Issei Hyodo wants a harem. What he gets, in the first episode of High School DxD, is a date who asks him to die for her, a spear through the chest, and a resurrection as a devil in the service of Rias Gremory, a third-year at Kuoh Academy with red hair and a devil family to run. That is the premise TNK’s adaptation of Ichiei Ishibumi’s light novels commits to from the start, and it never once apologizes for it.
The series aired on AT-X and other networks, running four seasons and 49 episodes between January 6, 2012 and July 3, 2018. Crunchyroll holds the license outside Asia. The published audience score sits at 8.5/10 across 2,066 votes.
Trailer, via Crunchyroll Store Australia.
Issei Hyodo, Raynare, and the Park
The first arc, The Red Dragon Emperor’s Awakening, ran through the first two volumes. Issei is a lustful second-year human at Kuoh Academy, a former all-girls school that has quietly gone co-ed and quietly filled its halls with angels, fallen angels and devils. Yuma Amano asks him out. She takes him to a park, asks him to die for her, and reveals herself as Raynare, a fallen angel, before she kills him.
Rias revives him with a summoning card. He wakes up thinking it was a dream, gets attacked by another fallen angel, and finds Rias naked in his room. She tells him what he is now: a devil, her servant. The show does not slow down to explain the theology. It hands you the rules and moves.
The Cast That Carries It
Yuki Kaji voices Issei Hyōdō. Yoko Hikasa plays Rias Gremory, and Azumi Asakura plays Asia Argento. Shizuka Itoh plays Akeno Himejima, Ayana Taketatsu plays Koneko Tōjō, and Fumihiko Tachiki voices Sacred Gear and Ddraig.
| Season | Title | Run |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | High School DxD | January 6 to March 23, 2012 |
| 2 | High School DxD New | July 7 to September 22, 2013 |
| 3 | High School DxD BorN | April 4 to June 20, 2015 |
| 4 | High School DxD Hero | ended July 3, 2018 |
Ishibumi grouped the light novels into five arcs. The Heroic Oppai Dragon covers volumes seven through twelve. The Legend of Oppai Dragon and his Lively Companions covers fourteen through twenty-one. The final arc, Red Dragon Emperor of the Blazing Truth × White Dragon Emperor of the Morning Star: The True Dragon(s) of the Kuoh Academy, runs from volume twenty-two to twenty-five. A sequel series began July 20, 2018.
| Element | High School DxD |
|---|---|
| Source | Light novels by Ichiei Ishibumi, illustrated by Miyama-Zero |
| Studio | TNK |
| Network | AT-X |
| Total episodes | 49 across 4 seasons |
| Published score | 8.5/10 across 2,066 votes |
What the Show Gets Right
The fight between devils and angels is not the point, and the show knows it. The point is Issei’s deepening relationship with Rias, which the source material treats as genuinely dangerous to all three factions. That is the thread that keeps 49 episodes from becoming noise.
In this reviewer’s assessment, the fan service is constant and the show is honest about it. The comedy works because the cast treats the absurdity as ordinary, and Tachiki’s Ddraig, a dragon voice coming out of a Sacred Gear, is the best running joke in the series. Those are impressions, not claims the source material makes.
The weakest stretch is the middle, where BorN compresses arcs that needed room. That is a judgment, not something the source states. The fourth season is the strongest of the run, and the ending the series reaches is earned.
High School DxD is not for everyone, and it does not pretend to be. What it is: a confident, funny, surprisingly well-built fantasy that knows exactly what it wants to be and delivers it for over six years.
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