High School DxD New: The Series (Blu-ray Review)

Issei Hyodo is back with all of his voluptuous friends, only this time he has more power than ever before. With the Excaliber swords and the Archangel Michael joining him in battle against the deadliest of foes yet, only time will tell if the Occult Research Club continues to thrive or if new leadership is needed to usher in a new magical era. The enchanting adventure returns with more badass babes than any high school male should ever have to drool over. 

 

The Series  

I will preface this review by saying that I am not familiar with the DxD High School Series at all. I have not watched the first season, so I don’t know what happened there. I can only give my opinion on this second series. Apparently this second season picks up right after the events of the first one. Issei is up to his usual horn dog antics again. All he wants are breasts and those breasts belong to his instructor, Rias, from the Occult Research Club.

Wait, what? Yeah, Not only does Issei want some of Rias but they also spend time looking for the broken shards of Excalibur to re-forge before it falls into the wrong hands. Of course it’s too late, because the forces of evil have already located the weapon and they seek to re-forge it themselves. What’s cool about the show besides the obvious is that Issei is hilarious as hell! I watched the English dub and have to say that they did it justice. I’m usually one for authenticity but when it comes to high quality anime dubs that trump the native language tracks then you know you’re on to something.

As I mentioned before, I did not watch the first season, so I don’t really know what happened with Issei then. I just know that he hangs around LOTS of girls this season and he also has a metal-like demon hand that tends to protrude here and there. Issei tends to hold back when he’s tempted to use his weapon. I mentioned “fan service” and that’s what the bulk of the show is. It’s scantily clad women flashing boobs, butt, panties, and innuendo. No, there are no scenes of sexual intercourse of any kind. The show is rated TV MA, so this is definitely not for kids and it’s relatively harmless for adults.

I would also warn those that are highly religious to be cautious only because some of the story threads on the show sort of spin religion on its head a bit. No, it’s not pervy or disgusting or anything like that, it’s just very unconventional the way some of the forces of good and evil are portrayed here. I guess “unique” would be the world that I am looking for.

If you’re at all curious about High School DxD New then I would suggest you back track a bit and score yourself a copy of the first season, so you can catch up and be well informed before you get to this season. At least you’ll know what’s going in full. Oh, and Issei is as funny as I made him out to be. I was rolling in certain parts due to him not having shame.

 

Video 

Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Clarity/Detail: The show really benefits from a high-definition transfer. Contrast and sharpness levels are on point and the details are sharp without the sharpness levels being messed with.

Depth: DxD is a very in-depth show and the level of depth for this series is vast. The show is hand drawn for the most part but there are many instances where CGI is lent to give a helping hand to the line art.

Black Levels: Black levels were deep, inky, and consistent.

Color Reproduction: Banding was present in some of the heavier scenes involving CGI but it wasn’t as intrusive as one would expect. The color palette is very colorful and pixilation was also not detected.

Flesh Tones: Everyone tends to blush a lot. The rest of the flesh tones are not applicable, because it’s an animated series.

Noise/Artifacts: I didn’t notice any debris or artifacts of any kind.

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Japanese Dolby True HD 2.0

Subtitles: English

Dynamics: This lossless soundtrack fits the show perfectly. It’s very robust without beating you over the head with the sonics. It’s an equal parts comedy and action show and it’s very well balanced.

Low Frequency Extension: The LFE channel handles the low-end gracefully and does well in giving subtle flourishes of deep bass throughout the show.

Surround Sound Presentation: Things fly; splatter, and the rear channels handle it all gracefully and without distortion. Everything and anything that gets thrown to the back channels is handled beautifully.

Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue levels are great. Everyone’s chatter and hysterics can be heard through the rumble of demons angels.

 

Extras 

The special features on this Blu-ray set are not as extensive as the pretty box that they’re contained in would have you believe. Yes, the total running time listed is 103 minutes, which would be rather high for an anime release in any format. The set includes a “voice acting school” where the principal voice actors teach some new students how to do proper voiceovers. It’s a very cute and sexy featurette but gets annoying really fast.  We also get some promos, commercials (they’re hysterical), textless songs, a U.S trailer, and trailers for other releases, as well. The DVD version is also included with the Blu-ray and box.

• High School DxD New Broadcast Commemoration Special: Yoko Hikasa’s Voice Acting High School – Japanese voice actress Yoko Hikasa teaches some of the fellow voice actors on the show how to project. The one hour long featurette is broken down into six 10-minute segments. It’s starts off amusing enough before it becomes a wee bit grating.

• New Material from Ichiei Ishibumi – The Japanese voice actor for Issei voices several promos hyping the show and recapping the series.

• Commercials – These are commercials promoting the show for its home video release.

• Promotional Videos – Some of these promotional videos also show deleted scene footage not shown during the original series’ run. Please keep in mind that all of the shows presented on the Blu-ray are complete and uncut.

• Textless Songs – These are the opening and closing songs to each episode without subtitles.

• U.S. Trailer – The U.S. trailer for DxD is presented.

• Trailers – Trailers for other FUNimation shows are presented.

 

Summary 

High School DxD New: The Series is a terrific little show. Yes, they beat you over the head with the constant fan service but I think that’s the point. The humor cancels out the salaciousness of the situations. For a show full of sex appeal there’s no actual sex of any kind. When the action hits it hits hard and the animation is top notch. The technical specifications are more than adequate and the special features are ok for a release like this. High School DxD New: The Series is recommended.

 

 

 

High School DxD New: The Series was released on Blu-ray November 11, 2014!

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