When I think quality anime, I instantly think TNK. After all, School Days has constantly appeared on my best anime of all-time list and is usually what I compare all other anime to. Thankfully, High School DxD doesn’t need to be compared to anything else because it’s a completely new type of series resplendent with ideas you won’t find in any other anime. And it has boobies, which are clinically proven to enhance an anime’s rating.
You may be asking what this nirvana of anime is about. It centers around this perverted guy named Tomoki…er, Issei, sorry. He likes to think about naked girls. I can relate to that because I do that sometimes too. He also has perverted friends who he watches porn with. I can relate to that because Friday Circle Jerks are the best nights of the week. Mostly because of the pizza. The porn’s never that great.
So anyway, he has some super-duper power that only the most average of people always has and so some sexy fallen angels are after him. And some sexy demon ladies want him too. The demon ladies are much nicer than the fallen angels. In fact, it’s been shown that the Bible doesn’t give Satan enough credit for having nice demons. And the Bible doesn’t even mention how big their titties are. The demon lady, Rias, saves Issei and takes him into her house where he becomes her pawn in some convoluted mess of barely explained but easy to understand stupidity. Now Issei has to learn to be a demon while facing the demons of his obsession with pornography and thinking of girls as nothing more than boobs on two legs.
It’s hard to do that in a world of perpetual cold though. It seems like those girls need to wear more sweaters. I was at the edge of my seat everytime anyone got a face full of boob, hoping that their eyes weren’t poked out by the diamond-hard nips standing on every girls mounds of glorious jiggliness. On top of that, bras must not be part of the school dress code. This is an understandable move, as the principal must understand how uncomfortable it is to wear a bra. And how comfortable it is to see girls without bras.
Even more of a problem is how badly made the clothes of every female character are. With just a single punch, the girls clothes tear into pieces, exposing things that are not for my virgin eyes. Last time I punched my sister, she didn’t go flying into the air, her clothes raining down around her while I basked in her nudity…
Okay, I’ll get serious now. The plot of High School DxD is not all that compelling. It’s pretty generic stuff. I pretty much saw this as the opposite version of Sora no Otoshimono, where the characters are devils instead of angels, and the tits are much more prevalent. I didn’t mind this though as the plot did move at a decent clip and I guess it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen.
It’s more character driven than anything, though none of the characters are standouts. Issei is the same tired character we’ve come to find in a lot of this type of anime, the strong-headed pervert who’s useless in every regard except he’s got a lot of heart. Rias is somewhat interesting as the leader of the little group. All the other girls are pretty much generic characters we’ve seen a million times before.
By now this is a pretty tired tale but there are some redeeming factors to this anime that actually exceeded my expectations.
Boobies.
I was actually recommended this anime by a girl at my local anime convention so I figured it just be another Heaven’s Lost Property. Boy was I surprised when I spent the entirety of the first episode staring at tits, and then spent the subsequent eleven staring at more tits. If you haven’t watched this, then know that this show is extremely explicit. It’s borderline hentai. The camera focuses on tits during conversations, every girl’s got nip going on, every other scene has to have the girls without clothes on for some reason or other. It’s not family friendly at all, unless you have a weird fucking family.
I figured I’d hate the constant tits but I really grew not to care anymore after the first few episodes. Once one of the enemies started shooting laser beams from her nipples, boobs just became part of the package, nothing to even write home about. It’s strange that they’re so commonplace and it’s especially strange that this whole series got an English dub. But the dub actually makes the anime for me.
The voice actors were clearly given a ton of leeway. Considering what they were working with, I can see why the dubbers would do that. In Japanese I feel like this anime wouldn’t even be worth watching. But the dub is so uproariously hilarious at time that I couldn’t stop watching. Issei and his two friends are the best part of the anime. Their banter is hilariously overanimated and ridiculous.
DxD has some surprisingly good fight scenes scattered about as well. They all end up falling under some sort of convention in the end, but the quality is pretty good for an anime such as this. And these all culminate with a good, albeit easy to foresee, ending.
There’s something charming about this anime. And I’m not talking about the goddam tits. Despite the average plot and generally lackluster characters, the comedy and action seem to balance everything well. By all accounts and purposes, this isn’t a good anime…
But it’s entertaining as hell.
I was never bored. Some moments had me laughing till I cried. The plot heavy ending was compelling enough to keep me watching. Sure, every third shot was a boob or a thigh or panties, but the comedy helped make this unabashedly shameless. There are some anime that are just boobies and panties for their own sake and then some comedy thrown in. But High School DxD is so shamelessly filthy and perverted that it’s actually somewhat charming.
It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely up there with the best ecchi/harem anime on the market.
