Excuse me, I didn’t recall saying I was gonna review hentai releases…oh it isn’t? Could have fooled me…
What They Say:
While Basara, Mio, and Yuki have picked up their seemingly ordinary lives, they are attacked by magic-wielding humans while preparing for the upcoming sports event. Basara tries to become stronger by strengthening the testament when Rukia, Maria s sister, suddenly appears. Unknowingly, the war deciding the future of the demon realm has begun.
Contains the series on Blu-Ray with both the English dub and the original Japanese track with English subtitles. Presented in Collectors packaging.
The Review:
Audio:
Set up in 2.0 Stereo and Mono English and Japanese language, whilst disappointing there isn’t a 5.1 release the general quality of the audio isn’t diminished in terms of set up, as I required no changes to my audio settings and the quality in both languages is very good, with no issues of poor synching with the subtitles, or any cuts with the video. The quality is overall very good, and I will admit the music in general is incredibly fitting and atmosphere…including the rather naughty scenes – it’s strange when it can get really high intense to rather silly and porno-rific so to speak. That said, it does what it set out to do so can’t complain about the quality other than wishing for a Dolby Surround release.
Video:
Set on a 16×9 anamorphic format, the video quality I set full screen with no slow down or transition issues, no crossed animation when pausing and with the range of colours from the dark demon world to the more…ahem…colourful scenes making it very visually outstanding. The subtitles sync with no issues on either language, and because of how bright and colourful the show is for the most part as mentioned, it really stands out well.
Packaging:
There was no packing for this test release, however with the Blu-Ray special edition you can get the collectors packaging.
Menu:
A traditional Blu-Ray style menu, we have shots of the show in the background following quickly whilst you can select whilst it’s moving the options of Play All, Episodes, Set Up and on disc 2 Extras. Like most Blu-Rays, you have the popup menu during the show which goes fast and can be selected for anything bar extras (even during the extras menu you can switch to the main menu when watching one of the video based extras) making it’s a colourful and accessible menu.
Extras:
Quite a few extras for release which will come as a delight to the target audience of this show (spoiler: I’m not ^^) the big extra is five episodes of Maria’s Secret Video Burst. And if you’ve seen the series and what Maria films with her camera you can hazard a guess what this is about. We have 5 edited episodes of the anime basically specifically for the fanservice moments of episodes 1-2, then 3-4, 5-6 and so on. Hosted by Maria in SD form with a CGI TV on the background, she drags Mio, Yuki, Kurumi and Basara for running commentary on the videos, which leads to basically a lot of embarrassment and err..Enjoyment from the cast. Obviously this is a treat for those who just want to see the fanservice…but considering the show is about 80% fanservice anyway…
More traditional extras are the clean opening and ending (as well as a specific version for episode 10), and trailers for…similar shows shall we say? (High School DxD, Rosario x Vampire, Dragonar Academy, Omamori Himari and Twin Star Exorcists)
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I reviewed the first season back in May 2018 and to say I wasn’t a fan is an understatement. Whilst not the worst of the heavy fanservice series I’ve reviewed, it is definitely high on there. Ironically the 1st season did end with a cliff-hanger which it elaborates in this season, which suggests that the story might be more involved…so does it do better?
No. Actually it’s far worse with the fanservice to fetish levels and borderline hentai…so am sure a ton of people will absolutely love it. Me? Not so much…which is a strange shame because near the end the series actually had a few moments of being really good thanks to the demon world and tournament story…and then pretty much ruins it right at the end. So full disclaimer, yes, if you are into harem/fanservice heavy shows with little plot, this is definitely the show for you. On the other hand…
Airing a few months after the original series, it starts off surprisingly promising as the demon lord Leohart character has been formally introduced as someone to take over Mio’s father, and Basara’s father Jin is there to confront him. After a brief battle where Jin saves a girl and realises he is outmatched, he escapes….
…and then returns to our main cast preparing for a sports festival where Basara is advised to make Mio and Yuki go stronger just in case he losing his powers. And if you remember what he has to do to make them stronger…
So yeah, initial promise and then back in my (un)comfort zone. To make matters worse/more interesting, they also convert the best friend character Kurumi into the action to make a contract. Granted, Basara is doing it to defeat anyone who threatens his family…but when half the episode is basically the service then yeah…
One of the few interesting things I had of the original series was the teacher character Chisato being clearly in the background manipulating things, and she finally becomes fully involved, especially after one of the classmates is revealed to be a vampire but Chisato is somehow manipulating the entire school. In fact, the demons are trying to say she is an enemy and he seems to be defeated, but Chisato saves him…
…and leads to another not-sex scene to ‘appease’ him whilst he is angry. Dammit show…I saw it coming but still…the only interesting thing is that it does lead to Basara and co being summoned to the demon world by Maria’s sister Rukia to deal with Leoheart discovering something that may stop the followers of the old demon lord, something Mio would have interest in….
We get the return of Zest, who now works as a maid at the castle but they get attacked when Maria is punished by her sister Rukia…which leads to yet another ‘punishing’ scene (you may get a slight theme here…) but there is a very minor plot device when they get told about the war between the many demon factions and whilst Mio is very popular, and that the owner of the castle Ramsus wants to extract demon power from Mio (which could kill her) which seems like it could go somewhere…
…then cut to a very yuri like scene in the bath. Yeah…then the next episode adds Zest to the harem (adding another fetish to the list in the ears) and whilst I like the character of Claus as an advisor looking for their interests and Leoheart is actually a classic anti-villain, all these moments are really offset by the latest ‘powering up’ Basara has to do – which is odd because outside of these moments he’s a nice guy but you forget that because of all the fanservice. When Jin returns to train Basara, there is actually good father/son bonding moments, and when he gets injured, you learn the basis of Basara’s own power and potential energy for demonic energy, and we even get a moment of hope because the tournament arc is actually very battle heavy, so for a brief moment, I am liking the series (there’s a fight where Kurumi nearly gets killed and is saved by Zest but both of them disqualified, with Basara apparently attacked before but is ready to face Leoheart – the fact the demon crowd is clearly against them leads to a SHUT UP moment from Mio which actually made me enjoy the character)…
It leads to Basara vs. Leohart and this is the time I actually really liked the scenes, because for the majority of it, it is a straightforward battle between Basara and Leohart, with the renegade demons planning to attack no matter what the outcome – Leohart clearly is stronger but thanks to a sneaky trick from Maria and Shella, Basara is able to become ‘Awakened’ and become a demon himself, now being stronger than Leohart…but at a cost of his human body getting destroyed. Mio goes to save him but is trapped by Basara’s demonic energy and the fears inside his mind…it actually seems to be actually proper love and romantic…
…and then he tears her clothes off still in mind rampage as she lets him do what he wants….sigh. (Fortunately he does actually stop before it goes too far and he returns to his humanity but way to ruin it…)
It does lead to Mio, Basara and Leohart teaming up as the rest of the demon councilors send in the Heroic Spirits, including one called Chaos to kill them, yet Chaos also summons other spirits to take out other renegade people and demons, innocent or otherwise. There are some fights between all the cast (seeing Maria kick Admirath’s butt was actually really cool and the return of Lars actually pretty much being a full on good guy were moments of clarity) – the weird thing is that there is set up with a new character called Liala who kills the Demon Council yet you aren’t sure what side she is on except she is Leohart’s sister which sets up maybe another season, yet after the battling it of course ends with a harem esque misunderstanding and not-so scene so…give a little, get a lot….
….just not sure if the lot is what you want.
Granted, it will be for certain audiences, and there are very slight things that made me watch it with interest rather than annoyance or disgust – the battle arc was actually quite good as the clash of the demons comes forth and there are questions still need to be answered – but in the end, it is mostly cast away for lots of ‘powering up’ which contains pretty much half the episodes bar episodes 8, 9 and 10 to an extent which are also the best episodes – which again, I can’t give it the worst grade like I did with Shinometa because at the very least, I found something I enjoyed about it and there was some degree of plot hidden behind all the fanservice.
However with the characters (bar Jin and Leohart surprisingly) being very one track, dull, and very little of the antics played for comedy or drama and just pure service, this is not one for me. If you are into fanservice shows, then yes, this will give you all the enjoyment you need, but at the same time with many of the scenes being borderline hentai and some weird fetish material there, you can tell my brain was switching off most of the time.
In Summary:
Testament of Sister New Devil BURST is similar to Season 1 in terms of what it is known for and what it does well – however I found it even worse than Season 1 because at least that had development of the characters, here, it just feels like ‘hey they’re established now, we don’t need more story, let’s put half the episodes full of T&A’. Granted, there is some plot and story and the last few episodes were mostly decent hence why this isn’t the worst series out there, but with now quite bland characters and little focus on the story despite a mini-cliff-hanger, I won’t be rushing to see the OVAs or potential Season 3 for certain…
Features:
OVA, Maria Videos 1-5 , Clean Opening/Ending, Trailers
Content Grade: C-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: N/A
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B
Released By: Anime Limited
Release Date: October 29th, 2018
MSRP: £39.99
Running Time: 250 minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Playstation 4, Sony Bravia 32 Inc EX4 Television, Aiwa 2 Way Twin Duct Bass Reflex Speaker System.
