Anime Review: Testament of Sister New Devil

Testament of Sister New Devil (UK Rating: 18)

There are countless ecchi series out there; the type of harem series where titillation and fan-service are the focus of the show. Series where upskirts and downblouses appear often, but the X-rated details are left to the imagination. This is not one of those types of series; this is more in-line with series like Highschool DxD and Sekirei; the type of the series who are happy to show nipples instead of obscuring them with beams of light or convenient smoke; series that show extreme details beneath the skirt and holding the camera on fondling where much more is applied. The problem is, while the ecchi shows have an audience out there, their lewd elements are not an excuse or a replacement for a quality story. There have already been other series out there that have managed to balance the perviness with a decent series; if Monster Musume and Rosario Vampire can do it, others can, too.

Basara's father has little compunction about suddenly changing their lives as he announces to his son that he's getting married, despite Basara never having met his betrothed. The marriage will mean two younger sisters - busty redhead, Mio, and the petite potential loli, Maria - are joining their family. There's a drastically different story playing out here than a simple slice of life with step-sibling romance here, though. The girls have hypnotised Basara's father and are actually a pair of demons looking for a place to hide out. They think Basara and his father are decent patsies to use, so Maria (actually a Succubus) uses her magic to manipulate Basara into leaving after his father heads out of town on business, leaving the pair of them a house to live in. Succubus magic is easily dispelled by those of the hero clan, though, and Basara and his father just happen to be exiles from the clan.

It seems a promising premise but it doesn't develop into one. There is honestly a solid enough story, but it's absolutely buried under the mountains of simulated sex and extreme fan-service. So far, in fact, that it practically turns this into a straight up hentai series. For some reason, Maria puts a curse on Mio, making her Basara's servant, and to strengthen his combat ability he has to dominate her. This is done via hyper-sexualised scenes where characters are heavily groped with maple syrup or massaged with cake or other such silliness; each time with the characters looking like their doing much more. There's something of a love-triangle later into the show, and little Maria jumps in for some fun regularly, too. Have to have a harem for the protag after all…

The series comes from Production IMS, an anime studio that only had three other series to its name previous to putting out Testament of Sister New Devil, those being Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha, Date A Live II, and Gonna be the Twin-Tail!!, all of which gave it experience with ecchi fan-service materials. It's in the fan-service that the series shines, as outside of those scenes it's serviceable but certainly not anything special or memorable. The fan-service scenes are done better than most and it would make this review rather R-rated to describe them. Suffice to say, the animators clearly did a lot of research and have produced a satisfying end result when it comes to the racy moments.

Both the English and Japanese dub are available for this release for all twelve episodes and for the bonus OVA episode included in this release. There is also a series of bonus features, entitled "Maria's secret videos". These are six short videos that show chibified versions of Mio and Maria watching the various naughty scenes from over the course of the series, providing some comedy commentary… although this is only available in Japanese.

4/10

Subpar

The important thing to understand with Testament of Sister New Devil is that it's closer to a hentai series than a regular series with ecchi elements. If that's what the viewer is after, this will deliver a decent enough story with tons of just what those fans hope for; uncensored scenes that are well done. Those hoping for something more should move along. The story has promise but never delivers, the characters feel positively schizophrenic with vastly differing personalities between scenes, and the twisted scenes are too plentiful and too extreme to focus on the story.