English Dub Review: The God of High School “oath/meaning”

Overview:

The latest round of the God of High School Tournament plays out and both Daewi and Mori face powerful opponents with Park Seungah and Park Ilpyo. These suspenseful battles push our heroes to their limits, but even more dangerous events take place outside of the competition as Park Mujin takes on Nox’s advanced team of charyeok users. Destructive power and emotional breakthroughs push everyone forward and it looks like the identity of the Key finally comes into focus.

Our Take:

The God of High School is beginning to get close to the end of its first season and even though there’s been a lot of action over these ten episodes, it’s surprising to see the series still make decisions that imply it’s not sure who its real protagonists are. “oath/meaning” pushes Mori, Mira, and Daewi closer to their goals, but it’s an episode that begins with an emotional flashback for Ilpyo and Seungyeon and concludes with a character who’s not Mori tapping into incredible new depths of power. “oath/meaning” is an episode that strangely works, but it’s also an installment that seems a lot more invested in the stories of supporting characters.

The God of High School’s focus on Nox has become much more intense over the past few episodes, but they still largely come across as a stereotypical evil organization that’s more so interesting because of the unique powers of their assassins than the motivations of the group itself. “oath/meaning” makes some minor improvements in this department and even though their goal to eliminate magic so they run the monopoly on charyeok isn’t wholly original, it does help give the end of this season a little more drive.

There have been some scattered installments of The God of High School, but “oath/meaning” gives the audience everything that they want. It’s an episode that prioritizes combat and actually allows its battles to breathe a little. There’s a ton of backstory and mythology that’s introduced in this episode, and not always in the most natural way, but it never slows down “oath/meaning’s” momentum. This is a very busy episode, but it finds a balance for everything and it delivers what’s easily the anime’s strongest conclusion yet. With three episodes left, there’s still a lot that The God of High School needs to get done by the end of this season, but “oath/meaning” creates some genuine excitement over what’s to come.