The God of High School episode 10 is the first time that the series has ever managed to put out an episode with equally good A plots and B plots. For however much last week’s episode was an improvement on previous, lacklustre installments, it did falter slightly in the B plot as Daewi’s quest to fetch Jin ultimately went nowhere. There’s none of this in The God of High School episode 10, however, as everything works surprisingly well and proves equally exciting.
At the beginning, things seem innocuous enough. Team Seoul is taking on Team South Jeolla in the semifinals, pitting Jin’s team against Park’s. The first bout is between Daewi and Seungah, which consists of some pretty competent action and solid animation. I particularly liked the part where she smacked his ears, as this is a very real technique used in the real world.
The real meat of The God of High School episode 8’s A plot comes, however, when Jin takes on Park. This conflict has been brewing for a while now, ever since the two characters came face to face in episode 8, but I must say that it blew my expectations completely out of the water. This is because, or the very first time, Jin is forced to dig deep as Park takes him ruthlessly down, exploiting all of his weakness.
Before we proceed any further, though, we probably need to talk about The God of High School episode 8’s B plot. This follows a clash between Nox and the organizers of the titular tournament, led by Park Mujin, taking place in some unnamed location. At first, I assumed it was Seoul, but now I’m honestly not quite sure.
Mujin’s clash is one thing, but the real star of the show here is undoubtedly Seo Hanryang. A member of The Six, he takes on the giant sword that first appeared back in episode 6 with a variety of weapons and a backing band to boot. I mean, we haven’t even talked here about the fact that the one wielding the sword is, apparently, God, but so be it – more credit deserves to go to the staff, who worked tirelessly to bring what is apparently a traditional form of Korean music to the screen.
God of High School
Episode10 ハンリャン(Hallyang)-1Music Alisa Okehazama(@aliiisa_ok )#ゴッド・オブ・ハイスクール @Crunchyroll @GohAnimeJP @GOHS_official pic.twitter.com/ZXsFh6HsmB
— Yoshiki Kobayashi (@Yoshiki5884) September 7, 2020
The pounding percussion and spine-tingling singing builds into a crescendo just as Hanryang defeats God and Jin stages a comeback against Park. But that’s not all: The God of High School episode 6 leaves off on a particularly exciting cliffhanger as it turns out that Park has been carrying ‘The Key’ all along.
The sheer amount of esoteric imagery thrown about in this episode, including the ending, might have been fatal at an earlier juncture in the series. But now that we’re ten episodes in, we’re more or less used to it – the introduction of charyeok and some of the different warring factions in episode 6 also helps just a little bit.
In general, The God of High School episode 10 continues on the winning streak from last week’s exciting episode, confirming my suspicion that once charyeok was introduced, things might improve. Still, there are problems – the unclear location of the Nox/Park Mujin fight, some jittery camerawork during the Jin/Park Ilpyong clash – so I wouldn’t call this episode quite perfect.
But we are getting pretty damn close.
You can watch The God of High School episode 10 via Crunchyroll.