I must admit that I wasn’t looking forward to this episode of The God of High School. I had seen and read in the previews that it was going to be an episode about Mira getting married and abandoning the tournament, which obviously wasn’t going to happen considering that she is a main character. My patience for forced drama is stretched quite thin these days, so I didn’t expect to come away from The God of High School episode 4 enthused – my expectations, unfortunately, were proved entirely correct.
As stated, this episode is all about Mira meeting the celebrity businessmen Seonjing Oh and going along with his marriage proposal, thus forfeiting her place in the tournament. From the very beginning, it is clear that something is off: Seonjing has some sort of ulterior motive, and Mira is a main character in the story. The whole of The God of High School episode 4, then, is spent waiting around for the gig to be up and for something exciting to happen.
That happens around halfway through the episode, when Jin and Daewi come to save the day. The rest of The God of High School episode 4 would maybe have been more engaging if Seonjing had been a more interesting character, but he is a pretty cookie-cutter villain. We do, at least, learn a little bit more about the mysterious organization that he works for, as well as Mira’s ultimate wants and desires – in her quest to spread the Moon Light Sword style, she’s willing to do anything.
The problem is that we were already well aware of this from previous episodes. Episode 2’s river scene did a good job of establishing all of our main characters’ disparate motivations and backstories, including Jin and Daewi, and Mira has consistently shown that she’s dedicated to developing her fighting style through her interactions with other characters. The God of High School episode 4 therefore treads over old ground while also failing to explore any new frontiers – all the while delivering forced drama that will quite clearly not have a long-lasting impact.
At the same time, The God of High School episode 4 feels like a very bizarre break in the story. The episode starts with the declaration that the Seoul tournament is entering into its final stages, with Jin, Daewi, Mira, and Byeon Jaehee (a character we haven’t been introduced to yet) all set to duke it out as finalists. When I heard that, I nearly spit out my coffee – partly because we’re only four episodes in, but also because we’ve barely seen any fighting up until this point.
Call me crazy, but I went into The God of High School expecting a series about fighting. I know that there are other, more supernatural elements to the overall narrative (I’ve been more or less fully spoiled) but this appeared to me to be the draw of Yongje Park’s original series. Why, then, is The God of High School episode 4 almost completely bereft of fighting – save from a few scuffles towards the end – and so many of the other episodes similarly lacking?
Last week’s episode certainly had some strong fights, but that was the first time that we’d spent any time exploring in detail any clashes featuring our main characters. I may be tied to The God of High School until death does us part (or, at least until the show finishes airing) but that doesn’t mean that you have to be. Feel free to drop this one, if you haven’t already.
You can watch The God of High School episode 4 via Crunchyroll.