https://starcrossedanime.com/wpcontent/uploads/2024/06/ViralHitBanner.png How familiar are you with the Creator Clash? That boxing event hosted by iDubbbz where various content creators box each other. Ever heard of that? Well remove the rules and the stage remove the big names and huge payouts move the entire thing to Seoul South Korea and suddenly you have Kenka Dokugaku aka Viral Hit. Originally created by TaeJun Park animated by studio Okuruto Noboru directed by Masakazu Hishida and with music by Yutaka Yamada Viral Hit is about HoBin Yoos quest to make money by fighting random punks in his community and livestreaming it on YouTube I mean NewTube pulling himself up the social ladder along the way. Does that sound interesting? Do you want to watch knockoff LeafyIsHere get into a fist fight with Korean Logan Paul and slowly fall in love with fighting? Then read on because that description is about the best sell Viral Hit gets. Be warned this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Viral Hit. It also contains major spoilers in some sections however these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. https://starcrossedanime.com/wpcontent/uploads/2024/05/ViralHit4.1.jpg Production Lets start with the obvious Viral Hit looks... ugly. Almost intentionally so in places. Characters have this weird shine and gradient on their skin shadows are used to try to give depth and shape to obviously flat faces and everyones mouth has these oddly plump and glossy lips. Combine that with mediocre backgrounds and dull lighting and the best thing you end up being able to say about Viral Hit is that it occasionally has interesting direction and shot composition. Odd angles good use of tight enclosed spaces and the existence of an inuniverse camera as characters film the fights for their NewTube channel do give Viral Hit the occasional good scene. Not often maybe once an episode twice if youre lucky but it does happen. Sadly even these dont last long as you are taken out of it almost immediately by the all but nonexistent animation. Thats right While Viral Hit is ostensibly animated you wouldnt really be able to tell by watching the show as most of it is just static panning and zoom shots. Even the fights are composed mostly of punch cuts going from pose to pose with action lines or camera shake to mix things up. This isnt to say Viral Hit doesnt move at all of course it does. It just doesnt move well the action is actually some of the weakest Ive seen in a long while. In fact Id go so far as to say that Viral Hit is the complete inverse of Wind Breaker the other brawlstyle handtohand action show of the season. Where that one is beautifully choreographed and has fluid closecombat Viral Hit sort of just stands there and moves the camera around a bit. So if the combat is truly so terrible what does Viral Hit have left? Well thats simple the narrative is shockingly decent. https://starcrossedanime.com/wpcontent/uploads/2024/05/ViralHit7.3.jpg Narrative Initially Viral Hit starts as this petty revenge fantasy. Its about HoBin Yoo a bullied highschool kid pushing back against and rising above his bullies. Bullies who also just so happen to be NewTubers who used him for all of their videos. So of course what better way to get back at them than to ruin their channel and beat them up live on air? This first half of Viral Hit is simultaneously cathartic and ugly. Its always enjoyable watching a bully get whats coming to them and HoBins growing confidence in both physical and social skills is pretty fun. At the same time though every single character in this show is kind of a terrible person. HoBin is genuinely pathetic Snapper his eventual friend is generally a twofaced coward and his bullies are... well... bullies. Its lucky then that Viral Hit doesnt settle here for long. About halfway through once the bullies are dealt with and HoBin has a modicum of selfrespect Viral Hit begins to shift into something more akin to say... Hajime no Ippo. While HoBin initially fought for money and clout all these vain vanitydriven reasons he begins to enjoy combat for the combats sake. To revel in that thrill of overcoming a difficult opponent to see his growth as he comes up with his own strategies and others begin to recognize his skill to enjoy the adrenaline pumping through his body. HoBin changes from a selfaggrandizing pissant to a true athlete and sportsman who wants to test himself. It isnt perfect Viral Hit still has some very base childish humor in places and the side romance isnt very good at all. But its cool to see the series evolving and broadening in scope rather than simply sitting at Beating up bullies. As for individual arcs and the fights themselves these are a mixed bag. Some like the Pakgo bullying arc are pretty straight forward and grounded. Its a reasonable situation for HoBin to be in and win. Others like the disgraced MMA Pro or the Ssireum champion start to stretch believability a bit both in how HoBin wins and the fact hes involved with them at all. The Ssireum champion especially is a weird one and the sexual assault jokes and stalking narrative were really unnecessary. It was filled with plenty of weird moments that dont add anything at all. I know thats some peoples style of humor but its definitely not mine. Still they enable HoBins character arc and Viral Hit does use them to help transition the series from the previously mentioned bully revenge story to a more competitive one. So in the end Id say Viral Hits narrative does a decent job. https://starcrossedanime.com/wpcontent/uploads/2024/04/ViralHit1.2.jpg Characters As for the characters within said narrative well Ive already talked about them a bit so Ill keep this section short. Viral Hit has a shockingly large cast for what its doing. Between HoBins squad like Snapper and Gaeul the antagonists such as Pakgo and Taehun and the various side characters like Bomi and Munseong theres a fair amount of names to remember. Luckily it really doesnt matter if you remember them because outside of HoBin Snapper and maybe Taehun because none of them really do anything. Most of the antagonists are just onenote bullies who are easy to hate and have no motivations beyond being an asshole. Meanwhile side characters like Bomi are kind of just... there. They arent even involved in the main plot they are just spectators while HoBin and co fight their way through Seoul. Now I know this sounds bad but really its just par for the course with anime. Its normal for background cast to not be fleshed out this isnt anything new. Itd be far worse if they were actively detrimental to the show like Kimetsu no Yaibas Zenitsu who actively makes me want to skip any scene hes in. Viral Hit doesnt have any of those it makes you hate people in a sort of satisfying way usually. One where you want to see them get beat up rather than removed from the show entirely. Mileage may very there of course maybe Bomi is to boring or you absolutely hate makeup YouTubers I dont know. But I cant think of any characters I myself actively hated in a way Viral Hit didnt want me to hate. So much like the narrative Id say Viral Hits cast did its job. https://www..com/watch?v=Ugn0wl9RUxoamplist=PLRW80bBvVD3WT3yTZx2HnCAOKNPBtYjneampindex=10 OST Finally we have Viral Hits OST and Sound Design. This was easily the most surprising part about Viral Hit to me though looking at the staff it probably shouldnt have been. Produced by Takatoshi Hamano and with music by Yutaka Yamada of Vinland Saga fame Viral Hit set itself up for success here. In particular I want to praise its vocal tracks. Raps like Im Not a Loser and Cockfight really sell the From the streets to the top narrative and while rap isnt necessarily uncommon in anime it still stands out to me when done well like it is here. Its not like Viral Hit is pure rap either with Ashley Yoon and Emir Yurok contributing with tracks like the soulrending Angry At Myself and the cute love song Goddess. Of course not every track is a winner. Some like Adrenaline and Calling Out Bullies On Camera are just basic background tracks while others like Hypocrite are just seven minutes of noise. Still those are few and far between on Viral Hits track list. Its far more common to find the earworms like This Time Its Perfect the easily loopable beats like How To Win A Fight Against an Amateur and the weird or interesting like Definitely Wont Work. All in all Viral Hits OST hits well above its weight and is far better than the other aspects of its production would make you expect. It almost makes me think the visuals were a conscious choice a mistake rather than incompetence or lack of confidence in the product. As for the Sound Design this is solid. I dont have near as many examples of this mostly because Viral Hits never really stood out good or bad. Ultimately I think thats a good thing because in my mind sound design is something where the better the work the less noticed it is. Think about it you know what footsteps eating cars or busy classrooms sound like. So when a show manages to get close enough that you dont register it as particularly immersive nor does it take you out of the episode thats a pretty good result in my mind. Well thats exactly where Viral Hit finds itself. Just good enough to not be noticed but not so good that I remember how its punches sounded like I do with Hajime no Ippo almost 25 years later. Seriously Masafumi Mima is incredible who uses jet engines like that. https://starcrossedanime.com/wpcontent/uploads/2024/04/ViralHit1.1.jpg Gangs of YouTube With that we come to the end of this review with only this last personal section to go. This is basically where I ramble about my experience with a show. Theres no set topics no focus no point trying to be made or message to convey its just me trying to open the door into who I am and how I watch anime. But be warned This is noholdsbarred spoilerheavy territory. I will talk about the ending and everything leading up to it. So if you dont want to know what happens or just dont care about my personal experience then skip it But if youre interesting read on and thank you. https://starcrossedanime.com/wpcontent/uploads/2024/04/ViralHit2.2.jpg Conclusion So yeah all in all Viral Hit is a show that really shouldnt be good and probably wont hit for most people. But for those who are interested in an underdog sort of street fight narrative and dont mind the excessive YouTube flavor to it all since every single fight is livestreamed and even the mentor comes from YouTube videos it should be fun. At least assuming you can look past the lackluster visuals. Dont go into it expecting the beautifully choreographed fights of Wind Breaker not the visual direction or animation of something like Kimetsu no Yaiba or Kaiju 8 and definitely dont look for a deep and loveable cast. Just... sit down and watch a bullied kid get back at those who hurt him before moving up the social ladder via YouTube videos of him fighting bullies to make some money. Thanks for reading If you want to leave a comment positive or negative you can leave it herehttps://anilist.co/activity/750826808.