Anime Reporter ventures into the dark depths of High School DxD, the entire first season, based on the light novel by Ichei Ishibumi.
High School DxD starts off with Issei Hyodo (voiced by Deadman Wonderland’s Yuki Kaji in Japanese and Attack on Titan’s Scott Freeman in English), a teenaged student with little on his mind besides the hope of one day touching a boob. When things take a decidedly darker turn and Issei crosses the path of a war between angels, fallen angels and demons, he finds himself brought back to life as a demon.
A demon devoted to the hope of… one day touching a boob.
You may be noticing a theme already. Fair warning; in order to give an honest representation of the show, you will find a lot, a loooot of nudity in this post, because that’s precisely the type of show this is. When brought back as a demon, Issei’s first thought is to rise through the demonic ranks in order to obtain himself a harem of bust female servants. He’s perfectly happy to wait a while though, as he’s currently in service to his master, the busty heiress to a noble family of demons; Rias Gremory (voiced by K-On!’s Yoko Hikasa in Japanese and Witchblade’s Jamie Marchi in English) and surrounded by several other female beauties that he frequently tries to sneak a peek at.
While there is undoubtedly a story of sorts, dealing with a pretty cool, ongoing mythology and impressive action sequences, you will definitely find this show focusing on aspects of women’s bodies most of the time. It’s not unusual for conversations to take place without character’s mouths being on screen, occasionally giving the bizarre impression that breasts are doing most of the speaking. For that matter, some conversations will take place while the camera is in an entirely different room, watching someone shower.
Rias’ demon servants are each assigned a piece from a chess board, as is apparently typically for all demon houses. Issei finds himself assigned as a pawn, initially low ranking in power, but with great potential in the longer game. From time to time, they come into conflict with fallen angels, exorcists and other demons and Issei will have to train hard to stand on the same battle lines as his more experiences teammates.
This is a supernatural story. This is an action anime. It is also undoubtedly ecchi, taking every available opportunity to display some nipple and attacks will frequently rob female characters of some, if not all, of their clothes. The opening credits start by showing several of the female cast naked and the mid-episode breaks are punctuated by increasingly sexual pinups of the female characters.
None of this seems to register for Issei however, who is continually surprised at the sudden appearance of yet more boobs. Even the monsters in this show have endowments that would likely lead to severe back pain down the line.
Luckily, High School DxD doesn’t take itself too seriously and provides some moments of genuine humour across the season. Characters are diverse enough in their personalities to shame Issei for his increasingly lecherous personality traits, though quite a few of the females around him seem to have an overwhelming desire to make him happy, even if that boils down to stripping naked or offering him the opportunity to fondle at will.
Without a doubt, High School DxD is male wish fulfilment tied up in a supernatural setting. The main credit to the show is that it never once attempts to hide this fact and will often go so far as to parody male wish fulfilment within anime. It’s very easy to dismiss this show as “porn-light” but, putting all the nudity to one side, it’s still an entertaining and clever story, even if it’s impossible to see why any woman might look twice at the fairly creepy main character.
The animation is smooth with vivid colours and the occasional action special effects are excellent. That said, this far into the review, there can be no doubt that action is far from the focus of the show, or its animation and a great amount of detail was clearly put into the portrayal of boobs and panty-shots from various angles.
The voice acting is spot-on in Japanese and English with subtle attention to humour and tone particularly present in the Japanese rendition.
High School DxD is not a deep or groundbreaking story. It is dark and it is definitely a funny and self-aware take on sexy animation and that’s all it seems to be trying to be.
High School DxD: the complete first series is available on DVD and Blu Ray in the UK and Ireland from Manga Entertainment from May 26th 2014.
For more info, check out the Manga UK Twitter page and of course, stay with here at Anime Reporter for more reviews and updates!
Plot: 6.5
Humour: 8
Action: 6.5
Characterisation: 4
Nudity: 10
70% – “Shameless Exhibitionism”– Calling it what it is, High School DxD is an attempt to look at some bouncing boobs and beautiful female characters perfectly happy to bounce around an unimpressive male lead. There are actually the makings of a strong story and premise, but being honest, there’s a good chance that won’t be what you’re watching for.
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