On the surface, it's an anime that shouldn't work. It's about a horny teenager who somehow manages to run into the one group of girls who want to ride his "Boosted Gear." However, the sheer ridiculousness of everything that plays out in this anime manages to make this work.
It takes the extra step in adding the extra flavor that the Ecchi Harem genre needed that School Days failed to do. While School Days tried to half-ass themes about the consequences of infidelity, DxD throws that all out the window and focuses on a guy who literally wants to become a "harem king" and who thinks about sex so much he can literally undress anyone he wants. While the horniness of this anime can get overbearing at times, with the anime finding any excuse to show a titty, it never gets boring by any means.
With Akeno's Darkness-level amount of casual kinkiness, Kiba's bromance with Issei, Asia being absolutely adorable, Rias's constant "God I wish that were me" moments, and Koneko constantly stating what's on the audience's mind, there's a lot to love.
It helps that the English Dub of this anime is nuts, and definitely the way to watch it. It isn't on the same level as Ghost Stories or the Devilman OVA's, but it is obvious that that the dub cast had some serious fun dubbing this horned up joyride, and it deserves all the recognition it recieved. While Josh Freeman shot himself in the foot by basically being IRL Issei, he really captured the spirit of the character, and Josh Grelle fills the role just as well. Jamie Marchi is definitely the definitive version of Rias and I'm glad she was is still around even after several of the cast has gotten shuffled between BorN and Hero.
The animation isn't the greatest. The fight scenes are okay, but this is TNK we're talking about. If you expect anything other than the boob physics to be S A K U G A you're gonna be disappointed. Thankfully, it looks like Passione upped the ante after they took over with Hero, and while the new character designs that are closer to the Light Novel artwork may get some getting used to, I find them to be much better overall, as TNK's designs look a little too similar to some of their other works, with some characters such as Raynare looking like they could be put in School Days and no one would notice.
While this is definitely a "turn your brain off" anime, as no real woman would consider getting into the pants of someone like Issei, it's a fun ride for anyone interested in a fantasy anime that's quite raunchy but a whole lot of fun. I would highly recommend this.
