Within the last few years, Crunchyroll has partnered with WEBTOON to make anime adaptations. These include, but are most definitely not limited to, God Of Highschool, Noblesse, and Tower of God. These shows were quite popular and today we will be discussing whether WEBTOONs make good animes and if they do what will they need to change.
For today we will be focusing on God of Highschool, or GOH for short because in my personal opinion it is one of the best shows that resulted from the partnership between WEBTOON and Crunchyroll. While I admit that I have not seen them all I have seen Tower of God, Noblesse, GOH, and a couple more which I will go into detail about towards the end. While I enjoyed all of these shows they all had major flaws that prevented them from becoming popular shows that I would recommend to anybody.
BEFORE WE BEGIN I WANT MY READERS TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL NOR ARE MY OPINIONS FACTS.
Before we begin dissing the show and its creators I think we should highlight some of the things GOH did really well. I’m sure all watchers enjoyed the beautifully animated fights. The animation of charyeok abilities was one I definitely enjoyed. Not only that, but the hand-to-hand combat was exquisite. I could feel each blow from behind the screen. In particular, I enjoyed the fight between Jin Mori and Na Hanseong or Fei Long. The way they transitioned between Jin Mori’s two fights was beautiful. I was really impressed with the artwork and the way they managed to smoothly connect multiple scenes from different backgrounds together. Along with the animation I really enjoyed the soundtrack. Contradiction was a really good opening that I even added to my Spotify playlist.
Now that we’ve complimented GOH I’m gonna dive right into the issues I noticed after watching. First and foremost was the plot. While watching I was often confused over certain developments and had many questions. To list a few:
- What was charyeok? Could normal people like those in the stadiums see charyeok?
- Character backstories? I felt like many of the villians in the first season were randomly picked.
- Everything about Wukong. While I think that this may be resolved in future episodes I believe they should’ve left viewers a hint.
- What are these gods that granted them charyeok?
While some fans of GOH may argue that this will all be explained later I feel that the first season is where the foundation of the show should be laid. If I’m left discombobulated after the first season I am very unlikely to continue when the next season comes out. Another major flaw was the flow of the show. Everything felt so rushed. After Jin Mori ate the peach I expected some sort of explanation or further development on that concept. But they completely skipped over it and instantly moved on.
I really enjoyed Noblesse. I found the very concept super intriguing and really wanted to learn more. However, the plot was simple and the characters weren’t very well developed.
Besides the horrifying woman named Rachel, the plot was very confusing. I had no clue what the tower was without any explanation powerful characters and weapons were introduced.
Overall I believe that WEBTOONs should be left as WEBTOONs. The few shows I have watched were very disappointing. Compared to super popular and amazing manga adaptations like Haikyu!! (My personal favorite show of all time), One-Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist, and Jujutsu Kaisen; Tower of God, Noblesse, and GOH fell far short of my expectations.
Image Citations
Everything East Asian 