User blog comment:B214/General Discussion/@comment-104.7.80.57-20161109004004/@comment-26345952-20161117211320

I meant kind of... because the moment he said Rias, not Buchuo, was the moment he sort of let go. More specifically in the beach scene, when Great Red dragged them out of the Dimensional Gap, Issei clearly said to her Rias not Buchuo, something that he couldn't do if he didn't let go of Raynere, a fact of Vol 10.

But that is just me.