OP Sequence
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OP: SWITCH by Minami
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(Sou sa, Kyouto ni ikou)
“That’s Right, Let’s Go to Kyoto”
Some conversation went on in the comments last week about whether High School DxD should go full-on ecchi like other recent magical-fantasy-action-harem-ecchi anime, and I think this episode is a good example of how DxD’s ecchi works, and why. This one is pushing the boundaries of credibility on the girls not ripping Issei’s clothes off and banging him, because they thirsty for the boy. Thirsty. Thirsty. SO THIRSTY! But it also shows glimpses of Issei’s self-esteem issues, like with the reminder that Issei has still never called Rias by her first name. (Way to go giving Issei some food for thought, shounen.) Or take the end, where he talks about Rias still having Koneko and Gasper when he’s gone—which, yeah, but he’s totally missing the point. Friends are different than your lover! But he can’t picture himself in such a role, despite him clearly already being there. It’s remarkable, but it works, at least if you’ve bought into it up to this point. It doesn’t make sense, but at least it doesn’t make sense in a very DxD way.
Speaking of the DxD way, the brawl with Sairaorg (Nakamura Yuuichi) is vintage DxD. It’s got a bunch of that hot-blooded, meaningful, pleasantly punchy style of action that shows that, yes, the action actually is important, and yes, there’s thought that goes into the shounen power curve and all that. But Ishibumi-sensei also punctures the tension by tossing in the silly ecchi, as with here when Asia and the others bring up Issei’s oppai-based power ups. Cool action that doesn’t go on too long, with a good laugh at the end? I’ll take it! It’s very much in High School DxD’s style.
Also in DxD’s style: the action OP and the ecchi ED. I don’t think either is going to top the first season’s ED—though that’s going to be hard to do, given that it won Best Ending for 2012—but someone was clearly paying attention to why that one was good, and they got the visuals down at least. Not sure about the music though, wasn’t listening to it much. Because I was taking screen caps, of course. *ahem*
Next week, the school trip starts in earnest! I can’t wait to see what the smaller crew gets up to.
Random thoughts:
- So wait, is Rossweisse a devil yet in this timeline? I remember that happening in the last episode of BorN, but I’m not sure where that puts her here. Light novel readers? If such a thing isn’t a horrific spoiler of something, that is (tag it if so).
My SECOND novel, Freelance Heroics, is available now! (Now in print!) (Also available: Firesign #1 Wage Slave Rebellion.) Sign up for my email list for updates. At stephenwgee.com, the latest post: Book 3 Progress Report.
ED Sequence
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ED: (`;;) (Motenai Kuse ni) by TapimiruEnd Card
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DxD’s author has confirmed via blog the anime will assume previous season’s events followed their source LNs faithfully. This includes unadapted stuff from Vols 5-7 due to Born’s (mis)handling; Hero will lightly reference those events.He also adds that IF Hero is successful enough, they’ll consider doing OVAs or similar to cover Vol 5-7’s uncovered content.https://ishibumi.exblog.jp/27197674/PS. Hero has been designed so first-timers and anime-onlies can slip in with ease.PPS. Apparently the Japanese fandom approves of the new designs.
Would be nice to see the other rating games that we missed last season.The art and animation look hell of a lot better this episode than they did last. If they keep it up, or do better, during the bigger battles then it will be fine. I still prefer the old art style but after this ep I’m not worried about it as much. I wonder if ep0 was a last min thing they decided to do and had to rush it. Hopefully the BD will clean it up when it comes out.
I’m hoping that the Rating Game from Volume 5 and the fight against Loki from Volume 7 will be properly adapted as an OVA episode.Throw in the sparring match between Issei and Sirzechs from Volume 8 too!
Stilts, Rossweiss is already a devil in this part of the time-line yes. Odin abandoned her after the rating game against the sitri family and by offering her certain options, Rias managed to ensnare Rossweiss for her peerage. If she didn’t, there would be no need for the visit to introduce her complete family ( peerage ). The friendly bout between Issei and Sairaorg in the novels had Sairaorg use heavy seals on his arms and legs (essentially extra weights to restrain strength )but here, there was nothing about those seals. Oh and stilts, the reference of not having properly won before is referring to the sitri game that never got adopted in season 3. If you are interested in that reference, it is in the spoiler area of this post.In that rating game against the sitri’s Issei does manage to help his team win with raw strength and beat up sanji ( think that was his name ) but eventually lost thanks to a clever plan where he got drained constantly of energy so that he would have to tag out. It also showed a lot of fun stuff with the others, but Pailingual got banned in that rating game as well even if it helped them win. Pailingual allows Issei to talk to the breasts of females, which allowed him to win that game, but it was not a proper win. </spoiler
Didn’t read the spoiler (barely held back), but thanks for the Rossweisse clarification!
No problem. The reason Rossweiss might be a bit confusing here is because the order of events from season 3 is different then the LN. In the LN, we first got the rating game versus sitri (1), then juggernaut drive (2) and Loki (3) is after that. After the Loki fight, Rossweiss gets converted to the gremori family and we come to this point. Season 3 however had Loki(3), then hints of a rating game(1) and ended it with juggernaut(2) so the order can be understandably confusing. I added the numbers behind it to hopefully give a bit better idea of the order.
Tagging just in caseIn the LN, Rossweisse became a devil after they beat the evil god Loki, which happened in BorN. As per the fuckup of BorN, the order got changed there which was why it happened in the (nonexistent) last episode. Either way, she’s the final member of the Gremory team so just think of that part happening after they beat Loki here and move on. The less we remember of BorN the better.
Eh, if they get confused by it we can always help explain stuff until they make OVA’s or specials to show the stuff they butchered in BorN.
As a fan of the first season but not so much of the second and third, is this worth watching? Like I love the franchise and the concept actually inspired one of my past projects, but second and third season left me with some other feelings.
So far, the 4th season is worth watching it again yes.
cool thanks. I’ll give it a go
Just some ecchi reminders because Koneko’s healing scene got rushed(how dare they!!): Juggernaut Drive used up most of Issei’s life-force to about 1/10th of what it should be(he’ll live for a hundred years instead of a thousand-plus), but by applying her healing arts she’s slowly restoring what he lost. Since that’s most effective with as much physical contact as possible, Issei’s getting this delicious loli eyeful/body-pillow treatment daily. Add that to how he still needs Akeno and Rias to drain the dragon-energy out of his arm around four times a week so it looks human(which they choose to do by way of literally sucking it out of his fingers in the LN, sometimes with Asia joining in), and that all the girls are doing all this because they absolutely adore Issei, you can see why these girls are getting so damn thirsty.
But that makes the reveal all the more entertaining when he finally gets over his fear and actually starts acting on it a bit more ( most likely around the end of the series ) right?Besides, ishibumi once stated ( think it was in an interview before there was even plans for an anime ) that the moment Issei crosses that line with the girls, the series would end as there would be nothing to stop them from turning the series in a hentai show at that point. But that does make me wonder, if all girls are supposed to get a happy ending and all of them want to be with Issei, how would they do that with Koneko and Rossweiss?
Don’t know if you’ve read Ex, but per the author’s wish, they don’t all get a “100% Happy Ending”. Thirty years in the future Issei is married to all the Gremory girls plus Irinia, Ravel, Kuroka, Elmenhilde, plus I think Kunou and La Fey. However, the world is in such disarray behind the scenes that everyone is busy all the time to the point where while they all still love each other and are happy, they rarely see each other. It’s actually to the point where even though Issei has kids with almost all of the girls, he and most of them have basically been absentee parents for years now (Asia’s the den-mother to the kids, though).It’s kinda implied that the events of Ex are the beginning of fixing how things have gotten with the family, and you know devils live for a thousand-plus years so technically they still have plenty of time to patch things up once things settle down, but I still find it stupid how out-of-character being absentee anything is for Issei or any of the girls, yet it happens just so they don’t get a “100% Happy Ending”. No ending is 100% happy, Ishibumi didn’t need to break character behaviors to get there.
@Damrod : Is the author’s reluctance to commit to full-on hentai due to personal values or editor prevention?Because it’s very different from some authors (esp. the WN types) who aren’t afraid to put in sex scenes (of varying degrees of soft-to-hard) in their works. (That said, some published versions have excised the sex scenes…)
Not 100% certain but I think its more-so how the author wants to perceive his work and him wanting to keep the group dynamic as it is (for now) without turning into a full on smut fest. A series that comes to mind is Shinmai Maou no Testament. Where the MC Basara, literallyhas hardcore unprotected sex with every girl in his harem (and marries them all) and gets them all pregnant. Hell, I was surprised they literally showed the process in one of the LN illustrations, with him having sex with Kurumi’s little sister, and showing the typical “x-ray Sperm-shot inside her vagina” thing you usually see in doujins to hammer in the fact that “This dude is getting all these girls pregnant” so I’m not entirely sure if its anything but author-discretion if something like that (which is basically hentai with plot) gets greenlit to be openly available in the LN market.
@zztop As far as i am aware, it is a mix of both. When certain techniques are just too much ( one of the ways Ishibumi wanted to give Issei a power-up was by sucking breasts and use the breast milk from that for the power up ) the editor steps in and they change it to something less perverted. That breast milk example got retooled in the oppai beam from Rias that recharged Issei and gave him a temporary boost.When it is not related to those things, it is mainly because he wants to keep that for the end of the series and/or the doujin scene. The most he ever elaborated on that part from his side as far as i know was that if he opened that door, then it would be too easy to turn it in your average run of the mill hentai. For that reason, he wanted to save that for the ending of the series. As for the EX version that Aex mentioned, while i am not yet up to date with that one i don’t remember it mentioning any kind of sex so far besides the obvious implications since their kids didn’t come into existence without the sex part.
@Damrod : The “breast milk” powerup being rejected for DxD is quite interesting, considering that works like Seikon no Quaser was able to get away with that. Hiroyuki Yoshino’s editor must’ve been…more accomodating.PS. Apparently Yoshino’s been reusing the breast suckling powerup (in a more limited capacity) for his latest manga, The Nectar of Dharani. Apart from the suckling, the plot (action-adventure isekai) is pretty good.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/NectarOfDharaniPPS. The same guy who created Izetta the Last Witch.
@zztop In seikon no qwaser, the breast milk is a temporary boost as far as i remember. Ishibumi wanted to use it for permanent upgrades like how Issei got balance breaker by pressing both nipples of Rias at the same time. Besides, the breast milk idea still got some use in the later volumes in a different form.
http://images.randomc.net/High%20School%20DxD/High%20School%20DxD%20HERO%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2002.jpg“Citadel Hits” everywhere…http://images.randomc.net/High%20School%20DxD/High%20School%20DxD%20HERO%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2032.jpg“Devastating Strike.” Yup, that’s a paddlin’ alright…http://images.randomc.net/High%20School%20DxD/High%20School%20DxD%20HERO%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2006.jpgWait a tic…isn’t that the “Idol Complex” image booru? (Or a resonable facsimile of it?)Issei and Sairaorg’s sparring match: Awesome. Sairaorg deciding to end the match after hearing from Asia that Issei can power up further with Rias’ boobs: Hilarious. Makes me wonder if Issei practically becomes Saitama if Rias grants him permission to fondle her boobs to his heart’s content. XDEpisode 00 was a good start, cautiously optimistic with this episode. Eager to see what the second-years will encounter on their trip to Kyoto within the next two episodes. (And I wonder if that includes the multi-tailed foxgirl seen in the opening. Who is she?)P.S.: Rossweisse in a bikini in the ED is love. ~<3P.P.S.: Looking forward to the scene where Ddraig gets a Heroic BSOD for getting the nickname of "Breast Dragon".
Yup, we’re definitely starting to see the positives of the new artstyle change this episode (Not to mention I’m surprised to how quickly I’ve gotten used to them). Not only do the cast have dynamic facial expressions, those expressions (along with the increased attention to body language) smoothly transitions into each other rather than clunkily changing instantly within frames. This makes watching the characters interactions that much more engaging in comparison to the first three seasons. Just a few secs of looking at Rias’ face in the last few minutes of the episode is all you need pay attention to in order to see what I’m talking about.
Nothing restores my faith in anime more than COW TITS. Isn’t this trend like….done yet?
In this show? Hah! You’re funny.
Monster Musume (The Manga is right now is all about Cow Tits…) Well some sort of
It is the “same old” Highschool DxD we know and love, it is just that someone need time to get used to the slightly different faces. But all things around is good and how we know it from our past. Even the Seiyuss sounds so as they where never away