Post — Aaron Ngo

Major Spoilers are included in this Webtoon Review. Please read with caution.

The God of High School is an interesting Webtoon series so far. I have completed this current arc, which was also the ending to Volume 1: A Match with Gods. If you’re interested in reading my Webtoon review on G.O.H.’s first arc—the “Introduction Arc”—the link is here.

Here’s also a quick synopsis on G.O.H. for those who don’t know: The series is drawn and written by Park Yong-Je. The God of High School started in 2011 and it is still an ongoing series centered around a boy named Jin Mo-Ri entering the God of High School, a world martial arts tournament that will grant the winner a wish, no questions asked.

Let’s break down the “Tournament Preliminaries” Arc.

Episodes 5 through 7 are centered around the three main characters—Jin Mo-Ri, Yoo Mi-Ra, and Han Dae-Wi—and their fighting styles. This development and focus on their fighting styles helped build the main characters’ backgrounds and motives already established in the “Introduction Arc”. Han’s fighting in the tournament for a dying friend in the hospital, Yoo’s fighting to preserve her late father’s swordsmanship, and Jin Mo-Ri wants to see how strong he is compared to everyone else. He has the “Goku” reason—let’s see who’s the strongest!

Episode 8 was another self-aware filler, a follow-up to episode 4’s purse snatcher plot, as the low-level thief made a comeback. While episode 8 was structured better than episode 4, the story could’ve found better ways to develop the friendship between the main characters. Both times, the main characters happened to be walking together as they live nearby each other.

Episodes 9 through 13 focused on the different forms of Taekwondo being presented. The fighting style most elaborated was Jin Mo-Ri’s Renewal Taekwondo, or Re-Taekwondo for short. This style was created to counter Northern ITF Taekwondo, a style used by one of the high-power level participants.

The men in suits—the mysterious sponsors of the God of High School—were also interested in Jin Mo-Ri’s fighting style. They have history with Mo-Ri’s Grandfather, the man who taught Jin Mo-Ri Re-Taekwondo.

Episodes 14 covered the background information surrounding the men in suits—Judges or Commissioners—and their special interest in Jin Mo-Ri’s Grandfather. Jin Mo-Ri was interrogated about his Grandfather by the Judges, but he gave complete and honest answers without needing to be forced into it.

Jin Mo-Ri definitely has the “Goku” personality and mindset.

Episodes 15 through 18 centered around Yoo’s and Han’s matches. While Yoo’s match started and ended in episode 15, episodes 16 through 18 had a greater focus on Han and his Karate fighting style / techniques while also exploring his opponent’s background story. This gave us a better understanding on why the participants were entering the God of High School, which raised the emotional stakes.

Episodes 19 through 24 introduced a group known as The Six—through a flashback scene—connected to Jin Mo-Ri’s Grandfather. It also hinted that this group might be why the God of High School was currently taking place. It was also tied into Jin Mo-Ri’s exhibition match against Judge Q. Jin Mo-Ri needed to win if he wanted to stay in the tournament, which seemed nearly impossible when he had a deadly encounter against a member of The Six and reported to his match directly afterward.

Episodes 25 through 28 shoehorned a filler wedding adventure into the narrative. Yoo Mi-Ra was getting married a few days before the God of High School’s preliminary semi-finals. The whole adventure made little sense to include, but it gave us excellent illustrations of the guys wearing fancy suits and Yoo Mi-Ra in a beautiful wedding dress. It turned out the groom—the antagonist of the adventure—only wanted to marry Yoo Mi-Ra for her sword, which seemed odd. The whole concept of this filler wedding adventure was really odd, and the pacing / build-up was out of control.

Episode 29 had Han Dae-Wi and Yoo Mi-Ra fighting in the semi-finals, which resulted in Han Dae-Wi beating her and declaring they were never friends for the sake of his dying friend in the hospital. His dying friend’s condition was deteriorating, and Han Dae-Wi was growing desperate to win. This was an interesting approach to Han Dae-Wi’s character and how he had grown to care about Yoo Mi-Ra and Jin Mo-Ri as friends.

Episode 30 saw Jin Mo-Ri win his match, which meant the two friends were going to face each other in the finals. Episode 31 explored Han Dae-Wi training to counter Jin Mo-Ri’s Re-Taekwondo and a further look into his background—particularly when he had met his dying friend in high school.

Episodes 32 through 38 was an amazing five-round match between Jin Mo-Ri and Han Dae-Wi that shook my emotional core. The illustrations were top-notch throughout these episodes. Han Dae-Wi had abandoned his honorable fighting ways and resorted to nasty tricks to gain the upper hand, but that didn’t stop Jin Mo-Ri from giving up the fight or on Han Daw-Wi. Episode 38 had a satisfying conclusion that showed how much Jin Mo-Ri respected Dae-Wi as a fighter and more importantly, as a friend.

Episodes 39 through 41 had showed the aftermath of the preliminaries while also setting up the next arc / volume 2. The National Competition was designed as three on three tag-team matches, so third place was being determined from the preliminary finals to create the teams. Thus, as plot would dictate, the three main characters were put together as a team for the National Competition. Go figure.

Overall, the “Tournament Preliminaries Arc” was pretty amazing. There were clearly two filler adventures that had me only slightly annoyed, but my resilience to commit paid off. I’m currently reading Volume 2: The National Competition, so like I said last week, I’ll keep y’all updated. I would most definitely recommend The God of High School.

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