Unless you count Great Pretender, of course.

Summer 2020 is anything but a normal anime season.  A bunch of it has been postponed to Fall (or even later).  Some postponed Spring shows are coming back, or have already started.  But on whole it looks weak – it’s the smallest season I can remember, and truthfully there are less than a half-dozen series I’m genuinely interested in (though there’s always hope for surprises).  I’d love to blame all this on COVID-19 but the truth is, this is the direction anime has been heading in for several years.  A few seasons have been blips, but the general trend is not positive unless you’re a fan of LNs or cute girls doing cute things.

As for The God of High School, this is not one of those shows I had ranked as a real prospect.  It sounds OK, but just not the sort of material that’s usually up my street.  A bunch of high school kids in a national tournament to find the strongest, all of it underwritten by sinister forces – honestly, it sounds pretty old hat.  Since I already have several old hats, I don’t necessarily look to anime to give me more.

But that said, well – it wasn’t bad at all.  My early take here is a bad premise that’s well-executed, and series have managed to sustain a respectable entertainment level on less.  If there’s a twist here it’s that The God of High School is not only based on a manhwa, but directed by Korean Park Seong-Hu.  Manhwa as a source for anime is an interesting development, and the fact that a show like this can be produced and not have to attempt to hide its roots in any fashion is a positive development.  And it doesn’t – every element here apart from the dialogue is Korean, right down to the setting.

Visually, TGoHS is a MAPPA show that looks more Madhouse (circa about 2000) than Madhouse.  And for this sort of series – campy, action-driven, very “cartoony” for lack of a better word – that’s a perfect fit.  What sells this for me, in addition to the very solid production values, is that the series seems to take itself a lot less seriously than it could.  It’s downright irreverent in fact, which when you’re dealing with a dumb pretext is a very good thing.  I’m not saying it’s self-parody but based on one episode at least The God of High School definitely isn’t taking this too seriously.

I wouldn’t say any of the characters made much of an impression in the premiere – they’re all pretty much shounen tropes.  But none of them made me want to stick coat hangers in my brain either – they’re fine.  I’m not at all interested in the fighting side of this story so something else in the plot will have to step up and engage me, and I have no idea whether or not the writing is good enough for that to happen.  But I’ll give it every chance, what with so few real prospects competing for my time this season.