High School DxD Hero: Taiikukan-ura no Holy

I had to give everything 10 out of 10 since they follow the novel story perfectly it's almost just like how I Imagine it to be and it was really great of them to patch up what TNK screwed up in born.

the art is also great to me many people were upset with the new art style but I was glad they finally got a chance to change it since I Hated TNK art style of the story I feel this one is closer to the source material though if I had to choose, mad house that did The "Ambition of Oda Nobuna" that ... is a novel made by the same artist of dxd is the closest thing I see to dxd art but I still quite like the art style this studio went with and it seems to have good animation to booth with.

the sound was really high quality,one thing I could of always give TNK credit for was the fact that they had great soundtracks that I always download from what I see so far it seems the new studio will keep up that job.

characters were true to the source material and even follow the exact lines from the novel.

I truly enjoy watching it and can't wait for the whole season to end so I can rewatch it with no interuptions

overall I'm really looking forward to this spring I just hope the uncensored version come out quickly :3

The biggest issue I had with this remake is that most of the main cast got redrawn slightly goofy. As if this was a Saturday morning cartoon like Tiny Toons.

This very noticeable in how the hair and eyes are drawn for all the characters. Hair that used to have dimension is now just someone doing a flood fill in MS Paint. Rias' and Akeno's hair no long flows they might as well be hard plastic wigs.

Heck Rias' hair is no longer crimson, it's just fire engine red. Once silver hair is now dull light gray.

The animation is much more ... simplistic as well. When people turn their heads their hair swivels with them instead of flowing as it should.

some minor DxD Born spoilers are included in this Review

First, I want to give advice to anyone who've watched DxD Born and satisfied with it, you should SKIP this episode, just go to first episode of DxD Hero, there will be animation difference you'll either content or disappointed. But plot-wise, I don't think we need this episode as "bridge", we can continue into 4th season(DxD Hero) with final Born memories in mind.

Story:
As I stated above, this one is has some differences from final 4-episodes of DxD born but I think it's unnecessary. Main difference is Rias 'Arc' that's completely removed. I don't read the ... LN, so I don't know the reason, but to us who've watched Born, we can't just erase it from our memory, right? The other major difference is how they resolve Issei rampage, and I would say this with 100% confidence, how DxD Born resolve that is ten times better than this. How could you change beautiful moment into silly joke? I don't care even if that's deviation from Novel, I still think it's unnecessary to create special episode for this crap.

Art:
Different studio handle 4th season including this, it's not unusual if they want to change art and animation style. I don't really want to complain, as mostly it change into lighter tone but at least they're still recognizable. BUT.. the one that I won't accept, and probably stay the same for entire 4th season is.. Rias Appearance. What a terrible things they did to the mature, elegant, beautiful looks of our Ruin Princess, they completely ruin it (no pun intended). And here, they change her into cliche cute and plump girl. Usually I like those kind of character art, but for Rias, that's complete bust of character. And I need to endure it for this and next installation of DxD?

So to summarize this, I won't recommend this episode for DxD anime fans (anime-only, as LN reader would have different perspective). That recommendation also applied to those who are completely new to DxD series (are they even exist?), they would need to watch the first 3 season anyway, and that's from different studio, result in different art style and plot, like it or not.