High School DxD BorN

Episode 35

According to those familiar with the source novels, Born is into anime-original territory at this point. If that is, indeed, the case (I cannot verify this myself) then that may partly explain why the writing quality of a franchise which has generally remained at a steady level has been fluctuating quite a bit over the last few episodes. On the roller coaster ride that the second half of the season has been, this episode is one of the dips.

Last episode ended with Rias having turned against her minions and disappearing with an Issei lookalike, so (as fully expected!) Issei and the gang want to go after her in the Dimensional Gap. Doing that is going to require finding and convincing Vali, which is problematic because his Chaos Brigade is virtually at war with the Underworld, and losses have definitely been suffered. That makes it unfeasible for Sir Zechs to condone, though the ever-sly Azazel is able to finagle a way to make it work. Issei and crew make contact with Vali via Koneko's sister, and Vali agrees to help under the shaky logic that Issei still isn't quite up to the level of a proper, all-out fight yet. Hence Issei and crew find themselves in the Dimensional Gap with only an hour to track down Rias, but because of the appeals of their hearts, Rias comes to them. Only this isn't a Rias who will communicate with them at all and seems to see them as enemies. Their entreaties at least get her attention, but when something linked to Loki comes out from her body, she transforms into an armored form akin to Issei's Balance Breaker. Though reluctant to fight Rias head-on, Issei is eventually convinced that such is the only way to save her.

Now, I don't inherently have a problem with a “beat a loved one in a fight in order to save them” concept, and it is done commonly enough in anime for it to be a trope. The way it is handled here, though, feels more than a bit cheap. Although the Balance Breaker armor is an interesting alternate visual look for Rias, I do hope that episode 12 explains better how that comes to pass, because it feels unnecessary. After all, the story has finally gotten back to the fact that Rias has long been referred to as the Ruin Princess without any explanation, and now that that aspect of her powers (which has been hinted at in previous episodes) is manifesting, she seems plenty powerful enough to be a worthy foe for Issei as is. The pacing also seems a bit off, as if the writing is stretching to fill up the whole episode by padding out certain conversations; the one between Akeno and Issei during the heat of the battle against Rias is by far the worst offender here but not the only one.

An even bigger problem for me is that the way the writing is washing out any sense of distinctive mythological identity is only escalating in its impact. I have complained before about how Loki has been handled in this regard, but the same can now also be said for Sir Zechs. Absolutely nothing going on here distinguishes him and his behavior as being a devil. Granted, one of the long-standing points of the franchise has been that devils aren't so different as people go, but you can carry that too far and the series is definitely doing that. (And this is not just a problem with this being anime-original writing, either, as the writing is only following the lead of the source novels in this regard.)

And the final problem is actually the fan service. This episode plays utterly straight and serious, so the content does not give any easy ways to fit it in. As a result, the episode content features only a couple of brief panty flashes, though the eyecatch and the opener are just as fan service-laden as ever. The problem is that, for one of the rare times in the franchise, those standard fan service spots feel incongruous enough to be a distraction. This is one of the points in the franchise where it most needs to build up gravitas, and that isn't helping. The continually shaky artistic quality control isn't helping, either.

Maybe episode 12 will turn things back around again, but I am now a lot less confident about a strong finish than I was after last episode.

Rating: C

High School DxD BorN is currently streaming on Funimation.