2lewd4me
Impression
Mm. For what it was, that wasn’t half bad. I wasn’t planning to write up an entry for this, but surprisingly it exceeded my expectations. Not that there were many to begin with, admittedly – as a rule of thumb, I tend to go into ecchi-fantasy shows like Shinmai Maou no Testament without expecting much, and working my way up from there. I was willing to drop it if it started getting boring, but somehow it managed to keep my attention – no thanks to the censoring. High School DxD has set a genre standard of sorts, and it’s very difficult for other similar shows to break past that primarily due to two reasons: the generic plots and the clichés, which often involve fanservice. Nothing wrong with fanservice, of course -if you do hate it, you should stay the fuck away from this- it’s just that it’s so deeply embedded in cliché that they start to become tedious very fast. Take the one that happened merely a few minutes into the show – Basara walking in on Mio in the bathroom. Even without context, anyone could tell you what happens next: “iyaaaa, kono hentai!” and a slap, followed by a disgruntled protagonist with a hand print on his face. That happened, but thankfully they did mix it up slightly, as Basara took no shit, covered her mouth and tried to explain it properly.
This guy is kinda okay for a male protagonist, actually – what a lot of people liked about Issei in High School DxD was that he was an open pervert. A bit paradoxical maybe, but it’s an ecchi bordering on hentai and the series embraced that fully instead of making Issei take an acrobatics course taught by Yuuki Rito. Essentially, he was assertive. While not a pervert, Basara is similar – upon learning his two new ‘sisters’ were actually devils, he kicked them out immediately. So I quickly learned he wasn’t beta as fuck, which is a good sign. His background is actually a bit different from how these stories usually go – you tend to have a normal human, who ends up running into a sexy devil or demon or whatever who pulls him into the conflict they’re in. So the human starts off with low power levels, until he unlocks some innate magical ability and powers up during a critical moment. But Basara already isn’t human, and belongs to a race that’s hostile to Mio and Maria – he actually looked like he was as strong as, if not stronger than them for the time being. The scars all over his body indicate that much at least. If he wasn’t feeling as hospitable, the two of them might have been killed right there. He ends up saving their asses instead of the other way round, and gives them a place to stay.
So essentially while it’s still stuffed full of clichés, there’s just enough in there that avoids it looking like a carbon copy from the outset – I suppose it’s worth banking on it and seeing how this goes for a couple of weeks longer. I’ll stick with this until the plot properly shows itself, then decide from there – yes, I mean ‘plot’ plot, not ‘bouncy’ plot. Though I’ve got two main concerns for now: the ecchi, and the sisters themselves. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of the ecchi, and while I have nothing against it in itself, this means that a lot of it will likely be censored. This is a problem, because I’ve heard this gets quite… lewd, to put it lightly. Not sure how much better based AT-X will be, but I was almost offended when I saw a panty shot being censored. I mean, seriously, Tokyo MX?! How conservative are you? You should know perfectly well what kind of show this is, and this must be airing past midnight, not at 10am in the morning. Anyway, as for the sisters – I’m not really into tsundere imoutos, which is why I’m not really a fan of Mio at the moment. That’s… kind of important, if she’s going to be the main girl. Also she looks like Claire from Blade Dance, down to the black hair ribbons and all. Maria sounds like a lot of fun though, so I hope they balance each other out. I haven’t properly blogged an ecchi series before, so I’m breaking new ground!
Possibility of Watching: Moderate
Possibility of Blogging: Moderate
Is it weird I’m watching this series (unless it goes waaay downhill) mainly for Basara (….its not like I’m pairing him up with the only other male character who’ll show up or anything eyes darting back-and-forth). Because this guy knows how to take in control. Like what you said, it essentially boiled down to “Guess what Basara, us demons exists and we’re here to take over!” while he’s all like “~well guess what, my family has been killing demons since like…forever! ” Plus I appreciated the fact Basara was naked in the op just as much as his harem was(usually shows like this totally avoid that).
As for fanservice, if they continue to be creative with it (though by looking at some LN pics this will probably turn into a borderline-prn at points) then I’ll stick with it. I still don’t get why people think DxD has great fanservice because after their first season, they really dropped the ball and got boring with it (excluding their OAV’s which includes bobalow shaking-Rias). Its like guys are just getting exciting about seeing boobs and butts without so-said body parts not doing anything but standing there. It really should have taken a note from the Seikon no Qwaser series…because that show knew how to be creative with its ecchi stuff.
Either ways, wasn’t planning on watching this considering it looked like another carbon-copy of DxD (and oh how tired I am of that show -post season 1), but it did exceed my expectations so I’ll be sticking with it for now.
Not at all, he’s also one of the main reasons I’ve maintained an interest in this. Surprisingly ripped as well – this guy can probably take care of himself, and his new imoutos to boot.
As for DxD, I think a lot of people were… enraptured by the pole-dancing ED. for one. And it’s one of the few harem series where both the male lead and the haremettes are equally eager to get it on (except for maybe Koneko) which made it more fun than an entire season of misunderstandings and embarrassment and all that. The fact we could see it all helped immensely, too – and conversely, the censoring will be a painful blow to Shinmaou. I came across a certain shampoo bottle LN scene that you’ve probably seen as well, and if they’re going that far I would like to at least see it, instead of having an audio clip with white bars across the screen. You know, for science.
Meh, ecchi series are only good to get your jollies off.