Story 6\10
Before I get crucified, I find volumes 9-10 which this series was covering the most boring while reading. I was also getting used to all the changes because of a new studio so it was hard to be engrossed as well. Since season 3 was not fully cannon and missed a ton of important parts, they had to skip a lot so some things were skipped in order to keep cannon which confused every anime only watcher I talked to, and it was annoying for me too. Examples also being the rating game Sitri VS Gremory.
Sound 8\10 not including old tracks 4\10
The OST of high school dxd is great, but this season added hardly any new tracks and the weakest op and ed. I give dxd 8\10 overall on sound but judging season 4 tracks alone its bad.
Character 9\10
Not really much to say here but the faithfulness to the light novel helped the characters which we all love but some like xenovia just seemed utterly off but thats just one thing. If you are here at 4 season you know the characters are great.
Art and animation 3\10
Man on man did the art style start a flame war, I saw it divide the fandom. I think the new art style is okay and if it was just the art I had a problem with, I would give this a higher score but we will get to the animation in a second.
They switched up character designs, my waifu akeno looks derpy and the full changes they have done to characters turned me off the most as it did with others but some look fine with the new art style like asia, rosweisse and others and some like Akeno and Rias look worse. The old animation by TNK looks more mature and the fanservice in the last seasons made it look as if all the characters chest looked different and different body types, now the boobs look almost the same.
The animation is bad, if it was good I would give this a 7\10 and say I am just not a fan of the new art style and leave it but its bad. The facial expressions are done horribly, lots of standstill images, choppy at times, action looks like something from ten years ago and fight scenes were choreographed better in the past. Character designs as well as them using a 3d painted background while exploring kyoto in episode 3 or 4 which looked awful. Animation was bad and with getting used to the utterly 180 art style changed that took away from the show. Part of me wants to give this a 2 almost.
Enjoyment 5\10
Honestly, this season did not have me looking forward to the next episode at all unlike the other seasons of dxd, the art style changed took time to get used to and I still do not like it since many people were drawn to the gorgeous art style of TNK and we get this boring plain art style thats not fun to look at all. The facial expressions I noticed right away like others and once you noticed it, you can't ignore it. If you do not know what I am talking about count your blessings because you will notice it next time you see it or rewatch it. Rating game was not as fun as others as well as this was the most boring parts of the LN for me. I will say that dxd is one of my favorite animes of all time, but I really can't care too much for the anime at the moment so I may stick to just reading it. With the flame wars and backlash on this season however I don't think we might get a season 5.
Overall 6\10
I wish this season was better, I really do. I even prefer the non cannon season 3. The art style divided the fandom and I would even go as far to call the fandom more toxic than its ever been. The reason we have a new studio is because TNK was not following the LN properly so the series got handed over to passione, the studio that really should not have it out of all studio's I could think of.
