English Dub Review: High School DxD HERO “The School Trip is in Pandemonium”

Summon… Tig Ol’ Bitties!

Overview (Spoilers)

Issei finally unlocked his potential, powered it up with the pervy grabs of those it touched, and used it to summon that which will channel that energy back into him: Rias and her monster gazongas. He pokes both nipples, sending her into the stratosphere. Uh, no, not in a euphemistic sense. Literally, she launches up into the sky, crying out in pleasure. I’m with Sousou on this one, “Uh.. sure. Makes sense.”

After a pep talk from Elsha and Belzard in his head, Issei takes this new power out for a test drive. He morphs his armor into a new mode, one with giant cannons that even rip through the demi-planes edges! Then again! He changes into a lightly-armored, super-fast flier! Once again, he changes into a heavily armored bruiser with rocket-driven fists! The augmented Evil Piece within him has merged with the Scale Mail and his potential, allowing him to promote himself at will and morph his armor into more specialized forms to match! Downside, huge power drain. He calls it Illegal Move Triaida.

However, It isn’t enough. A gash appears in the sky. While Great Red doesn’t pop out, Wu-long the Trickster Dragon does. And with him? The original Sun Wukong, the true Monkey King! He one-shots a couple enemy team and manages to block the True Longinus. They try to flee, and Issei isn’t having it. He pulls out one of his big guns, and Wukong powers it up with a tap. The shot zips right past Sousou’s team… right into Sousou’s eye! He nearly loses his cool, but the villainous hero takes a beat. They run away.

With a little bit of magic, Yasaska returns to normal and everyone returns home. No time to rest on their laurels, however. The team has to prepare for their Rating Game with Sairaorg, and the daughter of the Phoenix Family is going to transfer to their school…

Our Take

This episode is everything I was hoping (and fearing) it would be. The action is fun, though the energy effect they use around him blurs much of what is going on. Still, I love the design of his new forms. They’re function-focused, yet still distinctly draconic/demonic in appearance. Tiny legs appear out of the Bishop form’s legs, adding extra bracing for the power of the shot. The Knight form visually discards armor to get lighter and faster. The Rook form (my favorite) sports increased armor and physical power but is much slower. It kind of reminds me of Big O. Anyone remember that show? Just me? You millennials.

Anyways, there is quite a bit of action in this episode. It’s more of the “Pow! I use my ability!” in a back-and-forth than it is a heavily animated brawl, but it is exciting enough that I enjoyed it. I hoped to get more of Sun Wukong when he showed up. Maybe see him mop the floor with the rest of the enemies before they ran. I understand why the writers held him back, though. We don’t want to end them before the series is over.

Unfortunately, the first third of the episode was kind of obnoxious to me. Hey, Issei! It’s Boobs! You like boobs, right? Your powers are based on boobs. You wanna touch those boobs. You should touch those boobs. Can he touch the boobs? He can touch the boobs. He’s going to touch the boobs! He touched the boobs. The boobs were touched. Power up achieved. Talk about power up, talk about boo-

Still, I found myself laughing my head off at the lines throughout the episode. The dialogue drips with attitude, sass, and more words for boobs and jerks than one thought exists in the urban thesaurus. Pretty sure they made some of that up, and I don’t care. It’s funny. I like it. Coupled with flawless voice acting, and I’d say that if it weren’t for the ecchi nature of the whole thing, it would be up on my list of favorites.

There is but one thing I would ask: They make the Zomboobies from the previous episode one of his actual spells. Having a bunch of ghostly minions chanting “boooooobs” would just tickle me pink. It would also be functional… So there.