do you feel about the key being a kitsune? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.