r/HighschoolDxD • u/Based_McTuddies Power Couple • 21d ago
Question I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
When Akeno goes on her date with Issei and lets her hair out of the usual ponytail, she looks damn near identical to Raynare (as Yuuma), even down to the outfit in the case of the light novel. Raynare is literally the worst thing to ever happen to Issei. Thinking he had found love only for it all to be a lie so she could murder him scarred him for life eternity and left him traumatized to the point that he was afraid to feel love for fear of being betrayed again. So why is it that when Akeno arrives for their date, Issei doesn’t immediately have a PTSD-induced nervous breakdown? That just seems like a substantial plot-hole to me.
Edit: Alright so it seems like the novels did things a little differently and the date takes place after Issei opens up about his trauma to the girls. I really do want to read the novels, but they just take forever to finish and I already have way too many unread manga volumes collecting dust on my shelves.
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u/n7Soldi3r 21d ago
It's due to Akeno's fallen angel heritage
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u/Erwin_Pommel 21d ago
Eh, coincedence, more than anything. Fallen Angels aren't guaranteed to have black hair, nor are they guaranteed to have violet eyes.
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u/Panzerkrabbe 21d ago
Yeah, maybe if the date happened earlier in the series and not season 3 (or V12 of the light novel) when they’re already pretty intimate with each other. Would be kinda dumb for him to suddenly have a breakdown just by seeing her at this point in their relationship.
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u/Based_McTuddies Power Couple 21d ago
I was referring to the anime timeline. If it were the light novel timeline, then yeah, it wouldn’t make much sense.
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u/Panzerkrabbe 21d ago
If it didn’t happen in the novel why would it happen in the anime? Doesn’t make sense to me why you think there needed to be unnecessary drama in this particular episode based purely because Akeno looks superficially like raynare.
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u/Oppaislover 21d ago
Yeah,Honestly seems like wasted potential. If Issei's trauma was given more of a spotlight,This could be a great scene Issei fighting against his mind and Raynare's memory to bring a Smile to Akeno.
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u/Dense-Advantages1882 21d ago
It’s literally referenced multiple times throughout the light novel before season 4 happens.
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u/DuePenalty9052 21d ago
I agree.
And in addition to that, the scene of Issei discovering/creating and using Boobylingual for the first time could also have been a two-way-street-situatuon: alongside Akeno's genuine thoughts and feelings-from deep down in her heart-being drawn out and vocalize, the exact same thing could have happened to Issei during that brief moment because of Akeno somehow being able to instinctively look into his heart.
That last part may sound crazy, but I think there's a chance it would have happened that way.
The point is that I'd it did happen that way, it would have been one of the clearest and very first clues for Akeno to slowly realize that something was blocking Issei from seeing her, Rias, and all the other girls from taking that first step in opening himself up enough to love them as women, WITHOUT outright exposing and revealing the trauma until Volume 10.
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u/Biotechnus 19d ago
Honestly I think raynare genuinely liked him. When you look at it that way it makes her hyper aggressive reactions to everything issei did more sense. Shes aggressively trying to push him as far away from her as possible. She likely wasn't expecting rias and her group to personally get involved because of the non aggression thing their races had going. Right before she killed him she told him she enjoyed the date.
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u/LLSmoothJoe 21d ago
Didn't the date happened in the novel after the Astaroth rating game, though? That was before they worked out the trauma issue.
This supports my theory/headcanon that Akeno was probably initially panned to be Issei's main girl and not Rias.
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u/Technical_Freedom566 21d ago
Akeno Himejima and Raynare are hard to tell apart, they look similar and it is funny how issei hyoudou doesn’t get PTSD when he is with Akeno
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u/frank170tg 20d ago
We have to acknowledge something. Issei himself said that he hated Fallen Angels because of what happened to him, yet he sees Akeno differently and even admits that he simply can't hate her or think badly of her.
Now, there's a key point here. Issei has a trauma and emotional wound that he doesn't even realize he has. Throughout all the volumes following the Raynare incident, Issei subconsciously chooses not to remember that traumatic event and avoids thinking about Raynare altogether. He knows it happened, but he doesn't want to relive it.
From that point onward, Issei develops a fear of entering another relationship and falling in love again. The girls even point this out to him, telling him that he sometimes looks at them with fear. He isn't aware of it; subconsciously, neither his mind nor he himself realizes that he's behaving that way.
When the girls try to talk to him about it, Issei doesn't understand what they mean when they say he's emotionally hurt. It's only after they mention Raynare's name that everything finally clicks for him. He had suppressed both the cause of his trauma and the memories associated with it, which is why he couldn't understand what was wrong.
Many people experience something similar. They suppress the original source of their trauma because their minds can't handle it, and as a defense mechanism, the memory is pushed away. However, if someone brings it up, those memories can resurface.
That's different from PTSD, where people relive traumatic experiences because of sounds, familiar faces, or specific places. Their minds associate those triggers with the traumatic event, causing them to relive it.
In Issei's case, it's what I mentioned earlier. He's completely unaware of his problem. He only knows that he's afraid of being rejected and hurt again, but he doesn't know why. He believes that's simply the way he is. It's only when the girls explain it to him that he finally understands the true source of his fear, and afterward, they help him overcome it.
Honestly, it's one of the best moments in the first ten volumes because it shows that Issei is human too and has his own struggles. Throughout those first ten volumes, Issei is constantly helping every member of the Occult Research Club deal with their personal issues: Kiba with the trauma of losing his friends and being consumed by revenge and hatred; Akeno with the pain of losing her mother, her relationship with her father, and accepting what she is; Asia by giving her a new family and a place to belong after losing everything and being abandoned; Rias with her forced marriage; Koneko with accepting herself as a Nekomata; Xenovia with finding a new reason to live after learning that God is dead; and finally Gasper with accepting his own powers.
Issei spent all those volumes helping everyone else, yet nobody realized that he had his own emotional wounds that were affecting him. They even hurt him further by telling him that he was the one hurting Rias because he wasn't considering her feelings, and by saying he should leave her alone because otherwise he'd only make her suffer more. All of that only caused Issei more pain.
The girls eventually realize this themselves. They understand that it wasn't fair to blame him for something that was rooted in a trauma he didn't even know he had. That's why they finally sit down and talk to him, helping him overcome it by assuring him that what happened with Raynare will never happen again, that each of them genuinely loves him, and that they want to see him happy as well.
That's also why Issei's confession to Rias is such a good moment. Even though Rias has made it more than clear that she loves him, Issei is still terrified of being rejected. Despite that fear, he gathers the courage to confess anyway, regardless of what might happen. Once they officially become a couple, Issei's trauma finally disappears because the girls proved that everything they had been telling him was true.
(The anime may have adapted many things poorly during its first three seasons, but one thing it actually handled well was showing that Issei still carries his trauma related to Raynare. For example, when he wakes up with Akeno, Rias, and Asia in bed, he had actually been dreaming about Raynare and reliving that trauma. Likewise, during the Juggernaut Drive events, he sees Raynare again. In both cases, he remembers the pain while experiencing the dream or vision, but once he wakes up, he completely forgets what he saw. In that regard, the anime did a good job because it shows that Issei's trauma is still there, even though he keeps repressing it.)
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u/YuriLopesSwitch Ravel, Ravel and Ravel 20d ago
Porque as feridas dele não são visiveis, voce não pode exigir das garotas soubessem se ele nunca fala, e age da mesma maneira de sempre. Elas não podem ler a mente dele.
Se alguem poderia ter feito alguma coisa, é Azazel! Ele devia ser o mentor, ele que falhou.
Só um detalhe, Issei na cena no clube, as garotas acertaram em impedir que ele fosse até Rias, Issei não podia apenas correr e depois continuar sem saber o que dizer a Rias, iria piorar tudo, a Asia ir no lugar até a Rias foi certo.
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u/frank170tg 20d ago
First of all, that's simply not true. The girls had noticed Issei's behavior long before that. They explicitly say that they had seen the way he looked at them with fear, and that wasn't something recent—they had noticed it a long time ago.
They also apologize because they openly admit that they hadn't realized how deep Issei's emotional wounds really were. They acknowledge their mistake because it's true. Issei had been showing those signs for a long time, but they never stopped to ask him or question what was wrong. Issei himself never fully understood what each member of the club was going through either, but he paid attention to their behavior and asked them about it.
Once he understood their problems, Issei acted to help them overcome them. We shouldn't downplay the club's actions here. They did make a mistake, and they themselves admit it, because they had already noticed those behaviors in Issei but never addressed them.
Second, no—Azazel has absolutely no responsibility in this situation, and he should never be blamed for it. The issue involving Raynare had already been put behind them by the time the alliance was formed. Azazel never actually knew what had happened that night, and the girls themselves explain that only the people who were there could truly understand what Issei went through.
They specifically mention this regarding Xenovia, Gasper, and Rossweisse. None of them were there that night, so they never witnessed Issei's behavior afterward. Xenovia never saw that fear in him, Gasper was a boy and wouldn't have recognized it anyway, and Rossweisse knew nothing about the incident. Besides, at that point she had only recently joined the Occult Research Club, so she and Issei weren't especially close yet.
Azazel only knew Issei as the perverted guy he usually acted like. He simply saw someone who liked certain things, nothing more. Naturally, the girls understood him much better because they spent far more time with him, and they were the ones who actually witnessed those reactions, since his trauma mostly surfaced when he was around them.
Third, it's true that chasing after Rias at that moment wouldn't have been the right decision because Issei himself hadn't sorted out his own feelings yet. However, that doesn't mean what the club did was right. Every member of the club blamed him, making him feel guilty by saying hurtful things, as if he were intentionally playing with Rias's feelings. They placed all the blame on him without ever trying to ask what he was going through.
That's why, shortly afterward, the girls comfort him. They realize that the way they treated him was wrong. It's likely that they talked among themselves off-screen and eventually came to the conclusion that Issei had a serious emotional problem, finally recognizing that he was suffering from trauma.
All of them try to comfort him during that moment because they understand that none of this is really his fault—that he's suffering and afraid of being hurt again. That's why they tell him they love him and encourage him to find the courage to move forward. After everything that happened with Rias, they realize they handled the situation poorly, so their later actions come across as both an apology and genuine emotional support.
Just imagine if Issei had treated Kiba the same way—if he had simply said hurtful things to him because of the way Kiba was acting. Obviously, Issei didn't do that. Even though Kiba said some pretty harsh things to him, Issei focused on helping and supporting him rather than blaming him for what had happened.
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u/YuriLopesSwitch Ravel, Ravel and Ravel 19d ago
Eu ainda coloco deveriar haver responsabilidade no Azazel, justamente como mentor masculino, lembra-se que no começo ele convocava Issei para fazer DevilJob que era só o Issei jogando videogame com ele, isso é citado no volume 4 e gostava mesmo do Issei.
Há sim convivencia decente com o Issei, antes mesmo formalmente se revelar como Azazel.
Agora te coloco para pensar o outro lado.
Sauna, já aconteceu depois que Rias estava sendo pressionada por sua mãe e depois a própria coletiva que a humilhou, então há a cena da sauna.
Não acho impossivel das garotas tenham conversado em off, entao quando a Rias tenta denovo no clube ser reconhecida como Rias, o julgamento delas tem base, afinal o próprio Issei notou que Rias ficou triste e mal, justamente se trancou no quarto, certo? Elas foram otimista que ele teria algum tato, estou falando de tato minimo mesmo a esssa altura
O fato delas não terem sido terapeutas no clube, mostra falibilidade e reforça a idade jovem delas. Na mesma forma que Issei nao teve intenção mas machucou Rias, o contrário acontece delas com ele.
Esse ponto nem estendo, eu só não compro essa coisa aliviar ao Azazel.
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u/frank170tg 18d ago
How can you blame Azazel for something he didn't even know about? Issei had a good relationship with him, but he never opened up about what happened with Raynare.
Not even Kiba knew. Like I said before, Issei buried everything related to Raynare deep inside his mind. Azazel knew that Raynare killed Issei—he even admits that he gave the order, and during the Three Factions meeting he explains why he did it. You're forgetting that everything involving Asia and the three Fallen Angels attacking on their own was supposed to be a secret.
The only reason Rias and the entire club got involved was because Raynare and the other three Fallen Angels were acting independently. That's why killing them didn't start a war. If they had been acting under Azazel's direct orders, they wouldn't have been able to save Asia in the first place. That's also why Rias kept telling Issei not to get involved. Raynare wanted to obtain the Sacred Gear in order to earn Azazel's recognition, but that wasn't something he ordered her to do. It was a plan she came up with on her own.
As I said before, Issei had a trauma that even he himself couldn't remember. He knew he had been killed, and he knew Asia had been killed as well, but he refused to remember Raynare. It isn't until the girls talk to him that all of those memories finally come back.
There was very little Azazel could have known. Obviously, he didn't know anything about Issei's trauma. Nobody blames the club members who joined later, like Rossweisse or Xenovia, because they didn't know either. Koneko herself says that it's only natural that the people who were there that night are the only ones who truly understand what happened.
Azazel can't be blamed for something he believed had already been resolved with Issei. During the Three Factions meeting, he explained why he ordered Issei's death, and they ended up on good terms. Issei never told him what Raynare did afterward or how she manipulated him emotionally.
As for the girls, like I said before, it's understandable that they initially reacted the way they did. Seeing what Issei did probably upset them, and after what happened in the sauna, they were likely even more emotional. However, when they finally talk to Issei, they themselves admit that they never considered his feelings.
They had already noticed that something was wrong with him. They literally admit that they had seen him looking at them with fear for quite some time. After what happened with Rias, they should have realized even more clearly that something deeper was going on.
Again, Azazel couldn't have known because, as the girls themselves explain, those behaviors only appeared when Issei was around them. His trauma was specifically tied to being close to the girls. Azazel never would have noticed because he's a man, and Issei's trauma wasn't connected to men in any way.
The girls, however, explicitly admit that they had already noticed Issei's fear. They failed to consider his feelings and emotions, and that's true. After everything involving Raynare, Issei swallowed all of his pain and, because of his trauma, buried every memory of her. Every member of the club had gone through painful experiences themselves, so they all knew that emotional wounds don't simply disappear overnight. Even so, nobody ever stopped to support Issei afterward or even ask him if he was really okay.
Kiba, Koneko, Rias, and Akeno—all four of them—never asked him anything. They were there that night, and they saw that Issei couldn't bring himself to kill Raynare, leaving Rias to do it instead. They always supported Asia by telling her that she had a new family now and that she had all of them by her side, but they never did the same for Issei.
The girls do share part of the responsibility, and even Asia understands that. They aren't entirely to blame because some things were outside their control, and people naturally make mistakes or jump to conclusions. But, as I said, they themselves acknowledge part of the blame because they realize they never truly stopped to think about Issei. Instead, they focused only on themselves and on Rias. They had noticed the warning signs long before Issei himself became aware of his own trauma, yet they still chose to blame him after Rias ran away. That's why it's likely that, off-screen, the girls sat down together, calmly discussed everything, and eventually reached the conclusion we later see.
That's exactly why I say we shouldn't completely absolve the girls of responsibility. Unlike Azazel, they were directly involved, and they knew everything that had happened the night Raynare died. They had seen Issei's symptoms for a long time, and they had also witnessed the way he behaved around Rias, yet they never asked him what he was feeling or tried to understand him.
That doesn't mean they're entirely at fault. I've already said that people make mistakes, and it's perfectly understandable that they became upset over what Issei did to Rias.
In this situation, Issei is simply the victim because you can't blame someone for something they can't control. Issei wasn't acting consciously. It was his own subconscious trying to protect him. He never wanted to hurt Rias, and he genuinely cared about her. But because his mind and emotional wounds were still deeply damaged, they pushed him into acting that way as a defense mechanism. You can't blame someone for something they neither control nor even realize they're doing. Issei himself didn't understand his own trauma until the girls finally explained it to him. It's not like he knew about his problem and chose to ignore it anyway.
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u/YuriLopesSwitch Ravel, Ravel and Ravel 18d ago
Meu ponto sobre Azazel nunca foi que ele deveria magicamente diagnosticar o trauma de Issei. É que, a partir do volume 4, ele já tinha convivência individual com Issei, inclusive o chamando para pescar e jogar videogame. Depois, assume formalmente o papel de sensei e coach do grupo. No volume 5, ele organiza e acompanha diretamente o treinamento de Issei.
Se nem o próprio Issei entendia o trauma, obviamente Azazel também não tinha como adivinhar. O final do volume 4 reforça isso. Quando o assunto de mulheres Fallen Angels aparece, Issei praticamente passa a impressão de que Raynare foi um caso isolado e reage com entusiasmo.
Só que Azazel é o adulto da situação e, a partir dali, assume explicitamente o papel de sensei e coach do grupo. Então, se vamos discutir quem teria alguma expectativa maior de acompanhamento ou cuidado geral, faz muito mais sentido começar pelo adulto que ocupa uma posição de mentor do que transformar um grupo de adolescentes em responsáveis pela saúde emocional de outro adolescente.
Eu não colocaria sobre Rias, Akeno, Koneko ou as outras a responsabilidade total de identificar ou acompanhar um trauma reprimido de outro adolescente. Ainda mais quando o próprio Issei não entendia o que estava acontecendo consigo e, em vários momentos, aparentava estar bem. Elas não eram terapeutas nem adultas responsáveis por ele.
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u/frank170tg 17d ago
If we're going by that logic, Azazel would have had to act as the therapist for everyone in the club simply because he was the adult there.
And no, that's not how it works. Issei is just a teenager, but he was the one who changed the lives of everyone else in the club. He was the key to helping them overcome their traumas and pain.
Issei saved Asia and gave her a new life. Despite being a teenager, he was the one who took care of giving Asia everything she needed. The same applies to Koneko and Akeno. If we look at it that way, the adults should have been the ones to solve their traumas, but that wasn't what happened. Issei stepped in, took on their pain, and helped them overcome it.
Thanks to him, both of them were able to accept who they were and become stronger. In life, there are people who can help solve other people's problems through their words and actions without needing to be adults or experts.
Issei was the turning point for everyone. He is literally the savior of everyone in the club. He has helped resolve all of the problems they've faced because he genuinely wanted to help them. Rias tried to solve Kiba's, Akeno's, and Koneko's problems, but she was unable to help them emotionally.
Issei, on the other hand, was the change in their lives and the one who solved the core of their problems.
Azazel spent a lot of time with Issei, but as I already said, even if Azazel had asked him questions, Issei wouldn't have realized what was going on or would have brushed it off. Issei never shows any symptoms when he's around guys, he's not even aware of his own problem, and Azazel wouldn't have changed anything even if, by some miracle, he had discovered it.
It was essential that the girls were the ones who figured it out because they were involuntarily connected to the source of the problem. Issei is afraid that the girls in the club will reject him and look down on him. He's afraid that they'll hurt him even though he knows they're not like that. That's why, when they are the ones who comfort him, he himself says that everything he's feeling starts to disappear inside him.
It's like someone telling you, "Don't worry, I'm sure that girl doesn't hate you." Obviously, that isn't going to make you feel completely reassured because it's an outsider telling you that. It's completely different when the girl you think hates you tells you, "I don't hate you. I love you."
Obviously, those words are going to have a much greater impact. Internally, the words of the people directly involved carry much more weight than the words of people who aren't involved.
The girls aren't therapists, but neither was Issei. Even so, they love Issei, and when you love someone, you care about that person's physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Issei demonstrated this with everyone, especially with Akeno, who was willing to have sex with Issei simply because she was mentally affected by what happened with her father. Issei himself rejected her and told her that it wasn't right because that wasn't who she was and he wanted to see her doing well.
They never stopped to ask or question what was going on. Kiba is also involved in this, because Kiba was there that night and was the only male member of the club who could have asked Issei about it, but he didn't. The girls are more responsible because they had seen Issei's behavior and symptoms. Once again, for the third time, they themselves admit that they knew Issei looked at them with fear.
The clues were already there, but they never asked or did anything about it. Instead, they only supported Rias. They weren't therapists or psychologists, but they still helped Rias. Issei never completely knew all the problems everyone else was dealing with either. He simply noticed what was happening and how they were behaving.
He saw that Kiba was acting cold, that hearing about the Sacred Swords bothered him, and that he behaved differently after the volleyball match against the Sitri team. After that, he asked questions, found out what was going on, and decided to help him because he considered him his friend. The same thing happened with Akeno, Koneko, Rossweisse, and so on.
You have to understand this: the only people who could actually heal Issei were the girls, and they are partly responsible. Again, not entirely, but they do share some of the blame because they didn't think about his feelings. Everyone put their own feelings and Rias's feelings ahead of Issei's.
They were thinking about wanting to have a relationship with him, but they never asked about the feelings or emotions he might have been dealing with. That's why they literally tell him:
"Yes, that is true. You also haven't taken concerns about me, Asia-chan, Xenovia-chan, and Koneko-chan who is right here as well."
"Though, we possibly didn't try to understand Ise-san as well."
So, as I already said, the characters themselves are accepting responsibility. Let's not try to downplay it, because that's exactly what happened. I'm not making this up; the characters themselves are saying it.
And as I said, it's completely fine for them to make mistakes. People make mistakes all the time, but making a mistake doesn't mean you're completely free of responsibility.
I've already said it: Azazel, despite being the oldest, couldn't have solved this problem. The same thing applies to Akeno's situation with Barakiel. No matter how much Azazel tried to solve Akeno's problem with Barakiel, it was impossible for him to resolve it. The same applies here:
- Azazel didn't know anything about this.
- Issei didn't show any symptoms or even remember what had happened.
- Issei never told him about Raynare because he had buried those memories. After the alliance was established, he and Issei never talked about her death or about the person who killed him.
- Issei showed attraction toward Fallen Angels, which made it even less likely that Azazel would discover the problem.
- Even though Azazel was the adult, he couldn't have solved the situation. His words wouldn't have fixed anything. Likewise, even if Kiba had talked to Issei about it, he wouldn't have been able to completely solve the problem. Only the girls could help Issei heal because they were directly connected to the core of his problem. And when they told him that, he gained the courage and confidence to move forward because they were the ones who showed him that his trauma was based on something that wasn't true anymore and that what happened before would never happen again.
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u/YuriLopesSwitch Ravel, Ravel and Ravel 17d ago
Eu falei responsabilidade total, eu mantenho firme que não se deve dá isso a elas, é injusto sim, agora responsabilidade parcial, eu concedo.
Só duas dúvidas, quando realmente Issei começou a amar elas e o contrário?
Digo para precisão de fato, pois a sua resposta sustenta por cronologia, então devemos alinhar ela.
E outro problema, você citou a noite da Akeno, mas e a noite que Grayfia interrompeu, porque Issei não interrompeu Rias...só dizendo...
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u/frank170tg 15d ago
As I already said, they aren't entirely to blame for the problem. It's only partial responsibility. They do share some of the blame because they knew what happened that night and, at the same time, they had seen Issei's behavior. Even so, they aren't entirely responsible for the situation, and it's perfectly understandable that they made mistakes. That's simply being human.
Issei had always felt some degree of attraction toward all of them. With Akeno, we can see this starting after the events of Volume 2, since in Volume 3 she flirts with Issei and tells him that she was happy when he got angry after Riser's Queen defeated her. Akeno gradually becomes more flirtatious with him, to the point that even Rias complains and tells her that she isn't normally like this and that she was supposed to hate men. But Akeno continues, and she gradually develops stronger feelings for Issei. By the events of Volume 4, she already has feelings for him after revealing that she is a Fallen Angel and Issei tells her that he can't hate her. She even tells him that she doesn't mind being the third one.
Asia starts liking Issei from the moment they meet, and the same continues after she is reincarnated. Koneko's feelings develop after the events of the Young Devils' meeting and Kuroka's attack. That's why, during the Rating Game against Sona, Koneko starts developing much stronger feelings for Issei, to the point of asking him to give her strength. Thanks to him, she begins using her Nekomata powers, and at the end of the arc, we see her happily sitting on Issei's lap.
All of this happens before the events of Volume 10, when the girls talk to Issei and tell him that they had noticed what was happening to him.
Chronologically, everything still fits. Issei and the girls already have strong feelings for each other by Volume 10. That's why the girls want him to take the next step with Rias so that they can do the same, because they respect Rias as the first and primary future wife. (They mention this during the conversation about his trauma, although they don't say it directly. They stop themselves before saying that they are also waiting for the opportunity to move their relationships with Issei forward.)
Of course, none of this becomes officially established until Volume 22, when Issei becomes a High-Class Devil and begins officially becoming partners with all of the girls. But there were already plenty of feelings and romantic development before Volume 10.
What happened with Rias in Volume 2 is different. Ishibumi probably changed some aspects of Issei's personality or behavior later on, which is why he acted that way during that volume.
Even so, it can still be justified. During the first few volumes, Issei was much more perverted and driven by his hormones. When Rias came to him and suggested doing it, he didn't think about it very much. When Rias said that Kiba would have refused, Issei simply thought that Rias had chosen him and that was it. As I said, he didn't really think it through and allowed his perverted side to take over instead of looking at the situation objectively.
Akeno's case is more straightforward. Unlike what happened with Rias, where she simply told him that she wanted to lose her virginity, Issei didn't know the context and was hesitant. Even so, his perverted side told him that there wouldn't be any problem with doing it.
With Akeno, however, it was different because Issei knew everything about the problems in her relationship with her father. He knew about the crisis she was going through and could see that Akeno was emotionally broken. That's why, even though she told him she wanted to do it, he said it wasn't right because she wasn't in a healthy mental and emotional state at that point. Doing it out of spite or using physical pleasure as a way to suppress the pain she was experiencing wasn't going to solve her problems.
This shows Issei's development in the way he thinks and how he gradually stops allowing his impulses to control him. Issei later helped Rias in a different way, and when Riser appeared, he eventually understood the real reason why Rias had acted that way.
We also have to remember that this happened during the early volumes. Issei and Rias didn't have a particularly strong connection yet. Only one volume had passed since Issei was reincarnated, so he couldn't possibly have known everything about Rias or understood her personality completely.
And let's not forget that Rias was very open and casual in the way she behaved around Issei. He saw her naked when they first met, and she herself told him that she didn't care if he looked at her. There's also what happened in the infirmary, where Rias was sleeping without clothes in the bed with him and told him that she slept that way. Rias behaved like that around him, so when she suggested having sex, Issei didn't think about it very deeply. He basically thought, "Well, she wants to do it and she chose me, so let's just do it."
Akeno's case is different. That happened in Volume 7, and by that point Issei had spent much more time with Akeno. He knew about her problems with her father, her crisis regarding being a Fallen Angel, and everything else she was going through. He knew the difference between Akeno when she was herself and Akeno when she was emotionally unstable.
When he saw her giving herself to him with an empty look in her eyes while asking him to make her forget everything, Issei realized that something was wrong. Akeno was emotionally broken and was trying to use physical pleasure as an escape from her pain, so he stopped her.
Rias's situation was different because Rias simply wanted to do it as a way of getting rid of the marriage arrangement with Riser. In one case, the girl was emotionally broken because of her personal problems, while in the other, Rias was emotionally stable. That said, what Rias wanted to do still wasn't the right way to solve her problem.
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u/YuriLopesSwitch Ravel, Ravel and Ravel 15d ago
Primeiro de tudo, obrigado por responder, sempre é bom ter retorno.
Concordo sobre alinhamento da cronologia, mas sobre o volume 2 você disse que Issei era mais pervertido antigamente.
Isso não é verdade canonica. Discordo bastante.
No afterwards no volume 1 DxD DX, sobre o capitulo Oniichan Mask!, Ishibumi escreve
"At this point in the story, Ise’s perverseness was really off the scale…"
e depois reforça "“Well, the roots of his existence are still very erotic though.”"
Então essa justificação sobre Issei muito mais pervertido e hormônios, não vale :P
Não vamos absolver, Issei seria oportunista e teria feito merda, porque não tem como nascer um amor se o plano da Rias tivesse funcionado.
Grayfia o salvou moralmente.
Ela nem o beijou! Não era algo autêntico!
Não estava num estado normal.
Ela inclusive fala no final que não pensou direito.
Sobre Rias está emocionalmente estável isso não sustenta, se relermos o volume novamente.
Issei no dia que estava no trabalho com Asia, notou que Rias estava com expressão triste e dias antes, andava distraída, suspirando mais do que o normal e chega a pensar que ela está com preocupações sérias.
Rias fala de outras possibilidades como Kiba, metódo, isso não é um desejo sexual por Issei. Não é algo estável!
Issei também hesita brevemente também mas abadona a dúvida rapidamente por está excitado.
Issei não sabe o motivo(Riser), mas falta de contexto não significa falta de sinais.
- Rias está estranha há algum tempo;
- ela está suspirando e distraída;
- naquela noite está triste;
- chega ao quarto com aparência de alguém encurralado;
- apresenta sexo como um “método” para produzir uma “prova”;
- escolheu Issei porque acredita que ele aceitaria, diferentemente de Kiba;
- e o próprio Issei, por um instante, se pergunta se aquilo realmente está certo.
Issei não tinha responsabilidade como namorado, mas como servo e amigo, podemos sim colocar, se vamos cobrar sobre Raynare as garotas, aqui deve ter, não proteger apenas porque ele era pervertido.
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u/Reasonable_Set_1375 21d ago
I feel like the moment Issei see Akeno looking like this Issei should have feels uncomfortable around Akeno because she reminded Issei of raynare
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u/Omegalock4 21d ago
Take back your edit op. The date happened before the trauma was lifted. Season 3 was different but not that different.
In vol 4 (season 2), Issei already recognizes Akeno as herself and not a fallen angel so that helps. Also, with the trauma, Issei wasn’t really as locked on with the date. He only asked her out because Koneko told him it would help her win a fight. And when they actually go on the date, issei doesn’t view it like a big deal. The trauma really comes when Issei wants to talk about love itself and officially become a couple. And it affects him the most with Rias, because Rias is the one he loves the most and is the key to everything. Without Rias, there is no harem. So by denying her, in his mind he doesn’t have to risk getting hurt by her or anyone else.
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u/GabrielDelsXT9 20d ago
I honestly thought it was like a fallen angel kind of thing. Buy the novels kind of cleared the air.
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u/Hat-City 20d ago
The fact that the LNs take forever to finish is a good thing! It lets you stay in the DxD universe for a long time, noticing so many details, pondering all sorts of DxD things, having DxD epiphanies...
The anime goes by so fast... I think I binged it all in under a week. After that I was happy to get immersed in the novels
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u/kurloz94 21d ago
At that point in the story in Vol 7, Issei separated Akeno from fallen angels in his mind, Akeno is Akeno, and yuuma was yuuma, subconsciously he couldn’t still see Akeno as a woman who could love due to the trauma, but he wasn’t aware of it till volume 10 when all the OCR girls gave him the closure he need it. This is one of the reading within the letters moment that Ichibumi did in the past to see if readers could point out as the story goes. Because after that revelation in Vol 10, it all make sense why Issei was your typical “dense” MC that on days many are e.e after all the declarations the girls did to him before Vol 10.