When I first heard about this show I assumed that it would be like High School DxD, an excuse for major league fan service. It even features a busty redhead demon, just like HSDxD did.

I wanted to see just how bad the pandering was, so I downloaded raws of the first two episodes, thinking, "I don't even want to know what they're saying."

But I got halfway through the first episode and I got intrigued. It looked like it might well be better than I had assumed. So I went back and downloaded subs of both episodes, and then watched them again.

Well, now I'm back to thinking it's mainly about pandering. I'm not going to recap the episodes, exactly, but I will spoil the story and provide a few typical screen caps below the fold.

Toujou Jin is father of Toujou Basara, and informs him that Dad is going to get married again, to a woman with two gorgeous girls as daughters. So it begins to look like it's also a replay of SisxKiss, don't it?

Well, it doesn't stay that way for long, though they do toss in a few gratuitous scenes at the beginning along those lines. Anyway, the girls are named Naruse Maria (the white haired loli) and Naruse Mio (the busty redhead). The marriage isn't going to happen for a while yet because their mom is away, but they're moving in with Jin and Basara immediately anyway.

Jin is a free lance photographer and he's been called to a job in Dubai, so he leaves Basara alone with the girls. As soon as he's gone, Maria transforms into a demon and tells Basara to leave the house. She slams him with a magical attack, and in passing mentions that magic is real and there is a clan of Angels, a clan of Demons, and a clan of Heroes.

She says that there isn't any marriage. She used magic to change Jin's memory so he thought there was one. And now she's going to change Basara's memory, too. And she tries.

And it doesn't work. Then she tries a magical attack on him, and he makes an instant move behind the girls, and then manifests a magical sword with which he defeats them. His final strike would have killed them both but he stopped it inches short.

He orders them out. Then he calls his dad on the phone. Yes, Dad knew all about it; the memory-changing magic didn't work on him either.

Jin and Basara are from the village of Heroes. They left five years ago and no longer have any contact.

Mio and Maria are demons. There was a war a while ago, but the Demon Lord (named "Wilbert", uh, yeah) wanted peace and used his titanic powers to curb all the demons. Some of them didn't like that, and eventually assassinated him, replacing him with another Maou who, it turns out, wants to restart the war. This happened about a year ago.

Mio is his only child. She's been raised in secret by human foster parents, but assassins finally found them and they both were killed. She got away (somehow). Maria is a succubus who serves Mio and also protects her.

And at the end of the first episode, Basara changes his mind and invites them back again. They will live with him and he'll think of them as sisters after all.

And with that I thought maybe this was going to be pretty good.

The second episode changed my mind. Utter crap. Maria's magic gone awry, sticking Mio with a curse. Mio and Basara's first day at a new high school. Basara's old friend Yuuki is there and hugs him in front of the whole class. Mio objects and announces that she's living with Basara. Mio and Yuuki are considered the school's princesses, the most desireable girls in the school, and both of them are intimate with Basara, so every guy in the entire school hates him.

Oh, and Yuuki is from the village of Heroes, so she's got supernatural powers too.

And on and on; genuine grade A crap. And plenty of fan service, too. I think I was right the first time: they aren't even trying. They think fan service will save them. And they might be right.

So here's some grabs, not in any particular order.

Buy the BD's.

Did I mention that you should buy the BD's? You should, you know!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:38 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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