English Dub Review: The God of High School “curse/cornered”

Overview:

The God of High School turns up the heat for Mori’s Seoul team. The group is set to face the mysterious newcomers of the Jeju team, but when Mira and Daewi needs Mori the most he’s nowhere to be found. Mori instead rushes to save his grandfather, who he believes he’s made major headway with finding. Mori is subjected to his own obstacles, but with Mori’s absence and Daewi’s suspension, Mira is forced to face the Jeju team all on her own and there’s never been more pressure.

Our Take

Much of the drama in “curse/cornered” stems from how Mori’s decision ultimately leaves Mira and Daewi high and dry against the Jeju team. However, a bad situation becomes worse because of Daewi’s suspension over his interference against Jegal Taek. This setback was mentioned last episode, but it doesn’t actually hold real significance until now. The team could perhaps get by with just Mori gone, but Daewi’s punishment means that he’s also unable to participate so everything comes down to Mira. A fun byproduct of all of this is that Ilpyo is genuinely disappointed that he can’t study Mori’s combat style and he’s very much, “Oh, Mira’s in this?” after he clues into the roster change.

In a sense, “curse/cornered” becomes an episode that’s all about Mira biding her team as she hopes for Mori’s perfectly-timed return. “curse/cornered” is able to use this premise in a captivating way due to how Mori and Daewi are also stuck doing the same thing, albeit in their own dilemmas. The failings and distractions of Mira’s partners means that she’s not only unable to lose in these fights, but she’ll also need to win two battles in a row, at that. These circumstances actually generate suspense here and it’s a smart use of the series’ events. Mira has received a lot of attention over the past few installments of The God of High School, but she’s the best candidate for this level of high-stress scenario. It’s exciting for her, whereas the same scenario could come across as derivative if it were Mori that was in this situation. By the end, “curse/cornered” becomes the definitive Mira episode and she basically goes Super Saiyan by the end of it.

“curse/cornered” is an improvement for The God of High School, but that’s also based off of a new metric that’s come to expect a certain level of nonsense from the series. Every episode of this anime crams in a lot of material, but this is one of the few installments that doesn’t feel crowded and still covers a ton of ground. Each character gets their own moments to shine and there’s a unique personality present for each of the fight scenes. The God of High School is closer to the end of the season and it’s still very unclear what that endpoint will look like, but the show is doing a better job at figuring out how it best operates and how to make this chaos work.