Reviews

Perhaps there is no genre that can spark feuds like ecchi; we have two opposing armies, the rabid fans and the harsh critics, baying for each other's blood, their cause of animosity being nothing other than the fact that the former labels a particular series as "one of, if not the greatest anime ever made" and the latter has branded it with the slightly less esteemed label of human (maybe animal) excreta. However, the general opinion among (sane) people from both camps (and neutral observers like me) is that the viewer needs a little more than umpteen-per-episode panty shots and boobs that look and bounce like basketballs, in order for a series to be worth watching. We've waited for ages for the ecchi series that would bring in a breath of fresh air to a genre being suffocated by bad comedy, stereotyped females and essentially wooden males (who serve only three purposes : to receive female attention, to whine and/or to occasionally become really strong or suave depending on whether the series is action or SOL). This wonderful series would have just the right amount of fanservice with adequate character development and REAL depth. That would be--wait for it-- The Ideal Ecchi.*drums in background*

It seems we still need to wait. 'Cause HSDxD is, to all intents and purposes, created from the same mould of typical ecchi that fans love and critics abuse.

Now mentally you may have already placed me in the 'harsh critic' category, but one fact is true--I did like HSDxD. So without adding to this already huge intro, I'll jump straightaway into the review.

Story:5
Absolutely generic. A typical high school pervert gets killed by a girl on his date and gets reincarnated by a devil. He discovers that he has (Big surprise) an incredibly powerful weapon in his left arm, and as a devil, becomes determined to create his own harem (Pretty noble, huh?). On the way he also gets attached to everyone around him and powers up whenever they are hurt, etc etc.

Art:8
I'm no art connoisseur, but I loved the art. Characters were well drawn and animation was pretty fluid all the way.

Sound:7
Nothing much to say really, I don't know if it'll stick with you, but it's quit decent.

Characters:6
Characterization is still the Achilles' heel of ecchi, but despite being bogged down by stereotypes, High School DxD does attain some respectability. The backstories of the female characters like Asia and Rias are quite believable, and there are moments where you actually care about the characters, which is a really rare feeling as far as ecchi is concerned.
There are drawbacks, though, the biggest of which is our perverted-but-loved-by-all MC Issei Hyoudou, who has absolutely no qualities other than recklessness, very crude intelligence (he tries to make it look cool but fails) and an uncanny ability to be useless in all situations except the eleventh hour ones. There are other problems too:there is hardly any effort put in side characters other than making them fanservice elements, and those same stupid predictable situations common to the genre. It's true that the series has just 12 episodes, but maybe it would have been better had the makers used a bit of the abundant fanservice time to give some believability to the characters.

Enjoyment:8
Let's face it, all of us saw the ecchi tag as we checked in, so there's no use whining about the plentiful shots of uncensored boobs or panties. If you go prepared for tons of fanservice, you might actually enjoy this show. For myself, I actually don't mind a bit of titillation as long as there's a story to back it up; to its credit, High School DxD does a tolerable job of making the ecchi a story element. Yes, it sometimes gets boring, all that oppai, but the story just about covers it up.

So let me summarize: If you're going in expecting an ecchi with a story covering it, this will do the job. If you are expecting a story with some ecchi covering it, you'll be disappointed. If you're not into fanservice, try not even to think of watching this.

Hope this helps!!