Review: High School DxD BorN “Young Devils Gather”

Let me get the obvious out of the way first. If you haven’t watched the episodes from High School DxD and High School DxD New, you’re going to feel like I did when I watched “Young Devils Gather”: completely lost. In quite a few scenes, fights were referenced from the previous seasons, and if you haven’t seen them, you will have no idea what’s going on, and think Issei is pretty useless.

That said, the overabundance of tits was almost nonexistent. So, there was a lot more to actually want to watch. There was one scene, but it was almost supposed to be there. That said, there was a lot more to grasp onto. This was all about training. Issei, Rias, Asia, Akeno, Koneko, Yuto, Xenovia, and Gasper all have their own training regimes to follow so they can all master their next powers. Issei, by far, has the most difficult task, and as of the end of the training montage, hasn’t fulfilled his training, but that doesn’t delay a party with all of the other devil houses.

During the party, Issei meets a man who first confronted him at the end of Issei’s training. That man is Sairaorg Bael, and he is the cousin of Rias. He took out one other other devils with one punch. Call me nuts, but I think this man is going to be a key factor going forward. This type of character doesn’t just show up for no reason.

The writers also introduced a new plot involving Koneko, and her past. She was born a Nekomata, which is a cat-like demon. She had a sister, who was reincarnated part a demon’s group. However, her sister grew up to kill her master, leaving Koneko on her own. I am not sure how I feel about this, because even with my limited knowledge of High School DxD, it seems forced on us. I like her a the brooding smartass, so I’m hoping this back story doesn’t open her up a lot, and take away from this character.

All in all, “Young Devils Gather” is a more enjoyable episode. The terrible censoring is very nearly not there, therefore, I wasn’t as distracted. The story was a lot easier to grasp because of it, and I found it entertaining. We have the building blocks to a season now, and we get to see a lot of the other goings on in the Underworld. Let’s just hope the rest of the season uses “Young Devils Gather” as a benchmark.