High School DxD

TV (12 eps)
4.023 out of 5 from 33,998 votes
Rank #1,303

All the perverted Issei wants is to squeeze bountiful boobs all day long, so he's thrilled to join Kuou Academy, a once all-female high school filled with gorgeous girls. But little did the boy know that after finally getting a girlfriend, she'd turn out to be a fallen angel who'd drive a lance through his heart, killing him on the spot! Luckily, the beautiful and busty Rias, his popular classmate who's actually a demon, revives him under one condition: that he'll become her servant. Now, Issei finds himself in the middle of a fierce chess game between demons, fallen angels and exorcists, and the fates of his new friends lie in the balance!

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High School DxD is defintely a strange anime at it's core. I've watched ecchi before, but none to this extent. Most of it was intentional and it turned me off to certain aspects of this anime. THE STORY IS: Issei is a pervert in every shape, way, and form. Him and his 2 other friends dream, fantasize, and never pass up a chance to see the girls at school naked. One day, Issei comes across a girl who wants to go out with him. He obviously says yes and they embark on a date. At the end of the date, the girl turns out to be a Fallen Angel and kills Issei. While dying, he is brought back to life by Rias Gremory, the head of the Gremory Demon Clan. Issei must now cope with his newly found life as a demon and a slave to Rias. To be clear, the only reason I watched this is because I thought the story was intriguing. It had some really intense points, but mostly towards the end of the anime. The only thing that turned me off about the story is the mass amount of nudity. I understand it's an ecchi and that is what it entails, but there is a limit. I wanted to see how the story developed and I got a good story with a LOT of boobs and nudity. The story, honestly, starts out slow and never really goes anywhere until about halfway through. Even then, it felt rushed and never took some necessary time to put the boobs on the back burner and let the story come forward and take the lime light. Overall the story was very well done and worth the watch through. THE ANIMATION was top notch! Very clean, crisp, and not too colorful nor drab. Honestly, I thought the animation was probably the best animation I have seen so far in an anime. Also considering that it is a newer anime, it still is very clean cut. THE SOUND was also pretty good. The voice acting was where it needed to be. The sound effects were on par. It was good overall. THE CHARACTERS were hit or miss. Issei is a good character at some points, but most of the time he is rather annoying with his crazy obsession with boobs. If they toned Issei's boob-crazed personality down from off the scale to a more tolerable amount here and there, he would've been a great character. Rias is a great female lead. She keeps Issei and everyone else in their place and defintely stands out as a leader. Everyone else has their own persona, but don't really take the forfront as much as Issei, Rias, and Asia. I would like to have known more about Konoko and Aneko and take a peek into their backgrounds a bit to see where they came from and why there are the way they are. OVERALL High School DxD was a pretty good anime to watch. It has a slow start to an intriguing plot, but it was very good overall. As I stated earlier, my only complaint was the mass plethora of nudity. Some was unnecessary and some was whatever, but I didn't mind it except towards the end where it became all too frequent in situations that didn't call for it.


Super pervert Issei Hyodo finally gets a date with a girl, only for said girl(a fallen angel in disguise) to end up killing him at the end of the date. However, a mysterious red-haired girl (with huge chest) revives him as a demon to be her slave, gambling on the mysterious Sacred Gear that resides inside him. Thus starts High School DxD, and I'll be lying if I said the premise didn't have potential, and that it didn't draw me in. Too bad the potential was wasted on a rehashing of tired cliches that distract from and sabotage the plot every step of the way. But before I get too deep into that (and this review will have spoilers), I need to say something else first. As an anime fan, I have to cringe at titles like this, for they are the sole reason anime won't be accepted by society at large... and I can't blame them. It's titles like this that make me ashamed to call myself an anime fan. I only watched this, because a friend of mine said people would judge it solely on the fanservice and nudity, and not for the good plot. Unfortunately, the plot (when the constant panty shots aren't distracting you from it) has it's own share of problems, mostly in the form of the characters. So, with that said, let's jump in. Story 5/10 As I said above, Issei gets ressurected as a demon slave of the Greater Demon Rias, the mysterious red-haired girl with huge rack. And I have to mention the huge rack, because the series doesn't let you forget it. Seriously, nipples STILL visible through a bra and shirt? Also, Issei, being the stereotypical sex-obsessed pervert, can't forget about breasts, either. But I'll cover that more in the characters section. Also as I mentioned, the story premise had potential. I was looking forward to seeing how a protagonist would react when forced to serve a demon lord, even if she was in the form of a high school girl. I was expecting something from the story to showcase why these people are demons. Usually it just means a heightened sense of selfishness or self-interest, all the way up to truely hideous and horrible acts. I saw very little of that here. And while having a story where "demons" are poor, misunderstood creatures could be interesting, I didn't get that sense, either. The show doesn't attempt to make us believe that; just that there was a war between heaven and hell a long time ago that ended in a stalemate. I would have preferred to see Rias and her minions act a bit more evil, and perhaps see Issei get stuck in the gray setting, balancing his desire to do good against the darker machinations of his demon master. Perhaps becoming a rogue Han Solo like character, or some kind of anti-hero. Gokudo and Lina Inverse do a much better job in that regard, and thus are more interesting as characters. Instead, what we get is that the church is evil is the first story arc, and then Rias's marriage troubles in the second arc. She only wants to wed someone she loves? Exactly what kind of a demoness is she? I could understand if she didn't want to wed because she hated the guy, or would lose power and prestiege; but we get love instead. Oy vey. It's not all bad; there is some good. The attention to detail in the world building of this universe is surprisingly well done and interesting. Concepts introduced early on, are built upon later, and also tie in to later plot points. There is the gist of a decent storyline under all of this, but it's executed poorly and buried under the mountain of jiggly tits. Animation 5/10 Decent for this time period in anime. Nothing really stands out (other than all the impossibly jiggling tits that jiggle and wobble for no reason), but it's not too horrible, either. If you like large jiggly breasts, then you'll like this anime. I am less than impressed with all the battles I have seen so far, which have been sadly lacking in detail and time spent. Even Dragon Ball had better fight scenes. Most fights are spent trash talking your opponent and gloating over them, then you get a couple of seconds of something happening and the fight is over. Sound 5/10 Again, average. Nothing stood out, but it didn't grate on me, either. Except for all the "boing boing" noises made by jiggling tits. Have I mentioned this anime has jiggling tits? Characters 2/10 This is where the meat of this review will be centered, because they play the largest part in why this anime so disappointed me. I can deal with fanservice and impossible chest sizes and movements, as long as the characters and story are good. Let's start with Issei, who is the stereotypical sex-obsessed super pervert. I don't know what it is about anime that they seem quite unable to portray a young boy as anything other than a super pervert or sex-less super eunuch with no desire whatsoever. I've grown rather tired of it. I might be okay with Issei starting out that way, if he was able to grow out from it. But when he's openly gawking in many episodes later to the detriment of himself and the situation, I begin to lose any feeling and respect for him as a protagonist. His stupid and hypocritical nature comes to the forefront, when he encounters a douche with his own harem of 15 girls. Issei hates the guy, even though the guy is everything Issei is and wants to be (seriously, early on he drooled in glee at the thought of having his own female slave having to do everything he wanted). I will say that one good point about his character, is that he is constantly shown to be the weakest, ie, he doesn't somehow suddenly become the strongest due to an awakened power. Moving on to Rias, who I feel is a slightly better. She's powerful, a major demon lord, and is desired by everyone at school. I am somewhat relieved to see that she's not a prude, and more than comfortable being nude. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense? She's still a virgin. I find it hard to believe she hasn't used her sexual nature to get things. She taunts Issei with it enough. And she wants to marry for love; how cute. Give me a real demon lord! Give me a woman who is experienced, has a stronger self-interest drive, and let's see the sparks that create when she clashes with the morals of her slave! Give me character development that doesn't revolve around just simply falling in love with the main protagonist! But I'm sorry, she's a female, so she's limited to showing off her tits and her development is limited to romance with a guy. There are a variety of side characters, but... wait, did I say variety? I meant there is one or two character types repeated endlessly. Guys are generally perverts (except for the sole pretty boy), and girls are virginal sex symbols (except the flat-chest emotionless girl). I will say I do enjoy Koneko's character, despite her being a typical archtype with little depth. She is one of the only ones to rightfully condemn Issei's lechorous behavior, and yet she can still work with him and admire other parts of his nature; a nuanced position that escapes everyone else in the series. Well, the school's female population generally hates him for it, so there's that. But the main girls not only tolerate it, they think it's cute that he's being so "honest." To the guys writing this anime, here's a note: Only a very small fraction of girls in the real world would like a guy being "honest" like Issei is. Even among the ones that like sex, they tend to dislike guys that only see them as a pair of breasts. And yet, Rias, Akeno, and even sweet and innocent little Asia cater to him. The latter especially strikes me as odd; what is a naive, sheltered nun doing, openly deciding to show him her naked body because she realizes he's a pervert and you want him to like you? That ain't healthy. Which brings up my last character point: this is a harem anime, but it's even worse than normal that all these girls are falling in love with him for little-to-no reason. At least with a typical harem, the sexless main protagonist has a noble nature and thus reason to admire and fall in love with him. Issei showcases little of that, and even when he does, his super perverted nature would make any normal, rational woman shun him. At the least, they wouldn't see him as relationship material. Overall 4.5/10 I wanted to like this series. Under all the naked breasts and panty shots, is the glimmer of an interesting story forming, with well-thought-out world-building details. But ultimately, the inconsistant and unexplainable characters, coupled with the gratutious fanservice, detracted from whatever story this series might want to tell. Only watch this story if you like lots of shredding clothes exposing many huge tits. But even then, if that's what you want to see, watch porn instead. I have to wonder, at this point, why do they go out of their way to hide bare crotches? If you can show boobies, why only half-ass it (pardon the pun)? At least with porn, you get everything. If the nudity played a good part in this series, I could understand; but 90% of it is simply there to titillate. At the least, I know that anime on TV censors the boobies, in order to uncensor them on the DVD to get people to buy it. I can understand that business decision. But nothing here is censored, so ultimately it makes no real sense. So, if you want a harem with a little bit of shonen and a whole lot of boobies, watch this. Otherwise, skip it. Or read the light novel series it is based off of.


Story For an Ecchi harem, it has a very interesting story and that's one of the primary reasons I gave it a high grade in this area, it doesn't stack up very well compared to other genres but for what it is, it is extremely entertaining. It has fun with itself and the author seems to be having a lot of fun writing it. They've setup an interesting shounen-style premise with an interesting cast of characters and backgrounds that play off of each other nicely.   Just Issei in alpha mode There are entire worlds left unexplored in the first season and if you've read the light novels you'd know there's plenty of things left in this universe. The world is massive, the characters are endless and I don't think there's ever a moment when I was bored. One of the best things about DxD is it's ability to completely lose it's mind, as seen in one of the first episodes where a devil is depicted as shooting lasers out of her funbags. The level of comedy in this show is pretty great too and there's plenty to laugh at both now, and in the future when another season arrives.   Priorities, man. All that said, the level of fanservice is infinity level so those who are annoyed by it, you'll just have to stay away. It's rampant, there's bare-chested nudity and a lot of it. This doesn't bug me much at all and I've honestly ignored the whole thing and genuinely enjoy the story. Why can't I hold all this plot? Animation The animation quality is pretty good, better than other of it's genre but sadly it doesn't stack up quite as well against other big name titles. I am convinced it has some of the best animation the ecchi/harem/comedy department will ever see but it doesn't stack up so well against it's epic shounen adventure counterparts. I have no problems with this The battle scenes are fairly well animated but it seems like they've saved some of the budget there to expand on uhm, other fronts if you catch my drift. Many of the ecchi scenes are animated to professional quality while the battle scenes left more to be desired. Don't get me wrong, the battle scenes aren't bad but the fact that you can clearly see more attention to detail in the character's chest areas compared to critical battles is something that should be pointed out. Just your friendly neighborhood Megazord Sound The characters are voiced well, nothing seems particularly out of place; The OP for DxD is sort of generic but the music isn't that bad. The ED I'm convinced is one of the best this season (and not just for the epic fanservice), the song is incredibly catchy and fits the series well in both the fun and lyrics department. Not much to say about the sound really, everything fits like it should but there's nothing exceptionally spectacular about it. What's that? GIFs can't make sounds you say?   Characters The characters are a big part of the story and I've already voiced my opinion on them but I'll try to get a little more specific. Kiba, probably the weakest character of the bunch is Issei's rival yet is one of the few of the group who treats Issei with any amount of respect - not much to say about him, his development would be in the second season (Light novels 3-4) but as it stands he's a pretty weak and undeveloped character. Though popular with the ladies outside of the club, within the club Kiba is friendzone level 99 Akeno is an S&M freak who likes torturing enemies and of course, is sexy. Koneko is a stoic cat lady who constantly calls Issei out for being a gigantic pervert. Koneko declares all perverts must die, my life is in serious danger. Ashia is the resident pure maiden who's being influenced by Rias' perverted devil ways, she lusts for Issei and yet doesn't know enough about relations between man and woman to do much about it. Rias is burdened by her family name and is in an arranged marriage situation, falls in love with our resident pervert when he saves her from that fate. You'll never take my red headed large breasted woman Then there's Issei, our main character. He's a pervert, he ends up in funny situations and rubs his sexual exploits in his friends' faces. He wants to touch any and all sexual parts of the opposite sex. He's awesome in that he ends up getting a harem which he's totally unaware of because he doesn't believe women can be genuinely interested in him, when they all eventually fall victim to his pure hearted pervert ways. This all sounds pretty bland and natural for the genre, but they all come together quite beautifully (no pun intended) and it ends up being a laugh riot. There's no typical harem cockblocking or shenanigans here. The enemies are generally all generic except the bosses, but are interesting enough to make you wonder. Our resident douchebag, Raiser Overall Let's be honest, DxD isn't going to be winning any awards but it's entertaining as all hell. It's completely insane, shameless and interesting. I've not had this much fun watching an anime in a while. The fun factor is in it's ability to tell an interesting story and it's comedy, there's also some mighty powerful fanservice for those interested in that. (yes, they have bare uncensored breasts, let's shoehorn that in right now) You'll have a good time watching this anime if you can judge the anime based on it's merits in this genre over the level of fan service. Yes, if you hate fan service, you will be annoyed to the maximum extent but otherwise, it's really very fun. I suggest picking it up and waiting for a second season, it's been ranked pretty high in the preorders and sales department and it's sure to have another season (or two, hopefully). It's not the best anime this season but it's certainly not even close to the worst. Give it a shot.

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