DxD volume 22 spoilers and thread

Which fight are you most hyped for?
strawpoll.me/10791194

>Issei's current peerage for the world rating games some characters are tournament only and not permanent.

King=Ise
Queen=Bina Lessthan (mystery masked character)
Rook 1=Rossweisse
Rook 2=Unregistered
Knight 1=Xenovia
Knight 2=Irina
Bishop 1=Asia
Bishop 2=Ravel
Pawn (3 pieces) =Bova Tannin (Tannin's son)
Pawn (5 pieces) =Unregistered

>Elmenhilde appears at the very end to join Ise's group(cliffhanger).

>Ria's team.
King=Rias
Queen=Akeno
Rook 1=Koneko
Rook 2=Unregistered
Knight 1=Kiba
Knight 2=Lint Selzan
Bishop 1=Gasper
Bishop 2=Valerie
Pawn (8 Pieces) = Mr Black (God-level or an actual God. Still a mystery)

>Vali's team
King=Vali
Queen=Fenrir
Rook 1= Gogmagog
Rook 2= The current Zhu Bajie
Knight 1= Arthur
Knight 2=The current Sha Wujing
Bishop 1= Kuroka (In this tournament even those who had been used 2 Evil Pieces will be treated as 1 piece unless you are a God which will automatically be counted as 2 pieces or 8 Pawn pieces. Pawn pieces has more strict rules in order to prevent getting many God-level members in 1 team.)
Bishop 2=Le Fay
Pawn (3 Pieces) = Bikou
Pawn (5 Pieces) =Unregistered

>Life.0 spoilers

It starts with Akeno and Ise on the bed because she wants to lose her virginity. Akeno got herself her own erotic room dimension like Irina since the Fallen Angels became competitive towards the Angels creation. Akeno strips and lures Ise's hand to her breast. She tries to kiss Ise but gets interrupted by Rias. Though that doesn't stop her from doing french kiss with Ise despite Rias's dismay. Rias also strips naked and french kisses Ise. Ise has both his hands on each of their breast. Akeno wants to take Ise's virginity but Rias says it belongs to her. Even Ise starts to make up his mind and as he tries to get laid.....he obviously gets interrupted once again. Ravel appeared

After Ravel the Church trio appears. They heard that Akeno got her hands on this room and Asia started saying that perhaps each of the girl will get their own room in future. Rias asks Ravel what she wanted to talk about. It's about the International Rating Game. Rias and Akeno leaves the room to go to Underworld. They both kiss Ise on the cheek before leaving.

>Life.1+2 spoilers

1.Ise is in his last days as a second year student.
2.From next term other characters will be joining Kuou academy. Like Le Fay, Bennia, Kunou, Tosuka, etc.
3.New character appears such as Tannin's son who wants to serve under Ise (though not as his peerage since he knows Ise wants women). Ise postponed his offer. And another character who joined student council under Xenovia. His name is Nakiri Ouryuu who is the heir of Nakiri clan.
4.Vali was appointed as a Ultimate class devil.
5.All the guys Ise had fought till now is implying that Ise should participate in the tournament as himself as a king.
6.Even Ise's parents appears in Ise's High-class promotion ceremony. He gets his evil pieces. Ise trades his pieces with Rias for Asia and Xenovia. And Ravel's mother with Ravel. Her mother implied something about Ravel's true potential and that she took her from Raiser because he didn't know how to use her properly.
7.Shiva and the prince of Asura clan appears to congratulate Ise. Shiva invites Ise to his army for a possible war against Indra.
8.Cao Cao and Vali also appears in his ceremony.
9.Ise proposed to Rias in Life.2

Life.3 is the end of Story Arc 4. From Life 4 onward is Story Arc 5, the final story arc.

>Life.3 spoilers

1.So the third year finally graduates.
2.Rias and Akeno becomes emotional at ORC room.
3.Rias decides to have Rossweisse join Ise's group for the tournament. Irina also joins his group.
4.Kiba, koneko, and Gasper will be calling her "Onee-sama", "Onee-chan", or "Rias-neesan" from now on.
5.Again, Ise proposes to Rias. He finally tells Motohama and Matsuda who became really shocked and had blood of tears from their eyes...

>Life.4 spoilers

1.So weeks have passed since last time.
2.Rias and her group arrived in the stadium.
3.New team members for Rias group are the following people. Valerie, and Lint Sellzan (a girl who looks like Freed and has the Longinus 'Incinerate Anthem". This Longinus goes to different people on its own). There is also a mysterious character called "Mister Black" but nothing is revealed about him.
4.There are 1400+ teams participating in the tournament. The top 16 team will be going to the final rounds. The team will have a starting point of 1500 points and by defeating a team you gain points and lose points if you lose the match. You will gain more points by defeating a team who has much more points than your team.
5.Some of the Kings of certain teams are Indra, Sun Wukong, Dulio, Slash Dog, Vali, Cao Cao, Sairaorg, Seekvaira, Sona, Mahabali, Typhoon, and real Surtr.
6.Ise shows up late in Ryuuteimaru which has become a massive ship. He has a mysterious masked character as his Queen. Her name is Bina Lessthan.
7.Ise's team wears a crimson uniform.
8.All the rookies approaches Ise. Ise and Vali has now become are friendly rival. They can be thought as a friend now since when everyone went fishing the two of them fished together.

>Life.5 spoilers

1.Ise's group have done 3 matches already. He has won all 3 of them but he has bad reviews among critics and viewers since he struggled against weaker teams. The other group has a positive review instead.
2.Ravel says that number of wins doesn't necessary mean going to finals. You can still go to final with minimal matches if you do it right. Though Ise prefers to accept all challenges which makes Xenovia and Bova strongly agree with him.
3.Ise's Queen instead has good reviews. Others still don't know about her identity. She approached Ise on April to see his calibre as a King. It's said that she is a Devil.
4.Valerie is taking Asia's position as a healer of Rias team. She can use her Holy Grail to heal others thought not as strong as Asia's. Lint and Mister Black are also a mystery and has proven to be very powerful.
5.A new trio is formed. Ophis, Lilith, and Kunou. The loli trios. Ophis can shapeshift to her old form. Lilith is being called Leece.
6.Ise's opponent for his fourth match is decided. It's team Lightning and their King is Barakiel. Their Queen is Armaros (one of the FA leaders).
7.Ise meets Barakiel downstairs. Awkward atmosphere. He asks Akeno who she will be cheering for but she immediately chooses Ise and hugs him. This made Barakiel run in tears. Though Akeno is actually saddened by this and she's jealous of Rias's relationship with Ise.

>The Rating Game.

1.On the day of the RG match. One of the commentators is Rias's dad.
2.The Rating Game match they will be doing is called "Objects". You can win either by defeating the opponent King or destroying more "Objects" than the other team. There are 12 objects in total.
3.Basically Ise's team gets cornered. But at the end Ise's team wins with overwhelming strength by Ise using DxD mode and annihilating half of the map. He also defeats Barakiel and confesses his love for Akeno by taking her as his wife in the future (similar to the confession to Rias during RG match in v10).

After the match Ise alone was called by Ajuka.
He talks to Azazel, Sirzechs, and Serafall through video message. They are still alive and kicking.
This is still kept a secret from the others obviously they would need supplies occasionally since they are fighting Trihexa.
Anyways Ajuka, Sirzechs, and Azazel had been planning to make a new group called ExE (also would be known as Exe) which will be like a FBI or MI6 of the DxD world.
This team will be actually be formed in few years and they want Ise to become a member of that team and eventually the leader of it.
They ask him to find strong allies in the future to make them join etc.

Also since the confession Akeno has been sticking beside Ise. She argues with Rias on who will take Ise's first time or who will bear his children first.

Two days later. The match up has been decided. But the two matchup which is being a hot topics are....

1.Team Ise vs Team Dulio
2.Team Sairaorg vs Team Cao Cao.

>The End.
>Also DX3 will be coming out next and Ishibumi has stated that DxD final story won't go past volume 30.

>Other info

Azazel Cup: There's a new rule for the upcoming Rating Game tournament. Since non-Devils will also join (such as Gods), a King can register anyone as their peerage as long as they don't register their name for another group. So Irina will join Ise's group for the tournament. The tournament will offically be called the "Azazel Cup" (Azazel must be honored). In this tournament even those who had been used 2 Evil Pieces will be treated as 1 piece unless you are a God which will automatically be counted as 2 pieces or 8 Pawn pieces. Pawn pieces has more strict rules in order to prevent getting many God-level members in 1 team.

Ajuka and Shiva wont appear in the tournament since they were the organizers of this world tournament. The winner will get any wish they ask fulfilled if it doesn't bring chaos to the world. Though Indra is planning to win the tournament so he can have War against Shiva. There's a Prince of the Asura Gods who is an ally of Shiva and is eager to have Ise join their force since he desperately wants to take down Indra for killing his dad. He's participating in the tournament.
So we wont be seeing Shiva versus Indra or Shiva versus Ise in the tournament if it goes smoothly. Though Ishibumi did say something will happen during the tournament in the next volume.

>yet another good volume
The madman is on a roll.

I wonder if he's going to be able to keep this up for the whole last arc.

I sure hope so. By not dragging on the arc he can stay focused on what's about to happen. If he needs to take a break once he's finished, then so be it.

I doubt he'd take a break he's probably been developing an ExE universe behind the scene.
He's dropping too many hints about it.

I mean he may need to take a breather after this arc. Ishibumi is no Kamachi, he actually writes at a pretty normal pace so he'll take at least a few months off I'd assume.

Why a tournament arc?

I mean why not? Everyone has been waiting for Issei to get his own peerage and this is perfect to show him developing as a king.

Jesus, she could very well be naked.

>7.Ise's team wears a crimson uniform.
Finally they ditch the school uniform
>Ophis can shapeshift to her old form
Old man Ophis confirmed
>Why a tournament arc?
Either this or a 'villains appear before mc, they talk then fight later somewhere else'
But like the user above Issei participates as King would allow him to mature

They mean the busty form you jackass.

>Old man Ophis confirmed
You mean big oppai Ophis.

>implying that wasn't her plan all along

We'll probably know in the next month or so if an OVA is being bundled with Dx.3.

If an OVA is bundled with Dx.3 that increases the chance for a S4 correct?

It might not really have any correlation. Volume 23 is if you ask me the very last chance for it to be announced. If not then, the anime is official kill.

I'd argue as long as TNK doesn't produce anything else chances are still good.

With that mindset, S4 will be announced when Index 3 is.

in the end,that vampire girl wanna join issei team
pawn position?

I want to see her and Lilith dock those tits.

Yeah, Elmenhilde is most likely going to join Issei as a pawn.
Wondering what her role in the peerage is going to be though.

I'm pretty sure it's kill. Next season would go through shitty volumes. DxD novels were kind of dying until Ophis happened. That + anime advert brought them back to life.

But if they continued the anime it's either rushing through shit or like 2 seasons of shit. I doubt they want to do that. Sales would only keep dropping.

Maybe a movie or OVA could happen, but I'm not expecting more TV seasons.

>Next season would go through shitty volumes
What? Volume 10 is one of the most loved volumes in the series.

Nigga what? 9-12 were fucking awesome.

Sales disagree.

And next season would stop before Ophis arc unless they want to rush shit like crazy.

>sales disagree
Are you telling me that 11 or onward have more all time sales than anything before it?

Volumes 8-9 were doing below 10k first week. It was selling horribly back then.

You mean back when it wasn't popular?

First volumes sold much better. It was dropping fast. Then Ophis and anime saved it.

I hope there will be Ophis & Lilith shenanigans in future stories.

They should get a spin-off.

And is the loli trio entering the tournament?

But that's how it is for every single light novel. The first volumes sell the best because people pick them up to see if the series is worth investing in. Obviously not everyone likes it. Then the anime came out around volume 11 and made the series a massive hit. Without the anime the series would be done by now.

Ophis, Lilith and Kunou are the designated Oppai Dragon cheering squad.

>But that's how it is for every single light novel

Nope. Not at all. DxD anime was a completely unexpected success. It sold around 10k while average LN adaptations do 2-3k.

That's because early volumes were great comedy. But then series starts to become serious with more shonenshit and dudes. This is the main reason why BorN disappointed so many people and reduced chances for next season to almost 0.

>team that could solo all other teams while blindfolded
>cheerleaders

You're completely ignoring the trend of how LN's sell when an adaptation is airing.

You mean how many of them get 0 boost in sales? Re Zero or Overlord are exceptions, not the rule.

>This is the main reason why BorN disappointed so many people
Talking out of your ass the main reason BorN sold badly was because they went full retard and didn't follow the damned books.

Why don't you go take a look at the sales for Shinmai, Konosuba, Bahamut, Grimgar and any other popular LN adaptation that's not SAO or Mahouka. Re:Zero is no exception to the rule at all.

They didn't follow the books for a reason. After New a lot of nips were already complaining that this is not what they want form the series. This is why they tried giving Rias some more action.

>Shinmai, Konosuba, Bahamut, Grimgar

Minor and very short lived boost. DxD got much more attention than them.

Konosuba is the top selling anime of the entire year so far. I don't think that's minor at all. And the anime sales were about the same as DxD's.

>top selling light novel*

Konosuba is the most successful LN adaptation in a long time.

Not even comparable to Shinmai or Grimgar.

But they all got a boost. These anime adaptations often help the series continue past where they would originally end. See: Antimagic.

So yes, anime adaptations do give boosts albeit small sometimes. DxD would've ended with volume 12 probably without the anime with the original end of Ophis dying.

And there's no conclusive evidence that males have any negative effect on the sales of this series. Each volume progressively sells less overall than the last when it comes to LNs, so naturally 9 and 10 were the absolute lowest points of this series because there was no anime, and it was not new.

>who will bear his children first
Poor Rias, she isn't even second in the list.

>Ise shows up late in Ryuuteimaru which has become a massive ship
The madman made Ryuu into a floating harem palace.

>you're allowed to lose and still continue in the tournament
Issei is gonna get stomped by Dulio and proceed to take out someone big like Surtr to move on. Just watch.

is there any official illustrations of Ryuuteimaru?

Some of the tournament participants.

>The Immortal Bird: Raiser Phoenix
>Leviathan’s sister: Sona Sitri
>The next Archduke Seekvaira Agares
>The first generation of the Journey to the West: Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing
>The strongest force of Mount Meru: Nezha
>Emperor Diehauser Belial
>The Five great clan: Doumon, Kushihashi, Shinra, Himejima, Hyakki
>The legendary Evil Dragon Crom Cruach
>Heaven’s Joker: Dulio Gesualdo
>The user of the Holy Spear: Cao Cao
>Fenrir
>The Reincarnation body of the Demon God: Gasper Balor
>The Slash Dog that even cuts down a God: Ikuse Tobio
>The Holy Lighting Barakiel
>Rias Gremory’s Holy-Demonic Sword, Kiba Yuuto
>The Dragon King of the Black wicked: Saji Genshirou
>The King of Lions: Sairaorg Bael
>The Giant of Blaze, Surtr
>The King of Beasts, Typhon
>The Prince of Ashura Gods, Mahabali
>Indra
>The Hakuryuukou of the Morning Star: Vali Lucifer
>Sekiryuutei of the Blazing Truth, Hyoudou Issei

None that i remember Zero is behind on illustrating allot of things.

>Sekiryuutei of the Blazing Truth,
When did he get this title

High School DxD 2012 Winter 10,041
High School DxD New 2013 Summer 9,424
High School DxD BorN 2015 Spring 6,311

BorN didn't sell well because they crammed 4 story arcs (volumes 5,6,7,original) into 12 episodes, which made the series as a whole rushed. Only volume 6 was adapted great. Also many things that people wanted to see were cut or changed such as the Sitri Rating Game. If they cut out the original story arc and just adapted it like the books it would have sold better. Why they changed it I don't know (I still think the author had something to do with it seen as BorN had volume 20 content) but it worked in the authors favour considering all this ExE stuff he is setting up. Now he has options for prequels and sequels after the main story has ended.

Issei got it recently when he became Heavenly Dragon tier? Don't remember exactly.

21. It's referencing the flames of Ddraig he unlocked.

There's one thing I wished we got this volume. The list of deities that got sealed. Ishibumi has never gone out of his way to particularly detail their names in the first place, so it'd be nice.

He never went out of his way because they never showed up or mattered?

>Sirzechs and his peerage (minus Grayfia)
>Serafall and her peerage (minus her Queen)
>Falbium and his peerage (minus his Queen)
>Azazel
>Michael and his brave saints (minus Irina)
>Rafeal and his brave sainst (minus his Ace)
>Uriel and his brave Saints (minus his Ace)
>From the Norse faction it was Odin and 6 other Gods
>From the Greek faction it was Zeus and 10 other Gods
>From the Hindu faction it was Brahma, Vishnu and 7 other Gods.

We don't know if the likes of Thor or the other top 10 got sealed. Those people could be crucial in stopping Indra/Shiva.

The old gods specifically got taken out of the picture so the new generation could take over.
Why would he keep gods like Thor around and take away the spotlight of the young ones?

Isn't Thor supposed to be a relatively young god? Odin was still chief so Thor hadn't taken over yet.

>Thor supposed to be a relatively young god
Not young enough to matter.

i'm still not sure what qualifies entities as gods? is it power level shit?

>Not Geryfia's route

Fuck ;_;

Divinity or some shit

It'll never be explained anyway so just pick whatever.
Not enough information is given to even speculate about it.

Rossweisse describe issei new Queen as 10+ years old girl
i really dun think is grayfia desu

Source?

this

Divinity. I think it was explained in volume 21 when Trihexa defeated some Gods but those Gods only temporally die and can be brought back by worship power after some time.

Huh. You're right. Interesting...

A 10+ year old female devil that wanted to see if Issei is a proper king? That's so specific there's nobody we know that fits the bill.

Anything on her body type?

Maybe Kunou has a sister?

That sister would have to been reincarnated as a devil.

Yeah, I realized it as soon as I sent it. That's probably not happening then.

oh i wish i could impregnate Akeno.

>vol 23 probably won't be out til next year
Fuck.

I'm guessing a december or january release for vol.23.
Plenty of time for the translator to get this series up to date.

Might just be Ophis using a pseudonym?

not too much detail on her body type
red manteau and red mask with dragon design
and look kinda slim

Who stated that she was a devil? She could be lying.

>3.Ise's Queen instead has good reviews. Others still don't know about her identity. She approached Ise on April to see his calibre as a King. It's said that she is a Devil.
We don't know.

issei and ravel know her identity
tat why she is devil

>There are 1400+ teams participating in the tournament
Why not just every faction sending a select few teams? Most of them are jobbers anyway?

Because this way the tournament can be dragged on for most of the arc. Just an author's choice.

it's also been a theme that sona and the others don't like that the rating games haave been for the privileged few

Maybe the ExE group is the reason why Issei was so busy in the future. Fucking Ishibumi, ExE is the new "DxD", what with him having multiple meanings for a single term.

I understand that but this doesn't seem the place when it's obvious from the get go they don't have a chance in hell of winning or making it far.

Unless Saji gets off his ass and gets another power up. He's pretty broken. it's the others that are gonna get shit on every match.

I was talking about the 1400+ other groups as well.
There's actual stackes in this too since Indra winning most likely means a war in some way and definite bad news all around.
This is not the place to wage a war on having less priviliged being able to take part in rating games.

That's why Shiva is trying to get people to stop him beforehand. Which is rather funny, seeing as Indra was trying to do the exact opposite back in volume 12.

I don't think most of the teams expect to win. there is probably a lot respect & honor to be won just by finishing in the top 100 or 400 you know?

I'd rather sit on the sidelines and watch gods fight each other then struggle to get in the top 500 only to then get my shit pushed in.
Some of these rookies are going to never wanna participate in rating games ever again after getting majorly wrecked.