Review of High School DxD
I might be a little biased towards high school dxd. It was the first anime to get me into the sub-culture however let me explain. I had watched anime like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto in the past however it wasn't until I watched this anime, that wasn't broadcasted or mainstream in America when I truly became interested in the anime culture. However let's go over what I enjoyed about the anime and light novel: 1. Issei is a actual interesting main character. Outside of his perverted nature, you see that he's a actual good person who seeks to aid and protect others. He trains to getstronger in the Rating Game against Riser Phenex and does so out of respect and care for his master. He cries for Asia and defeats Raynare because he genuienly saw Asia for what she was, a shy and timid girl who had been beaten and broken down from the moment she was young by the church, by the fallen angels, and life. It's dumb that some people only see Issei as a perverted boy and not the hero who cares for each other that he aspired to be.
2. The fact that there's a little bit in this show for everyone. I'm mostly indifferent to the sexual/ecchi moments in anime which are commonly known as "fan service" however if you're like me and don't generally care for that, you still have: >all the lore in the show >the sacred gears, mystery of God's death >the anime battle >the shounen rivalries
Aside from just being a generic ecchi anime, this show has one of the best written stories with a amazing twist. The khaos Brigade, the corruption of the Underworld. The mythological lore of not just GOd and Satan but of the other factions as well and the sacred gears. This show has alot for everyone, and it perfectly balances the two making it a enjoyable watch even if you're not into ecchi.
3. Decent side characters. Issei isn't the only well-defined character in the show, the harem girls are also good, with their own personalities, motivations, strengths, weaknesses, and even abilities. Rias and AKeno are both magic users, Konkeo is a hand-to-hand fighter, ASia is a support fighter, and Xenovia uses her swords. The girls of the harem have their own unique abilities and personalities that reflect those abilities and this makes the show very good, instead of the generic waifu copyboard cutout. Also watching Issei help the girls with their problems and seeing them become better as a result of it is also a nice touch to the series that you don't see in most harem animes.
Secondly, you also have good male characters. In most harem animes the secondary male characters usually exist in one of two forms: 1. The douch 2. the wimp
The douche charaters are typically just the average dude bro stereotype who the main protagonist is supposed to defeat to prove how he's truly deserving of the harem girls.
the second is the wimp, is usually presented in gary-stu style animes, where they're weak, cheap cannon fodder that are used to show you how "bad-ass" the main character is. And their development and characterization is usually ignored in order to make more time for the main character and his harem*cough* *cough* klein from Sao *cough* *cough*
It's nice to see that high school dxd presents a wide variety of different characters that you can enjoy:
>KIba as Issei's friend
>Azazel the mentor
>Vali the shounen rival
>Saji the best bro
>Gasper the trap