High School DxD Novel Volume 1

High School DXD is Smutty, But it has two things going for it other fanservice series do not: the developed relationship between its leads Issei & Rias with what they go through to BE together…and the developed lore & precise terminology in regards to religion and mythology.
The anime’s Gag Dub screwed up and butchered Issei and Rias’ romantic arc...And the light novels import has now messed up the terminology/Lore, which is going to make them INCOMPREHENSIBLE within a few volumes. In Example; Relabeling the Biblical Devil faction/Species as DEMONS. There’s a LOT of entities in DxD that could be called demons as the story pulls from all religions/myths, and lumping them together like this instead of keeping them distinct as they were written (Devil, Youkai, Ettin, Asura, etc) will not make the story understandable later on. While not the only screwup, it's the large one which will screw these releases over, and needs correction as other adaptations didn't mess this up.

Overall DxD is quite a long and currently ongoing story, with over 30 volumes currently in JP. This first volume gives us a slight introduction into the series and it's main characters. Although the story is more slow to start, it does an alright job at pacing itself and showing some more niche details that the anime series left out. Details that I would argue help build the world and characters up quite a bit better.

As somebody who has read quite a bit of the series via physical JP copies, I can say the translation was pretty good all things considered. There's the random typo here or there that you can come to expect with a large majority of light novel translations, but it doesn't ruin the story by any means.

If you’re somebody who enjoys the associated tags that this series has, I promise you’ll quickly fall in love with it.

What a fun read.

For a relatively short light novel, it certainly packs a lot of story. The main draw, like the anime adaptation, is the unbridled love for women's bodies, but what I found refreshing was that this volume had a lot more set up and world-building than I thought it would. I enjoyed Issei bicycling around town and getting to know his patrons through ridiculous geek out sessions and coming to understand demon history as the antagonists are revealed. His multiple dates were also cute.

Nudity and gore are no strangers in this series. I was really caught up with Issei and his fight to save a girl at the end. The battles are written well, though short, while accentuating each character's pain and motivations. The pervy stuff is mostly at the beginning and there's a great scene with Issei and Rias, but Issei's two friends are truly disgusting. Thankfully, they're barely in this.

A promising start to a raunchy and epic story.

Absolutely love this series and its even better written then the anime, I can't wait till it catches up to where the anime left off

And so it begins...The HSDXD LN has finally gotten a Western release, and fans welcome it warmly!! This series will go much further than the manga and anime, (eventually) and I highly recommend this series for all DXD fans, (and ecchi in general) mostly for the possibility of a 5th anime season. What's uniquely interesting is that this story is told through the eyes of our hero, Issei Hyoudou, which is very different from the manga and anime that we are used to. However, it's great to finally read the source material, where it all began. I look forward to read the whole story, especially after the anime series. I will probably be collecting this series for the next five to ten years, but then so be it! Five Stars!

I had a well written review, but RS limits review size
Overall, great series. The writing style is a rough at times, but the series does deserve a good rating. The novel has a few 'what did I just read' moments, but you'll get past them.
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Some may read the 1st chapter and want to give up, but please keep going! The first chapter feels like a high school virgin wrote his wildest fantasy. It’s awkward, but I promise gets better.
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Overall I would say this has a development focused story and doesn't revolve too much on the smut/harem topic. The story was good and progressed at a fairly steady pace. I'd highly recommend this series if you're looking for a casual harem/supernatural type novel that has good character/story development and overall decent writing style.
Note: Author has a bad habit of switching first/last names within the same sentence or paragraph. I highly recommend keeping notes if you’re dyslexic like me. I write names, and short descriptors and it helps a LOT.