High School DxD HERO drops first PV

After being shrouded in mystery for almost exactly one year since the project’s announcement, Passione has finally revealed the first details of DxD’s fourth TV anime, as well as the first preview trailer.

 

From myanimelist:

 

 

The Fantasia Bunko Dai Kanshasai 2017 event has announced staff members for the previously announced new season of High School DxD TV anime on Saturday, which are different from the previous seasons. Titled High School DxD Hero, the anime is slated for 2018, and will adapt the 9th and 10th volume of the light novel.

Staff
Director: Yoshifumi Sueda (Rail Wars!)
Series Composition: Kenji Konuda (Ousama Game The Animation)
Character Design: Makoto Uno (Dragonaut: The Resonance)
Studio: Passione

 

We see here that DxD Hero will have the same director as Rail Wars.  Not really a surprise given how short Passione’s resume is and they had to tap someone.  Kenji Konuda seems like an odd choice as the writer, as he has no previous experience writing for a hardcore ecchi series.    Makoto Uno handles character designs.  On paper he’s the biggest name here, having done the character design work for Love Hina, Seikon no Qwaser, Rail Wars, Dragonaut, and Witchblade among others.

Not mentioned by MAL is the music composer, which at least to my ear, sounds the same as it was in previous seasons.

The PV also gives us a taste for how the anime will look and feel.  I was personally impressed by the animation quality and consistency, which both seem to be improved significantly from DxD Born.  On the downside, I just have a really hard time getting used to the new faces.  They aren’t bad, but they are a bit more on the generic side.  I’d never really realized how pretty the faces were in the original seasons until now.

With that said, there were similar big changes to the character design style in Maken-Ki! Two and Testament’s 2nd season, and it didn’t hold those shows back from being excellent ecchi offerings.  The new faces are a minus for me, but it’s not like the rest of the show can’t make up for it.

As best as I can tell, all the voice actors seem to be back, but that’s pretty much a given.

I’m not terribly familiar with the novels, but from what I understand there is a bit of a (for lack of a better term) “soft ending” to the series at the end of volume 12 when Issei and Rias become an official couple.  At least I think it was volume 12.  Of course, the novel series continues after that but it’s the kind of storyline that would make a very good place to end the anime.  I bring this up because it appears DxD Hero is saving volumes 11 and 12 for a future season.  I had kind of assumed this would be the last season of DxD given the decline in sales previously, but it doesn’t appear that the producers of this show are quite planning it that way.

As far as a release date, I’m only speculating but I’m pretty sure we’ll see this show in the upcoming Winter season.  It’s rare for a show to air its first PV nearly two seasons out.  There’s also chances for future DxD Hero announcements later in this Fall season, such as Comiket in December.

Will there be an uncensored broadcast on AT-X?  That has yet to be revealed.  But past seasons did.

It’s exciting to hear news about a real ecchi series finally peaking over the horizon.  The timing literally couldn’t have been any better with the fanservice genre on the brink of a coma in recent weeks.  At least now there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.

TLDR:   Woooooot!  DxD is back!