What They Say:
The Occult Research Club takes over cleaning the pool to thank the student council for their help with Kokabiel, and Issei runs into a lot of trouble.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Kokabiel having been dealt with and a friendly little visit from Azazel who has quite an interest in Issei, and more specifically with the Booster Gear on his arm that has really shown itself well, lately, Highschool DxD New takes a little time to do the other thing it does well beyond story and action. Fanservice. Because of the help that the Occult Research Club has gotten from the student council, Rias has taken on a bit of work for them by offering to clean the school pool top to bottom, with the caveat that they get access to it for awhile afterwards to enjoy the fruits of their labor. That means some really fun fanservice in the changing room, some silly awkwardness amongst the girls – which now includes Xenovia, and a few hour sof hard work. Of course, Issei gets the proper motivation early on with some wonderfully done finger sucking.
The show naturally spends a whole lot of its time on the sexy fun, from Akeno and her finger sucking as she attempts to play and dote on Issei a bit just to mess with him and to be playful with Rias, to Rias herself getting defensive over it after she tries to get Issei to rub suntan lotion all over her for a bit. There’s obviously a little more going on here, but you really get the sense that Akeno is just having a lot of fun. Issei is as well, but it’s certainly complicated as well since he’s surrounded by all these hot women in skimpy outfits, even with Koneko and Asia wearing simple and normal school outfits. Xenovia goes the distance though with what she’s wearing and she makes a huge play towards Issei as well, even conferring upon him the ability to make a baby with her since she sees it as a strong end goal for her.
There’s obviously not a lot of heavy plot material here, but there are some good bits along the way, mostly with how we see Xenovia fitting into things and even some of her time with Lucifer, who shows up towards the end to talk with her a bit and to come and see the open house at the school itself. Since they are family, he plays up that side of it to have a little off time and enjoy it with his sister, but he uses a good pretext that sets the stage for what’s to come later as the school may be used in the future for a larger meeting amongst the houses. There’s a really great surreal aspect to things as Issei invites Lucifer to stay at their house for the night, where we see his parents getting along with him pleasantly, and just the absurdity of it all done in such a normal tone.
In Summary:
With a bit of a quieter episode overall after what has come in the previous couple of episodes, Highschool DxD New is quite a bit of fun here and is simply enjoyable. There is setup for more of what’s to come when you have Lucifer showing up for an open house and talking about how he may use the school in the future, but most of what we get is sexy and sometimes silly fanservice that has multiple girls going after Issei because of his power. It’s fun to see the variety of characters here going at it, especially with Akeno playing it up to a great degree, and just being openly fun works beautifully. It also helps that Xenovia is getting fleshed out a bit more here as well, which makes her a bit more accessible.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
