Stark700

Sex, lewd thoughts, and imaginations. Here's an interesting little trivia: Did you know that the average man in our world today think about sex nearly every 56 seconds? Fact or fiction, you decide. Of course, this is all normal. I mean, our minds is filled with all sorts of imaginations and dreams whether it'd be finding the perfect girlfriend or going on your first dream date. In this anime known as the High School DxD, our protagonist Hyudo Iseei goes from a lecherous second-year high school student attending Kuoh Academy to someone he hasn't began to imagine before. At first glance, the title High School DxDdoesn't really stand out much. The first two words “high school” is probably a place most of us made good (or bad memories) in our lives. Of course, Issei hopes to make good memories because the school has recently turned into co-ed from a former girls-only school. And where else would a healthy boy at his puberty stage wants to make most of it? High school of course. But not all is easy as he is known to be creepy at the academy. With few “real” friends, the chances of making his goal of high school memories is becoming slim. That of course later changes when the unthinkable happens and he is killed by his very first girlfriend. Talk about bad luck, I can only think of one person off my head right now with the Imagine Breaker with that sort of luck. But is this really bad luck? Because the most beautiful and respected character of the school and series takes attention of him... First, we have the beautiful Rias Gremory. She is someone everyone admires and lusts about. She is the president of the Occult Club. And she is of course, the main heroine as well as one of the reasons some of us are watching this series for the lulz. She takes a curious interest in our protagonist Issei after the incident but what really makes her unique is her definite character. Behind her outer shell is a girl who takes responsibility and does what she does best: helping others. These traits seem to pass onto Issei for despite his creepiness around the academy, he is known to be helpful and hardworking. Then, we have some of the other characters. The sadistic Akeno who is also admired among the academy. Playful and flirtatious, she plays the role of the one-sama whom a lot of us wants to be “treated” by her. Then, we have our mascot, the all adorable loli Koneko-chan. Behind that cute loli apperance lies a girl of power and valor who puts her own life at risk to help others. Next, we have Asia-san, the pure girl that reflects the innocence of the series after all the lewd story arcs and peerage. Finally, we have Kiba who serves as the antithesis of Issei, whom he despises to no end. And of course, all these characters of the Occult Club are the bridge to Issei's path of becoming someone who he never thought he'd be. By this point, some of you reading this review are probably thinking “god damn it, not another harem” or “fan-service...what else is new?” And of course, I agree there. Fan-service is nothing new but a device used to attract viewers. So, if you can't take the boobs, ass, and nudity, then feel free to watch another series. If you have a serious issue with the uncensored scenes and fan-service, then just drop the damn series as no one is forcing you to watch. However, if you can take it like a true anime fan, then kudos to you as you will be proud once you complete perhaps the ecchiest (if that's even a word) series of this year 2012. The art of this series is just meh for me. I didn't take much notice of it as most people are probably paying attention more to the action and fan-service than art when watching this. I don't blame you, I mean who could take their eyes off one second of that million dollar body of Rias Gremory? :) Then, of course, the sound. I do admit that it does mixes in well especially in later episodes where the seriousness conveys the more dramatic visage of the story. It's not as powerful as Yuki Kajiura's soundtracks from Mai-Hime or Tsubusa Chronicles but still all in all, it does fit well once you listen to it carefully. Despite being labelled as a ecchi and even harem on MAL, this series does have a storyline. Yes, can you believe it? An actual ecchi anime with a decent storyline! As such in series like this, you can expect the master and slave relationship. One catch though. This time, the girl is the master. Some of the viewers watching this may now think about the typical “master/slave” fantasies or “king's game” from your heads now. However, behind the scenes of the fan-service and nudity lies a story where a young boy goes from zero to hero. The storyline gets deeper in the light novels but the anime isn't all too shabby. It starts off as a predictable opening, goes to a more emotional setting, and then goes out with a bang. A literal bang thanks to what Issei learns and became throughout the series. So, you're probably asking yourself now: “should I watch this?” Honestly, that's an ambigious question. When God gave us brains, we all have different views on everything like anime, manga, life, appearances, etc. However, if you just watched the trailer or first 5 mins of the series and decided to hit that drop button, then I feel really sorry for you. Why? Because this series is more than just about ecchi and fan-service. It has potential. It has emotion. It has drama. It has interest. If you have serious problems with watching this anime, then maybe think about your High School memories. I bet Issei's virginity that the memories of your High School years won't be that much better than this series. (well, at least for me)

MarlyTT

Surprisingly, despite this being labeled as "harem," this show didn't feel much like harem to me. Really strange. In fact, Sword Art Online felt even more of a harem than this, but ok. Issei only had like one real love interest, and that was Rias. Maybe it's the perspective of socially awkward people who think that if a girl talks to a guy, that means that the girl is in love with the guy that makes them think this is a harem. So I guess harem now means having a bunch of female characters and having one relevant male character in a same show. Oh,and I guess the main character constantly went on about how he likes harem or something. But I'm pretty sure that doesn't qualify a show as harem either. Obviously one of the most important factors in these shows is the main protagonist. Everything centers around them, after all. Harem genre in general, unfortunately, does not have much variety in what main characters they could have. Very rarely you have protagonists like Keima, who is on a class of his own, or Shidou, who's at least likeable despite being incredibly generic just because he's not an annoying piece of shit that causes more problems for himself than everything else in the show. And then you have Issei. This protagonist just happens to be one of the obnoxious protagonists you could have in a show, harem or not. Did you ever watch other shows and saw that silly "perverted guy" who always hangs out near the main character and only exists as a brief comic relief? Yeah, that guy is a main protagonist now. Hope you liked those brief comic reliefs, because that's definitely not going to get old after an entire series. If that wasn't bad enough, he's also "that" guy who happens to have one of the most powerful McGuffins in the series, which makes him suddenly important. Normally this wouldn't be too offensive since it's done by literally every other show, where the protagonist happens to have that special trait that gives him unfair advantage no matter what, but the way this show handles it is just terrible. You see, the side characters that Rias has under her are supposed to represent what Issei lacks- Outside of them being awfully shallow as characters and merely existing to pander to specific parts of the audience as overdone archetypical tools that are in nearly any JRPG ever, they are supposed to exist to make Issei feel comparatively inferior. In fact, in the last episode, Issei talks about how he lacks the strength, healing ability, magical ability, or swordfighting skills while fighting the obligatory final boss of the season- Does this all matter? No. He has the most powerful weapon shown in the series so far, so why is this relevant? What was the point of making him seem "inferior" to others when all he has to do is do the typical resolve speech and it will make him just instantly more powerful than everyone else? Let's put that in this context and see if that sounds any less ridiculous: "I may not have a bamboo stick, boxing gloves, or a first-aid kit, but I have a rifle that I can shoot you with." No, it still sounds dumb as shit. I also liked that chess analogy that the show kept bringing it up, though. It's almost like it's just there for the sake of being pretentious. And it is. As for Rias, she's just bland as any other character in this show. She even goes on a speech about how she wants to be seen as Rias/herself and not be carried by her family name and nobility- Huh, that sounds awfully familiar. Oh, that's right- That's every Disney princess speech about how they're so perfect that it's bad. Outside of that, she falls in love with Issei because he's the main character and also because her fiancee conveniently happens to be a pretty huge dick like again, every Disney princess plot. While I'm not looking for super originality here, it's pretty bad if you're ripping off the fucking Disney routine. Of course, it doesn't help considering the second half of the show involves this Disney princess routine being played out for too many episodes while the first half involves this clearly not evil girl suddenly calling Issei out on a date only to show her true evil nature in the same episode. The asinine pacing can be further shown by how Issei goes on later about how he truly cared about this girl he met for less than a day and how he's sad to realize that she was evil all along. Am I supposed to feel sad here? Later, Issei meets this other random girl, who he also met for less than a day, and later on she gets captured by the aforementioned evil girl, and then she experiences a horrible Disney death on a techno-cross. Good thing Rias can resurrect dead people, so that didn't matter in the end. The great part is that there was supposed to be this time limit about saving her before it was too late, but that turned out to be totally irrelevant too. Way to build tension and break it in the same episode. Trivialize an already inconsequential death of a girl that the MC has met for less than a day is truly the best way to invoke emotions. As for the other elements of the show, the music is pretty generic, but not painful to listen to. The animation is also incredibly average, which is about what you'd expect from a show of this genre. Though if I had to point out a flaw, it would be that the character designs were just really generic. If you can't give your characters any depth, at least make them look interesting. Overall, the show is bad. Shallow characters, annoying main character, irrelevant consequences (including how the MC "sacrificed" his arm for a power up, which was completely inconsequential), lack of an actual antagonist with an actual motive, and just overall being boring. It's downright offensive. The pacing was all over the place, and including quarter of the show with fillers is probably the most retarded idea one could come up with. Frankly, for the longest time, I've been wondering why these harem shows were mostly awful. Maybe it's the overwhelming amount of pandering shoved into my face that is causing me to not enjoy these shows very much. Maybe. But more than likely it's just because they're fucking terrible. I tried to watch this all the way through while ignoring all the pandering so that maybe I could appreciate the hidden depth within. Or the lack thereof. It didn't turn out well after all. Let's not try that again. And neither should you.