The gang’s all back and still as partially dressed as ever.
What They Say:
Summer break is coming up fast for Hyodo Issei, but all his plans are put on hold when he finds out he is to accompany Rias for her visit back home to the underworld! A new adventure is about to begin and all the while Koneko is not acting herself.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
High School DxD has been almost a guilty pleasure with its first two seasons, but I really don’t want to use the word guilty because I don’t feel it. Having revisited the second season through the home video release, the debut of the third has me excited since I simply enjoy the characters, the trappings of the series itself and the blatant honesty it has about its sexuality. While a lot of shows play around it, they go all out here and even manage to do it in a way that the censoring is fun until we get the home video release. The opening here gives us a moment with Issei in a dream sequence as all the girls are topless and after him again, but there’s a threat in the background that will make herself apparent in the waking world soon enough. But can you really be all that stressed sleeping between the two women that he’s there with. And Akeno makes three…
Working with the kind of loose atmosphere, the prologue spends a lot of its time on fanservice and sexuality as it reconnects us with the characters. But it also shows us how life has changed afterwards since Rias’ father did all the meetings with Issei’s family before and rebuilt them quite the house for all of them to live in. Issei’s leading a difficult life in reality, but it’s full of a lot of good things, which is why there’s a tension in the air as he knows darker things are coming. Much of the first half is this kind of lighter material as the group comes together at school and at their “clubhouse” to go over things under Rias, and it’s interesting to see the size of the cast that has grown from the beginning when it was just Issei, Rias and Akeno with him being drawn in. What the show does at this point is to push them together to do what you should do during summer vacation in that you go to a training camp. This one is a little different though since they’re off to the Underworld.
The trip to the Underworld itself is largely uneventful, but they do get to deal with some action once there and work as a team to deal with a particularly threatening beast. This lets the show shine when it comes to its action choreography and the kinds of powers they have, which certainly is a lot of the appeal of the show for me beyond the fanservice because it does it so well. It also lets some of the less familiar characters, such as Gasper, have a decent moment or two as well since they had lighter roles in the previous season. Not surprising is that there isn’t a whole lot of depth here overall as the end result is more playful than anything else and we mostly get the core cast introduced to what things are like in the Underworld, which is admittedly fun as it plays to the strength side of things as well as a hilarious bathing sequence between Issei and Rias’ father as they talk about how far Issei has gotten with Rias. The sexual side of the show is just so up front here compared to so many others that this continues to be a big part of the appeal.
In Summary:
High School DxD BorN doesn’t get its main storyline underway here outside of a few brief mentions and visuals, particularly at the end, but that’s all well and fine. Coming back for a third season, the main intent here at the start is to reconnect with the cast and have fun with it. And fun they do have as we get plenty of nudity, plenty of sexuality and a good bit of action along the way. This cast has grown in some fun ways over the twenty-four episodes we’ve had so far and this one builds on that with familiarity – but it also works to introduce new viewers to it as well by ensuring that characters are talked about by name and some of the basic concepts are covered. Making it accessible is definitely a plus, though I still recommend checking out the other seasons. This show is such a silly pleasure that I’m thrilled to have another run of it to enjoy this year.
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.
Azazel isn’t Rias’s father. I’m just saying.