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So Where Were We?
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What are you thinking?
In High School DxD BorN, people asked director Tetsuya Yanagisawa that question.
But it's High School DxD Hero now. Yanagisawa is no longer director.
In other words, like Shalba without his arms, Ichiei Ishibumi has nowhere to hide. So I must ask him.
Of all the BorN scenes that Ishibumi and Lucasfilm, I mean Passione, decide to retcon, they go with the Juggernaut Drive set piece? Really? The epic sequence whose deviations bolster its impact? Was the lack of the Oppai Dragon song so ingrained in the public demographic that you had to course correct? Did Loki cost too much for revision? Must you dumb down everything and nearly everyone into a slack-jawed gruel before bribing us with Rias's rack, and then Asia's kiss? Well, congratulations, fellas. You not only waste time and money on a full 25-minute redo because all shall hail Ishibumi our Lord and Savior, but you also stoke ill will to those who've seen the previous, flawed, crazy mess in its entirety and loved it all the same. I have defended High School DxD BorN since its airing, and this is the thanks I get.
Faith in source material. Hah!
Tossed along with the bathwater is the eroticism charged throughout the roller coaster of pulp. No Xenovia who loses it and her top, no Rias as a frequently upskirt Fay Wray, and no slinky delusions of Raynare. In English, no Xenovia madly avenging her friend, no Rias pleading for her love while in his vice grip, and no callbacks to the monster that enervated Issei to invoke his inner monster for Asia. Those moments are steamy, alright, but they lend thematic weight. What do we get here? Rias looks more catatonic than her previous incarnation, Gasper's time-stop cameo somehow makes much less sense than before, and Xenovia wails immediately upon receiving Asia in her arms and then eight minutes later wails some more to shove aside Issei (oh, sure, it's more faithful for Xenovia to play crybaby. Risa Taneda came back for this?) And Yuuto...he's missing Freed to show who's daddy. The execution doesn't just mess with the viewers salivating for a T&A good time; it favors the letter of the law over the passion and consequence that could spring out of such chaos.
See, this rebootmakequel looks at the fanservice requisite and decides that instead of weaving the material organically, it must insert it in and check it off the list. That way, Ishibumi can stamp his approval. Introducing the new and improved Vali, who won't transform into the badass Welsh Dragon upon Akeno and Koneko's request (a scene effective for how the parties set aside their differences) but first murmurs that the way to defeat Issei is the power of song; yes, they've divided Vali's balls too. And even when Vali finally fights Issei, his roaring, bestial might delivers...a hickey. I didn't know this franchise could get any lower in the action department. Cue Irina and the sex toy chest- er, film projector. Thank heavens, the first person to exhibit personality! Welcome back, Irina.
And when I see the animation, something else bugs me. Why does this episode spend several shots on characters running/walking from point A to point B, when they could be doing stuff during said coordinates? Do we need to be helpfully reminded that these characters have two legs? Wings too expensive? I don't understand the narrative function of Vali arriving by portal several blocks away from the Occult Research Club when last season he phased right behind them. Meanwhile, I'm not sure which point Rossweisse is located.
And I'm sorry, fans, but the Oppai Dragon song is handled and placed better in BorN. As the closer for said series, the song carries an ironic undercurrent, about this lovable teenage doofus who becomes the idol of children after proceeding to murder those who dare messed with his women. The best thing to happen to Issei is that he isn't caught. The song serves not as a jarring comedic resolution, but a sigh of relief; after the turmoil Issei sends himself and his friends into, the Occult Research Club can just smile knowing they live to not talk about the damn thing again.
In Hero, the animators blow their chance at amends by cutting Issei's ditty again to brief, just marginally less brief shots (and still without sing-along lyrics), so they can spend more time showing Rias, Vali and friends in long, blank stares that must have sounded funny on paper, but don't appear as rewarding because we've already seen several blank stares beforehand! Rias should be a looker, not a gawker. And remember what you purists were promised? Well, Sirzechs still ain't crooning. It's not that High School DxD is hard to adapt, it's that if you obey only what Ishibumi's pulpit entails and never give your all, you take out the spice, the textures, and the heat, and are left cooking a bowl of water. For the first time in his anime franchise, Ishibumi fails by being afraid to fail, and for the first time too, his animators are but puppets. BorN is sexy, risky, and complicated, better than readers give it credit for, and if I must hail it again, I will. In defying its predecessor, Hero's first impression divides, divides, divides...
Simply put, I'm so glad Tetsuya Yanagisawa completed a trilogy. I pity the fools assigned to upstage him. For Hero Episode 00, hopefully but not surely an author's one-shot exercise in hubris, I think Ddraig puts it best. Ichiei Ishibumi, you made the wrong choice.
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Graphic Designer
