“High School DxD – New” is the second season of this show. There were so many loose ends left at the end of the first season, the only real question was “When is season two coming out?” Now it has, and we continue on with both training and fighting.

Let us recap the cast, for those who may have forgotten:

Issea Hyodo is a demon, smack dab in the middle.
To his right is the president of the Occult Research Club, Rias Gremory
The three lovelies above are Akeno Himejima, Koneko Toujou and Asia Argento.
(There is another guy, Yuto Kiba, that’s him to the far right, with his marvelous new sword).

Now, with the battle between demons, fallen angels and angels still raging, the Church decides to send out its own minions, those two spandex-clad femme fatales, Irina Shido and Xenovia.

One problem: Irina and Issea are childhood friends and she is shocked at the turn of events, as she may be compelled to destroy him. (She is good, he is bad.)

Meanwhile, in the off-season, Issea has been working on his signature move, which allows him to dissolve all the clothing from any female combatant. This causes not only great consternation with the intended victim, it also renders them unable to fight, as no one is going to battle in the nude (I guess the windburn is a factor or perhaps that you have no SPF lotion on).

Although there is a somewhat interesting story going on in regards to this three-way pitched battle, most of the tales are given up to Issea and his perversion. He could be getting his butt handed to him, as he eats more dirt than an earthworm. Tell him that this villain will shrink the size of Rias’ breasts and he finds motivation he never knew was there to dispatch the villain with astounding speed. In fact, one of his main goals is to nurse upon Rias’ assets (that is not the term they use; I was a tad surprised that they would push the envelope this hard to let us see how big a pervert he is, but this show has always been about the boobs).

There is a good story in there, with an equally compelling side story involving Kiba, but I feel that the fan service detracts from seeing how Issea is growing as a person and not as a pervert. True, it doesn’t help that the show is constantly thrusting these curvy parts right at us and I am sure that we would all succumb to these unrelenting pressures. But I feel that you could tell the story with just a bit less of the skin. Oh, and it doesn’t end. The ‘conclusion’ for the second season leads us right into a third season, as we have some more characters enter. I assume that since this is all presented as a chess set and Rias does not have a full complement….of pieces (we already know she has a full complement!), she has to get the other fifteen to make it ready to go, fight the Final Boss and then graduate into the big world out there.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 8 (It has to be top-drawer)
Plot 8 (Slack, but not droop)
Pacing 8 (Kept at a competent level)
Effectiveness 8 (As it builds its story nicely)
Conclusion 5 (Frustrating a coupler point)
Fan Service 8 (A similar show would “Sekirei”)

Overall 8 (It does what it needs to do)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Don’t forget about the president’s boobs