Review of High School DxD

Why High School DxD season 1 is a 7/10 (Spoilers For Ep 1) “Red, the color of her hair, darker than any red hair I have ever seen, the same red running down my hand, long beautiful crimson hair...just like this.” These are the words that introduce us to a series that on the surface seems to be a traditional ecchi show High School DxD but the tone has been set much darker from the beginning than other shows of the Harem Ecchi genre. High School DxD was a show I dropped back in 2014 when I was getting into anime. I saw it as afan service show that was meant to take the eyes of young men exploring sexuality through softcore pornography and I did not want to watch a show like that when I could have been watching shows with deeper meaning. When the show got a second season I was surprised because I assumed that only good shows were able to continue their stories and this broke my worldview. DxD had to either be good or my assumptions were wrong. Turns out it's both.
Episode I
I decided to watch through the first season in early spring of 2015 and it was hard to watch. The first episode of season one introduces us to “Kuoh Academy” the school that Issei Hyodo is attending for his secondary schooling. We open on a group of young men discussing the enjoyment of the female body and we see the dynamic of each character; Matsuda and Motohama are the two main influences on our main character Issei. Matsuda agrees with Issei whole heartedly where as Motohama finds himself in nihilism saying that he agrees with them, but that it is all meaningless in the end. This alone would be enough to show the relationship that these young highschool boys have had before the viewer began watching, but when Issei replies by asking why they all enrolled in Kuoh Academy in the first place this shows us more of their characters. Their answer is that they had the take advantage of the male to female ratio and the “banging forein exchange students” (keep that in mind for later). This is the first time we learn the values and goals of our main protagonist and his friends; they want their own harem.
Issei, Matsuda, and Motohama all enrolled in Kuoh Academy to get ladies by being their only option in a limited dating pool. Issei is the most enthusiastic about this, Matsuda has the desire to have a harem--but seems to be more of an optimist knowing that this is the best case scenario for him, and Motohama is the pessimist knowing that getting a harem is unlikely at best and impossible at worst. As this conversation comes to an end we meet our cliche antagonist (or so it seems) KibaYuuto a dreamy blond classmate of the boys is approached by three women who ask him to join them out for after school activities. He politely declines because he has to meet with his club after school and Issei and friends express their jealousy over Kiba, because he is able to get everything they want and more. This is an easy set up to take for a harem ecchi show, our protagonist is lacking what he desires and the antagonist has what our protagonist wants. On my first watch I was thinking that there was no way they could stretch out this harem thing for twelve episodes, especially with Kiba being the nice guy that he is. This is correct, but only because of the twist that happens later on in episode one.
After some perverse actions by the boys Issei gets his first in person interaction with Rias Gremory, our female lead of the series. All it takes is one stare from Rias and the boys are instantly captivated, but for Issei it is noticeably different than how he stared at the other girls in the prior scenes. We learn that Rias is one of the exchange students from northern Europe and that she is the president of the “Occult Research Club” for Kuoh Academy. We then switch the Rias’s perspective where she is chatting and gaming presumably with another classmate of hers and she puts her in checkmate in a relaxed manner. This scene is the set up for chess being a major role in the series showing that Rias and the Occult Research Club play chess in their spare time. This seemingly odd choice was clearly a hint of visual storytelling. We learned in the scene that Rais is the president of a club that deals in researching the occult and here she is playing chess with her club member. This could mean that the occult research club is really a disguise for some game club or other activities that are not occult or that chess has something to do with the occult. The strange fanservice that follows should nudge the viewer towards these assumptions.
The next scene we are back to following Issei this time alone as the sun sets, seeming to be walking home from school. As he complains a female “classmate” approaches him and asks him out. Issei says yes despite not knowing anything about the girl. Then the next day we see the reaction of his friends as Issei walks to school with his new girlfriend, and oh boy Matsuda and Motohama are in disbelief. Issei introduces his new partner Yuma Immano bragging about how she was the one who asked him out. The pair of friends feel betrayed by Issei as he has left them behind to be loner wizards together in some kind of weird forced bromance. At the end of the school day we find Issei being asked on a formal date by Yuma and they agree to meet up outside of school. As Issei’s testosterone blinds him he walks off and we switch to Rias’s perspective after seeing that one of the occult research club members was spying on him. Again Rias is playing chess as she talks about her plans to her club members.
Then we cut to our date. Issei is dressed in semi-casual wear waiting for Yuma and when she arrives the date begins. It may be at this point that the viewer is noticing the pace of the show, this first episode is not even halfway finished and we have already seen the antagonist, formed a new relationship, and developed hints of a mystery with the occult club. The pacing is fast and this seems to be purposeful. The date is simply a montage with a break to show Issei making a fool of himself, the school days are skipped entirely if they have no plot significant details, and the moments we spend with our other main character have been no longer than a minute. This gives the viewer the perspective of how a young teenage boy views life when in the honeymoon stage of a relationship. Everything is moving so fast and it’s thrilling. Issei is having the time of his life and it is only getting better as time progresses, so why wait for time to pass? Just get on with the date already! The viewer is put into this perspective on purpose, but is also given the outside knowledge that everything is not what it seems and this creates two concomitant perspectives the viewer can have. The viewer could be Issei and be blinded by love and testosterone, or be smart and realize that Yuma must have some outside reason to be going on a date with this random guy she stalked.
This is when Yuma speaks up and asks Issei if he would do something special to commemorate their first date, this “special moment” as she calls it. Issei assumes that this means first base and that he is going to get to kiss her. Like clockwork the two types of viewers are revealed Yuma’s true intentions and she asks Issei if he would die for her with a grimace on her face. When Issei tries to play this off as a joke, Yuma insists that she wants Issei to die for her and that is when Yuma reveals her true identity. Yuma is a demon and before Issei can plead for her not to kill him she conjures a spear and pierces Issei through his torso. Yuma thanks Issei for the date as she leaves him to bleed out on the path of the park alone.
In his final moments Issei thinks about how he will die a pathetic loser, but then looks at his blood and repeats the line we heard at the beginning: “Red, the color of her hair, darker than any red hair I have ever seen, the same red running down my hand, long beautiful crimson hair...just like this.” As Issei’s body turns grey and he loses control of his motor functions he begins to think about how he will be a better person in his next life, making Issei a Bhuddist and a believer in reincarnation. However before he is reincarnated Rais is summoned from a gift he was given earlier by one of her spies and reveals to Issei that she too is a demon, but she is willing to take him in as one of her pawns if he wishes to live. When Issei awakes the next morning, it is not in a new body, but rather his own and when he gets to school he realizes that everything he thought he knew about reality had changed.
That is the first half of the first episode of Highschool DxD a show known for its fanservice, but what should be known for it’s great story and even greater allegory. The first season of Highschool DxD revolves around the origin story of Issei and his training in the hidden demon society laid within his own high school. Throughout the season Issei learns the culture and practices of demons; most importantly how the demons compete for power. Issei is Rias’s pawn in a game of chess metaphorically and physically Issie is the weakest and most crucial piece of Rias’s strategy in winning power in the demon empire. Rias in exchange for saving Issei demands his full enslavement, but Issei would have done that as a human if it meant that he could hang out with all the ladies in the occult club. Issei uses this opportunity of being revived to achieve status in the demon world in order to achieve his newly found wish of becoming a high class demon to get a harem of his own.
This show due to its devilish nature introduces characters from ancient sources including specific names of devils from the Bible and other biblical texts. Lucifer being the main devil in this season is shown to be separate from the title of Satan as opposed to what the biblical texts say which shows that DxD is using these texts for inspiration, not as lore itself. The humans had part of it right when reading the Bible, but in DxD’s world the Bible is a hit piece on demons from the angels and God himself. In future seasons we learn that many stories about gods are real in DxD and that makes the story much more interesting if you are interested in seeing the parallels between this animated fanservice comedy with dark themes with the Epics of ancient civilizations. The stories are different but many of the teachings are the same and if this is what it takes to get young men interested in learning about the teachings of our ancestors then I guess this is as good of an update to the stories as any. I’m certain DxD strikes with a different audience than those who are devout Christians who go to churches to learn about God making it perhaps a better introduction to an atheist than a thousand year old book that was written by old men to tell them what to do. Instead DxD is a funny anime that can actually make some good points about learning to do the right thing in difficult circumstances and learning from your mistakes.
Overall this season is the worst out of the series so I rate it a 7/10, because admittedly there are many scenes that are unnecessary and fail to push the plot forward in a meaningful way and are just there to keep the young men watching. There is some clumsy dialogue that affects the tones of some scenes, and many scenes could have been directed better to fit their tones, I know how annoying it is to be in a serious scene surrounded by fanservice and I think that is where most people have a problem with the series because this issue persists. However if you want a story that is deep and filled with themes from Devilman Crybaby and Parasyte I would ask you to sit through this first season and give the extensive lore a read if the fanservice is too much. The story is extremely interesting on its own without animation so if you need that allegorical fix read the scripts for each episode.
Thank you for reading, please feel free to comment your opinions and check out my other reviews of the other seasons (coming soon).