「二学期、はじまりました!」 (Nigakki, Hajimarimashita!)
“Second Trimester Has Started!”

So Asia has a rich, creepy stalker. Looks like someone just climbed to the top of Issei’s “I’ma punch ’em in the face” list.

A Transfer Osananajimi & the Abandoned Valkyrie

It was no surprise that Irina transferred in. Honestly, what I’m most surprised at so far is that her hyper-churchy schtick hasn’t started to annoy me. Maybe that’s because it’s so over-the-top that it becomes funny instead of frustrating, which is par for the course for DxD. Probably it’s just because she’s randomly (and hilariously) okay with certain things she probably shouldn’t be, like kicking ass and threesomes—as long as they’re in some place clean like a bedroom, of course. Hah!

As for our poor abandoned valkyrie, Rosseweisse, she’s still sadly underutilized, but every scene she’s in is gold. More pleeeease!

Kill This Creepy Stalker Right Now Please

So Asia’s admirer is Diodora Astaroth (Furukawa Makoto), and as I expected, this muthafuckkah needs to get stabbed. Not that something like that didn’t already happen before—Diodora being the devil that Asia healed, which precipitated all the changes in her life that brought her into the story, was a nice touch, because it let her reexamine everything that has happened in light of where her life is now. And the verdict appears to be a good one, from her own mouth. But this guy? This Diodora sonofabitch? I can’t wait to see Issei punch him in the dick.

Don’t Protect Asia,Grope Respect Her!

Every time Issei talks about wanting to protect Asia, I wince. Wanting to protect her when she’d much rather be touched is not the gentlemanly thing to do! It’s far better, I think, to respect her wishes, especially when they line up with what Issei would so clearly like to do himself. And I don’t just say that because I want to see more of that! (Mostly.)

But here’s the thing—some commenters/LN readers have been talking about how ripped up Issei was from his first girlfriend (you know, the one who killed him). And the anime hasn’t done a good job of getting this across, because they haven’t been able to show us most of his internal thoughts, and they haven’t replaced those thoughts with any other hints until lately. The key words there are “until lately.” They actually are doing a better job of hinting at why Issei isn’t dining on the smorgasbord of young, beautiful, and totally-willing-to-share-him ladies that are throwing themselves at him. It still feels off to me, and I don’t know if I’d even see it if LN readers hadn’t pointed out the reason, but at least they’re trying.

But seriously Issei, dive in. Do it for everyone who can’t. It’s what the true Emperor of Breast Dragon would do.

Looking Ahead – The Rating Game For Asia’s Heart—Erh, No. I Meant Fanservice

I keep hearing that things are out of order, and we might be skipping the rating games that we already skipped? But now I guess not? Look, I have no idea. This season is a bit wonky, but I enjoyed this episode a lot, and now that they’ve successfully established Diodora as some creep I want to see get punched in the dick, a rating game between his peerage and Team Rias is fine by me. Convenient? Sure. But maybe someone pulled some strings, on either side. As long as Issei gets to shut the creep down, I’m happy. But first, fanservice. Because this is High School DxD, bitches, and that’s how the Oppai Dragon rolls.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Asia has a stalker who needs to get punched in the face. in other news, Issei is the Oppai Dragon. Who knew? (Everyone) #haremking s2e6

Random thoughts:

  • I died laughing when Ddraig was crying about Issei’s—and by extension, his—new nicknames. The Emperor of Breast Dragon (Chichiryuutei!), the Oppai Dragon … hah! Poor Ddraig, but that’s funny shit!
  • Oddly forward baby-making Xenovia is back? Swiftly approved!

My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now available in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel short story. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Practical Freedom, Old to them, Stop sending me job ideas, and Schrödinger’s Skill.

Full-length images: 02, 03, 05, 09, 12, 36.

 

Preview

39 Comments

  1. “I died laughing when Ddraig was crying about Issei’s—and by extension, his—new nicknames. The Emperor of Breast Dragon (Chichiryuutei!), the Oppai Dragon … hah! Poor Ddraig, but that’s funny shit!”

    Ddraig’s gonna need those anti-depression meds now…

    And yeah, based on the LN spoilers I read…Issei has a real good reason to kick Diodora’s backside (which we’ll find out in the next few episodes).

    Incognito
    1. That’s cause if push came to shove you just know Kiriyuu would stab someone in the neck if they did something Asia didn’t like, plus she’s already proven she’s aboard the IsseiXAsia ship. Diodora though, you can tell he’s a cold, selfish bastard right from the jump.

      Aex
  2. I think you’re being a little unfair to the genre here in this review. This show is a lot of fun, but one of the big truths of it is it plays the genre to the hilt, only rarely subverting it. Asia is the cutesy, quite, yamato nadeshiko-ish female who the lead can protect and feel manly about. That’s her role, and given she’s not the actual lead (even of the females) I doubt she’ll ever really move beyond that. DxD is very much a ‘take it or leave it’ kind of show. Yes, there are strong female characters, but I don’t think that’s because they’ve discovered feminism, but simply to cover all their bases as far as females in a harem go. Normally this would annoy me, but the show is fun so whatever.

    Also, didn’t Asia have a pet dragon? Am I just making that up?

    KaleRylan
    1. Yes, Asia does have a sprite dragon that she got as a familiar back in season 1.

      I don’t know why it hasn’t appeared at all lately (only Rias’ bat familiar showed up again, during Koneko’s arc). AFAIK, familiars are mostly messengers or hand out those devil contract flyers, rarely used in battles or rating games (though the LN readers are free to enlighten the anime-only viewers on that).

      Incognito
    2. @ KaleRylan

      You’re right, of course … and yet, you can still protect a girl part of the time and do some very-much-consensual groping later on. I mean, she sleeps naked with him! C’mooooon!

      It’s really not a big thing. Like you said, it’s firmly ensconced in its genre. Not a world beater, but a lot of fun.

    3. She doesn’t usually bring out the dragon unless she knows there’s going to be a fight, and familiars aren’t allowed in Rating Games so it’s only when they need a bit of extra defense hunting down trouble makers and strays when Rias gets the whole group together for a job.

      Aex
    4. Rewatching episode 10 of DxD season 1 (the one where “Dress Break” makes its debut).* Yep, familiars can be used in rating games.

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Funnily enough, the season 1 ending sequence (besides the more memorable pole-dancing and the ear wormy song by StylipS) had a playing card motif. Which begs the question: Why use the playing card motif to represent Rias and company when the actual ranking system for devils uses a chess motif?

      But now, it turns out that the ranking system for angels does use the playing card motif, as revealed by Irina. Intentional, or accidental foreshadowing? You be the judge.

      Incognito
  3. Their first rating game match should have been against Sona and the Student Council, so it looks like that one will be skipped. Some of the development from that match has kinda been covered by the reordered events, but they left some out.
    Regarding the Diodora match:
    Show Spoiler ▼

    SK
    1. At this pace I’m guessing we’ll circle back to that match in ep 10, get partway through it, then a certain someone will crash the party and 11+12 will be spent on stomping his ass.

      Aex
  4. The sequence of events got juggled up that I think I missed a lot of PLOT!!

    Hope the Diodora rating game is done within 1 episode only. Hate that Stalker. Hate that arc in particular.

    Reikakou
  5. Hmm, not sure where they are supposed to be at the moment in the LN with this episode but it seems somewhere in volume 6 after we got most of the stuff from volume 7 from the stuff with loki…
    As for Asia her little pet dragon, he isn’t supposed to be showing up until volume 11 i guess ^^” ( 11 or 12, either of those at least.)Show Spoiler ▼

    Now as for our adorable Rossweisse, while i am kinda curious how they will use the virgin valkyrie this season i just hope they make her as entertaining as possible with what is coming ^_^
    Seriously Stilts, while this season might not be the best for showing her off so far, she is one of the most adorable characters the cast will get so far.

    damrod
  6. Anyone out to get any member of the harem, neglected romantically or otherwise, is always eeeevil!

    Apart from that minor pet plot peeve, I can’t wait to see what Sairaorg can do. Dude just took out the world serpent with one hit; I can’t wait to see how Issei fares against him and, better yet, what happens when those two team-up!

    Also… d’awww Rossweisse-chan and hnng Dereneko-chan!

    Beedle
  7. Just because Diadora has a never-ending squinty smile with an extremely suspicious aura about him can’t mean he’s certainly evil! Leonardo Watch has a never-ending squint and smiles, and he’s not evil.

    zztop
    1. It’s not the squinting eyes; it’s that he dared try to woo Asia! I’d point out Issei’s double-standard (which made this episode a chore to watch), but this IS a harem anime, so it’s best ignored 🙂

      Beedle
    2. Theres a very Short Sequence in the OP, with him in the Background and Asia not being Happy… 1+1 = He will do something to her. Well, it’s easy to speculate. I done it in the earlier episodes

      WorldwideDepp
    3. To me, it’s less that he’s daring to woo a member of Issei’s harem, and more than he’s being all creepy to Asia. I don’t even think she needs to say she’s not interested at this point—her not responding to all his gifts is response enough. Dude is being creepy, so even if Kiriyuu Aika was the main characters and she and Asia were heterosexual life partners, I’d be spoiling to see Diodora punched in the dick. Dude needs to take a hint.

    4. It’s less the endless squint-and-smile of evil (which was done perfectly) and more that he just shows up, introduces himself and says “let’s go” like he already owns her. No “thanks for saving me”, no “sorry I messed up your life”, not even a “so… how ya been?”. He just walks on up and says “get in the van, I have candy.”

      Aex
  8. I must be the only person here who just dont care about Asia, shes like least favorite harem member and the least interesting one to me. Not saying I want her to marry Astaroth and leave but meh, at least take that confession more seriously.

    Irina and Rosseweisse though, <3

    And lol Oppai Dragon. Popularized by…kids, WUT?

    YanDaMan
    1. It gets worse with the kids in hell and the Oppai Dragon … 😉
      Show Spoiler ▼

      Hanover Fist
  9. About Issei’s issues with his first girlfriend…It was “The reveal” from volume 10 (a little one). As far as I can remember, the story doesn’t show us Issei’s thoughts about what he thinks about her relationship with raynare until that part (of volume 10),just Issei being Issei, always getting interrumped or fainting before he can do this and that, having Fights fights and, oh yeah; school.

    G
  10. – i guess diodora forgot about the last creepy bastard that tried to go after one of issei’s ladies and the ass whoopin he got.

    – rias with the “what have you done?!” reaction was hilarious.

    – sleeping with nude rias/asia, koneko sitting on your lap, giving xenovia and asia breast exams, just a normal day for the oppai dragon.

    cookievalenzuela666

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