English Dub Review: The God of High School “close/friend”

 

Overview:

Mori, Mira, and Daewi get to take a break from combat as they watch how other teams fare in the latest round of the God of High School Tournament. Park Ilpyo’s team steps into the ring and both he and Park Seungah give strong performances that imply greater challenges to come. While the South Jeolla team rise through the ranks of the tournament’s national round, Mori identifies a strange connection between Park Ilpyo and his grandfather that he becomes determined to reconcile.

Our Take:

The emotional breaking point in “close/friend” involves a crestfallen six year-old Jin Mori telling his grandfather, “I don’t need friends,” because his love is enough for him. Taejin discourages this train of thought, but it still seems like Mori has a hard time believing it. “close/friend” marks the point that Mori finally understands what his grandfather was saying to him all of those years ago and he realizes the value of a support system of friends. “close/friend” expresses this with the progress that’s made between Mori and his friends, but also with how it largely turns them into members of the audience and they’re left to reflect on the rest of the competition.

The God of High School remains a series that’s difficult to predict in some respects and while all of its decisions don’t necessarily work, they at least sometimes visit some worthwhile and unexpected territory. “close/friend” has a lot to say about Mori’s past, but a lot of this episode’s focus is spent on individuals who aren’t the main the characters. It’s a controversial decision to turn Mori and company into spectators for the majority of the episode and it’s one that won’t necessarily work for everyone. The characters are left in a place that’s very passive for the bulk of this entry.

It still feels like The God of High School rushes too quickly through both its fights and its material. The best example of this in “close/friend” is when Jegal Taek shows up for around a dozen seconds to launch a failed attack against Mori and Ilpyo that’s then completely abandoned. The series clearly prefers the approach of many quick fights in one episode rather than a whole episode going towards a single battle. On paper this may seem like more action, but it’s still difficult to connect with these fights, especially in the case of this episode where most of the action is giving to what’s essentially an entirely different cast of characters. “close/friend” does what it can to help flesh out South Jeolla’s team, but they’d become better established characters if Park Seungah or Park Ilpyo’s fights consumed the majority of the installment.

What’s mildly frustrating about all of this, and “close/friend” is an episode that’s especially guilty of this, is that Taejin’s adventures that are mostly happening off camera are the series that I wish I were watching. It doesn’t help that Mori is in such awe of all of this stuff that the audience doesn’t get to see right after Mori spends the majority of the episode watching other people fight. It wouldn’t be ridiculous to think that throughout the battle between South Jeolla and South Chungcheong there are moments that Mori is thinking, “I wonder what Taejin is up to?” and the audience likely has the exact same thought during most of “close/friend.”

“close/friend” is an unusual episode of The God of High School that finds a way to give the audience plenty of action, but also largely keep its main characters in a place of inaction. The dramatic beats that Mori and company continually fall back on have become somewhat repetitive, but the new characters are an encouraging addition and the anime’s larger mythos is clearly building to something big, whether it will work or not. “close/friend” is an episode that shows why the past of The God of High School is so important to its future and it looks like some difficult decisions lie ahead for Mori.

Oh, and Park Mujin is still super awesome and extremely powerful.