English Dub Review: High School DxD HERO “The Party of Heroes”

What the Fox?

Overview (Spoilers)

The second day of the school trip to Kyoto, and the gang visits all the Buddhist temples in the area. Sudden pervert attacks continue to appear in the most random places, and Issei finds he has a bunch of fox youkai tailing him, but it’s otherwise pretty tame. The fox tribe bring Issei and the ladies to their estate, and explain the situation. Their leader, Princess Yasaka, was kidnapped on the way to meet with another youkai leader. Given the timing, they assumed it was our heroes who made with the black-bagging. when it was actually the Hero Faction of the Khaos Brigade. The Princess’ daughter, Kunou, begs them to rescue her mother, and offers to act as their guide for the rest of the trip.

Back at the hotel, Asia heads into Issei’s room, inviting the other girls over for cards. Issei’s pervy buddies barge in, and he hides with her in the closet. Taking advantage of the privacy, Asia sneaks a kiss in just as the other girls arrive… and join in the closet. Suddenly, it turns into a free for all, as all three girls try to clamber into his pants. Fortunately, Rossweisse arrives in time to stop before he’s sentenced to death by snu-snu.

Fox Princess Kunou takes them around the town, and Aika doles out local superstitions about the locales. As they cross over the Togetsukio Bridge, a purple fog surrounds them, pulling them into an alternate dimension. Witnesses to Yasaka’s kidnapping reported the same fog. Azazel arrives on the scene and prepares a series of barriers. With a single shot, the enemy shreds them all, knocking Azazel off his feet. The Hero Faction has arrived!

Our Take

What is this? An entire episode about sex and boobs? Why, yes, that’s everything you need for a good episode </sarcasm>. Getting them all naked doesn’t count for character development, and… Sigh. I think I’m watching the wrong show to talk about serious plot and characters. This is a softcore porn with comedy and action. It’s the comedy that saves the episode, and otherwise, I’d be bored. The gags seemed based on eighties commercial macros, so they were totally up my alley. Irina’s boobs acting like a switch for her halo was surprisingly chuckle-inducing.

The highlight of this series is the voice acting, and this episode didn’t disappoint on that field, either. Josh Grelle delivers his lines with sass and aplomb, and with timing that just makes the dialogue flow. His two buddies, on the other hand, are starting to get a bit obnoxious. Their actors are trying to talk street. It just doesn’t fit, not any more than if those words came out of my mouth. To compound the problem, they never stop yelling. This normally isn’t a problem, because I haven’t heard them all that often.

Though the animation was good for the most part, and the environments were pretty to look at. Of course, the section in the closet got a ton of love from the animators. Afterward, however, the animation quality dipped down. Characters moved less and less until we started staring at an unmoving face while people off-screen jabbered on. They wasted all their budget on the boobs.

And why do the boobs in this show make disgusting squelching noises?