So, I’ve noticed that with the few anime recommendations I’ve posted about, I’ve actually kept it quite classy, or at the very least the shows have merit.  Aria, classy.  Higurashi, well written.  Ika Musume, good clean fun.  High School DxD is the exact opposite of all those.  Hey, I’m a guy with an avatar of a girl flashing her panties.  It would be very remiss of me if I didn’t write about a fanservice anime once in awhile!

So, the general premise of High School DxD is that the protagonist, Issei, enters high school with one goal in mind.  It’s not to be the top student, or a star athlete, oh no, he has far more loftier goals.  His desire is to be the Harem King.  And his goal is off to a good start when a beautiful girl asks him to be her boyfriend right away.  Then the goal gets sidetracked a bit, because on their first date she reveals that she’s a fallen angel and promptly kills him.  Sounds like the shortest anime ever, I know, but that’s where the story really starts.  See, he is then revived by the president of the Occult Club, a buxom redhead named Rias Gremory, who also turns out to be the daughter of a prestigious demon clan.  How prestigious?  Well, her brother is Lucifer.  Yup.  Anyways, Issei is apparently important because he contains some lost relic or something or another in him.  His arm can turn into some kind of device.  Whatever, that’s not terribly important.  What is important is that Issei was revived, but not as a human, rather he is now a demon too.  And while he may have lost his humanity, he’s gained something much more important.  His harem!  You see, in addition to Rias, there are also the lovely Akeno Himejima, the delicious Koneko Tojo, and the later addition of the kind, but a little dim Asia Argento.  Also, there’s another guy, but he’s about as important here as Itsuki Koizumi is in the Haruhi Suzumiya series.  Each character represents a piece on a chess board, which also indicates their abilities.  Rias is obviously the King, Akeno with her overwhelming magic power is the Queen, Asia with her healing powers is the Bishop, Koneko with her super strength is the Rook, Yuto (unimportant dude) is the Knight, and Issei is the Pawn.

So, what works in this series?  Well, there’s the panty shots and the boobs.  What more is needed?  The budget for this, while not of the Studio Ghibli variety, was certainly consistent at least, since the character models don’t suffer from episode to episode in quality like a lot of series tend to.  It seems a lot of care was taken to make the characters look appealing, and it shows.  Yes, there is a lot of cheesecake here, but it’s good cheesecake.  Sometimes that’s all you need to have a fun series, and in this case it works.  Also, I found it very refreshing that the protagonist in a harem anime comes straight out and declares that he wants a harem.  I love my harem anime as much as the next guy, but I do tend to get tired of bland, milquetoast males who flounder about and act all scared to death when a member of the opposite sex even talks to him, let alone accidentally flash her breasts.  Here, Issei makes no bones about the fact that he’s a pervert and proud of it.  And most of the girls are fine with it too!  Surprisingly the only one that really isn’t is the kuudere, Koneko.  Usually that kind of character is rather indifferent, but she’s very much against Issei’s perverted ways.

So what didn’t work?  Well, the story, or rather the fact that it’s like the show had ADD and couldn’t decide what it wanted to do.  First off they’re fighting fallen angels.  But they kind of stop that midway without really a whole lot of closure and suddenly switch to going after the Church.  Then that kind of gets pushed aside for another crack at the angels.  Then without really being done with either, they’re fighting another demon clan.  This was based off a light novel series that’s still ongoing, so I’m more forgiving towards that, but it still makes it tough to get any continuity going, nor is the ending very satisfying.  I don’t pay attention to viewing numbers or DVD/BD sales in Japan, so I’m not sure how well received this show was, but it’s definitely set up for a second season.  The light novel series seems to be popular enough, since there are 12 volumes out since it started in 2008, and it’s still ongoing.  So, perhaps enough fans will have tuned in to get it the second season I feel it deserves.  If this is all we get, well it’s good pervy fun, but I feel it could be a bit more than just that if allowed to continue on.

Finally, this show has probably the best ending sequence I’ve seen in an anime in a very long time.  The song is typical upbeat Jpop, but the accompanying video is something that one must watch to fully appreciate.

With that in mind, I’m sure there’s little doubt as to why I felt compelled to post this up and give a recommendation for a show to watch when you just want to see some panties flashed and some boobs jiggle.  Because hey, who hasn’t had a day like that?