Review of High School DxD
Overview: Both film and television have a great number of genres and sub-genres. Some of these sub-genres are quite easy to pull off, like the "jump scare" adolescent horror movies that Blumhouse shits out every year! All you have to do is follow the same cookie cutter formula and your low budget schlock film will make back at least 800% of its budget and receive decent reviews! One of the most difficult sub-genres to actually execute well is the "completely self aware, so bad it's good comedy". Many studios and directors attempt to tackle this sub-genre with films like "Sharknado" or "Snakes on a Plane" butalmost ALWAYS the result ends up being boring and predictable instead of actually funny and amusing. Anime studios have also recently entered into this sub-genre with shows like High School of the Dead, but High school DxD largely succeeds where High school of the Dead fell flat on its face. DxD remembers to NEVER take itself seriously and most importantly to keep its jokes and line delivery actually funny!
Plot:
Do you like boobs? Do you like lots of blood? Do you like not being bothered with such cumbersome inconveniences as character development or a well written plot? This is the show for you! DxD is a story about a pervert that joins a largely female school to try gain his own harem. Instead he remains a virgin and a social pariah until the power of his bullshit "MacGuffin" forces him to choose a side in a faction war between Demons, Angels, and Fallen Angels. The Demon faction are different from the fallen angels and were not created by Jehovah unlike the Angels and Fallen Angels. In the beginning of time, several powerful races came into being including Gods (of whom Jehovah is one of many), the demons, and the dragons. Jehovah/Allah unlike his brothers Zeus and Odin decided to try wipe out the Demons and created the Angels as his personal army. However, some of the angels were immoral and slept with human women, so Jehovah/Allah cast them out and they became the Fallen Angels or "Grigori". The fallen Angels tried to exterminate the Demons in order to win back Jehovah's favor, but Jehovah decided to declare war on both factions and start a 3 way war. This war devastated the ranks of the 3 armies and killed both Jehovah and the 4 original Demon Kings called "Satans". To the present day an uneasy truce has been kept between the surviving members of these factions. The plot in addition to absurd comedy, shameless fanservice, and slapstick serves as a giant FUCK YOU to religion and insults every religion in equal measure. It's almost as if Bill Maher wrote this series...only its too funny for him to have been the author. DxD frequently references other anime and is VERY aware of all the tropes it is using including ripping off DBZ and perpetually name dropping obscure demons, angels, and other kaballah related terms as a middle finger to Evangelion's admittedly insufferable use of this technique.
Characters:
The characters from the main male protagonist Issei to the female protagonist Rias are very cardboard archetypes. The series doesn't take itself seriously and never actually tries to develop these characters because the entire point of the series is to be enjoyably idiotic bullshit. This was actually the right move for DxD because it becomes very annoying when a REALLY stupid series actually tries to take itself seriously and demands that the viewer respect its dignity. I'm looking at you Seikon no Qwasar!
Art and sound:
The art predictably features absurdly large breasts that move in ways that completely fuck the laws of physics. However, unlike Maoyuu Yuusha, which has similar breasts and then suddenly demands that the viewer put on a sophisticated cap and discuss theories of agricultural distribution, DxD KNOWS how stupid its breasts are and revels in it! The English dub is actually excellent and the soundtrack is decent. Overall, surprisingly not bad from a purely technical view.
Overall:
High School DxD is NOT a good anime by any means. However, it knows exactly how to be that special type of bad that is still for some reason amusing. You will grin like the Cheshire Cat while watching a train wreck in slow motion! I'm not saying I actually recommend this series, but if you want echii bullshit you could do WAY worse! At least this series is WAY better than Food Wars!