What They Say:
Issei learns more about the feud between the Twin Sky Dragons and Rias and Sona have to deal with troublesome family members at Open House.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the settling of some events and then a good spot of fun, Highschool DxD New is ready to move on to the next thing, which is a firmer challenge being applied to Issei. The arrival of Vali is off-putting from the get go since he has that kind of calm, cool confidence about him and makes a strong presence play against Issei, but it’s more the reveal that he’s the white dragon emperor, which provides a counterbalance to the red dragon emperor that Issei is. His arrival doesn’t go unnoticed by others and Issei gets some backup right away, but we also see how Rias has come to his side and is being very protective of him in a way that heightens his own worry since he can tell that she’s not taking this lightly.
The arrival of Vali does cause Issei to start wondering what the deal with them is and that leads to him finally being smart and asking Ddraig about it. That reveals how the dragons in ancient times didn’t pick sides when God and the angels went up against the fallen angels amid the chaos of humanity and other creatures choosing sides. They opted to just live their lives above it all, figuring it had little to do with them overall, though naturally it did cycle back to them eventually and cause its own problems. That lead to the introduction of the two main ones that are now a part of most of the major interactions between the bigger sides as we get Ddraig and Albion representing the red and white respectively. The more that we see what Issei is exposed to, the larger in scale it all becomes in a pretty impressive manner.
The show also spends some of its time doing just basic school stuff, which is fun, as we get the open house and some of the parents are comical in how they view some of the girls and Issei. That causes enough problems that some, like Saji, are trying to get everything back on track after some of the embarrassing moments that occurred. It doesn’t help that nobody really takes it seriously, but it just goes off the tracks even more so when Sona’s older sister arrives – complete in a costume out of Cardcaptor Sakura – and is just a huge ball of energy and childish nature. Serafall definitely fits in the show well with her appearance and personality though. This helps to expand the world a bit and just makes the cast a bit more accessible. Especially when Rias’ father takes a stroll through things and Issei’s dad is so comfortable with him since he’s so unaware.
In Summary:
Highschool DxD New pretty much has a light episode here after it deals with the issue of Vali at the start and that’s for the best overall. We’ve had the bigger arc so far, a few threats here and there and a nice bit of action and expanding of the scope of what’s going on. With this episode, it’s mostly light fare that allows the cast to have fun and just be who they are, which means some small nuggets of character material gets out, especially for Rias towards the end. But for the most part, it’s just silly, fun and plainly enjoyable, which is what makes the show work so well.
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.
