In GOH, the action takes place and involves the inhabitants of three different realms: The Human Realm is mainly populated by humans and identical to our known world. It is the least powerful realm followed by the Sage Realm and then the Heavenly Realm at the highest. The Sage Realm, also known as the Demon Realm, Taoist World, or Other World. It is populated by various mythical creatures, spirits, and monsters such as Dragons, Minotaurs, Phoenixes...The Heavenly Realm is the last realm and the most powerful. The Heavenly Realm is home to many powerful gods of various mythologies and legends like the Jade Emperor, Michael the Archangel, Hercules... At the dawn of time, humans, demons and gods lived together on Earth. The gods allowed the weak humans to borrow their powers, creating the "Borrowed Power" system so they could defend themselves against the demons who wanted to rule over them. Shortly after the demon defeat, the gods split up the humans, demons and gods among the three Realms. Humans are since able to use Borrowed Power freely but are not allowed to attack gods with it.
Plot
The main protagonist is Jin Mo-Ri, a 17-year-old martial artist from Seoul, South Korea. At the beginning of the story, he is invited to join a Martial Arts tournament called "The God of High School". The event, sponsored by a shady corporation, brings together people from high schools all over South Korea on a regional and then, national level in order to select three representatives for the World Tournament. As a prize, the winner gets his wish fulfilled by the hosting corporation, no question asked. This intrigues Mo-Ri, and as he continues through the tournament, he meets many competitors each with a different way of fighting. Martial arts aside, participants fight by using "Borrowed Power", a mystical energy granted by supernatural entities, hence the name Borrowed Power. During the opening rounds, he comes across two other martial arts prodigies: Full-Contact Karate expert Han Dae-Wi and epeeist master Yu Mi-Ra. These two would befriend Jin Mo-Ri after their fights with him, and will become teamed together as the Korean Team after the preliminary rounds. As the tournaments preliminary rounds finish, and teams assemble, plans for many different people within the organization, and those pitted against them begin to make their moves to achieve their goals.
Characters
Jin Mo-Ri ; Han Dae-Wi ; Yu Mi-Ra ; Park Il-Pyo ; Baek Seung-Cheol ; Gang Man-Suk ; Go Gam-Do ; Jegal Taek ; Jin Tae-Jin ; Park Mu-Jin ; Commissioner O ; Commissioner P ; Commissioner Q ; Commissioner R ; Announcer T ;
Development
Author Park Yong-Je majored in cartoon animation at Sunchon National University. Inspired by action genre and Dragon Ball, Park made his debut with "Tough Guy", published on Naver Webtoon from 2008 to 2009. This manhwa, set around high-school brawlers from Park's hometown of Sunchon, was well received and inspired him to pursue a "100% totally unrealistic work of action" where high schoolers from all over the world would compete to become the God of High School.
Media
Manhwa
Yongje Park launched The God of High School in Naver's webtoon platform Naver Webtoon on April 8, 2011. Its first collected volume was published by Imageframe under their Root label on January 31, 2017. The God of High School was one of the first webtoons to receive official English translations by LINE Webtoon in July 2014.
Volume list
Game
On August 14, 2014, YD Online announced that they had acquired IP rights for The God of High School to develop a game based on the webtoon. A mobilerole-playing game titled God Of High School was released in 2015. On June 2015, it has exceeded 1 million downloads on Google Play. A 3D mobile RPG game titled 2016 The God Of High School developed by SN Games, was released on July 19, 2016. Jin Mo-ri was voiced by Kang Soo-jin, who is well-known as the Korean voice actor of Luffy from One Piece. A cross-webtoon RPG game titled Hero Cantare was released in 2019, featuring The God of High School and other popular titles such as Tower of God and Hardcore Leveling Warrior. In addition, the characters of Jin Mo-ri, Yu Mi-ra and Park Il-pyo appear as playable characters on I.O. Entertainment's 3D combat P.C. Lost Saga. A music video from the original soundtrack of the game was released on August 11, 2016 on YouTube with singer Younha as lead vocalist. As of July 2020, the video has attracted over 7 million views.
Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced in February 2020. MAPPA is animating the series, with Sola Entertainment providing production management. The anime is directed by Sunghoo Park, with scripts by Kiyoko Yoshimura, Manabu Akita designing the characters, and Arisa Okehazama composing the music. Crunchyroll is on the production committee of the series. The opening theme is "Contradiction feat. Tyler Carter" by KSUKE, and the ending theme is "WIN." by CIX. It premiered on July 6, 2020 on Tokyo MX, AT-X and AbemaTV in Japan, and on Aniplus and Naver Series On in South Korea. Muse Communication has announced that they have licensed the series for streaming in the Southeast Asia region. It will be available in the following 14 regions: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Bhutan. Muse Asia also released the series on iQIYI platform in Southeast Asian countries.
