Anime: Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto 193r23

I still don't know why I enjoyed Star Driver as much as I did. Its characters are weak, its conflicts uninteresting, its plot by turns repetitive and incomprehesible. At its high points it reminds me of Evangelion, or a show made immediately after it, as if the past fifteen years hadn't happened - as if all a giant robot show needs is a dark organization and some psedo-religious mythology.

There are elements that seem intended as a pastiche of the whole genre; the over-the-top evil organisation, the half-face masks (which the characters never see past), the bromance between the male leads. But it's left wanting for a punchline. At the last moment, it turns out the evil leader really does want to destroy the world. The love triangle is left to dangle like every generic show before it. The robots remain as alien and nonensical as ever, without even Gurren Lagaan's full-blooded manly willpower as justification. The story does at least manage a decent finale, but it ends up where it started.

If nothing else, there’s always the visuals. Gurren Lagaan is probably a fair comparison; this isn't a full-on experimental look like e.g. Kaiba, but the palette has been shifted and saturated, and the character designs have quartered away from realism. Perhaps most importantly, the visual effects match and enforce the palette - and there are a lot of them, the robots duelling with glowing energy swords in a parallel dimension pretty much every episode. It's oddly formalized, in fact - again, almost as if the creators wanted to say something about formulaic, meaningless battles in anime series. But the other shoe never drops, so what we get is lots of fights - and they're good fights, reasonably choreographed and very well animated - but no sense of tension or drama, because the titular Takuto not only never loses, but never seems to break into a sweat. Making it worse, he uses two swords, while the bad guys only use one each - and they're very careful to take turns, one of them fighting each week.

The rest of the episode time is largely character drama, which Star Driver generally manages pretty well. Most episodes focus on one character - either this week's opponent, or the Maiden whom the bad guys are looking for. While this makes the series even more formulaic, it lets us have a closer look at a wide cast, and avoids the slowdown at around episode 18 that seems to plague series of this length. If anything the cast is probably too wide; beyond the lead triangle there is a great mass of characters, many of which seemed interesting enough in their episodes that I'd like to hear more, but far too many to keep track of everyone. And the relationship between the leads, while there's some interesting tension initially, never really develops; female lead Wako's steadfast refusal to pick one other of the male leads goes from cute to dull to infuriating (and again, the story seems bent on making some point - but never does). We do get an eleventh-hour challenge, but it feels awkward and forced, and dissolves quickly in the end.

So while it starts well, and many of the individual character studies are interesting, neither ongoing character drama nor overarching plot holds this show together. And yet something does, somehow. Possibly it's just the presentation; the aforementioned gorgeous animation is beautifully integrated with music, particularly in the parallel-world scenes (all of which have a semi-incidental background given by the Maiden's song - the end effect being rather like the opening and ending). Or maybe there is something subversive in a show that so closely follows the rules, inviting us to question them even if it never does so itself - but that seems to be giving too much credit for too little evidence.

In the end, then, I'm as baffled as when I started. Logically, Star Driver is a beautifully-presented series that never hangs together well enough to hold interest. But I never once felt like giving it up.

*This review contains spoilers.

"Grand Entrance! Galactic Pretty Boy! Tauburn!!!" Such a stupid and embarrassing line that I would never repeat in public in a million years, but there's something about this series that's just so captivating and moving.

'STAR DRIVER: Kagayaki no Takuto (Takuto of the Radiance)' is like a homage to various '70s mecha anime. Everything about this series screams of classic Japanese mecha, superhero, and tokusatsu, while many modern elements, for better or worse, are also incorporated. The surprise is: Everything clicks.

The story of 'STAR DRIVER' is summarized by caged girl in the beginning and later in the school play: "Planet of Fish". The evil organization "Mako, the Southern Seal, can leave the island. He represents Mark from the school play. Episodes take the monster-of-the-week format à la '70s mecha.

The characters are the archetype heroes and villains from classic mecha. Our protagonist Takuto is like one of those classic superhero who's good at everything, likes to help everyone, and has such a strong sense of justice that he's almost naive. Yes, super robots were never meant to be piloted by weak indecisive morons, they were supposed to be piloted by superheroes that kids ire. The hero proactively engaging into the battle to make the world a better place, is a nice change from most recent mecha series. On the other hand, the antagonists are all in an apparently evil organization shrouded by mystery. This character setup is proven to work over and over in iconic classic mecha series.

Scene recycling is prevalent like the retro shows, with cybercasket scene looking like classic mecha sortie, Tauburn appearance scenes recycled with CG-assisted backgrounds, hero 'Sailor Moon' transformation into uniform. The enemy mecha even explode with delay, 'Kamen Rider' style, having the protagonist's mecha looking all cool in the foreground after pulling off some awesome move.

Almost every single mecha moves are borrowed from famous '70s anime. Yes, the pilots even scream out the signature move names! These are just few that I noticed (and still ):
* Mazinger Z "Breast Fire"
* Tauburn: "Tau Missile" - Getter1 "Shining Spark"
* Tauburn: "Galactic Cross Cut" - Voltes V "V Letter Cut"?
* Tauburn: "Pile" Attacks - Nu-Gundam "Fin Funnel" Attacks
* Tauburn: "Pile Crusher" - Getter2 "Drill Punch"
* Tetrioht: Bike attack - Combattler V "Gran Dasher"?
* Qophlite: Flight mode - Transformers?

The retro influence can even be found in music for this show. Did the insert songs leading up to, and during battles remind anyone else of 'Mothra'? The two main insert songs were absolutely brilliant. Catchy and well edited, more importantly, godly audio mixing that matched perfectly with every single episode's battle initiation.

"STAR DRIVER" must seem like an outdated '70s knockoff by now, but there are also many modern elements mixed in.

Story-wise, the pacing is excellent. It was so captivating that I didn't mind the excessive corniness, and just wanted to know what will happen next. It seems like battle in alternate space is a fad this season, with 'Heroic Age' etc. Unlike those mecha series with fail endings, 'STAR DRIVER' never got too serious, and maintained the so-bad-it's-actually-good atmosphere throughout by almost making fun of itself by rolling out one retro cliché after another, thus the corny ending actually worked.

The show also had healthy amounts of harem and ecchi. It's true every girl in the show were head-over-heels for Takuto or Sugata. However, both of those two main characters knew exactly who they liked, and also didn't have to act like a thickheaded retards most of the time, and just brushed off girls they're not interested in. Additionally, those guys are supposedly extremely good looking, and have decent personality or mystique, so it wasn't too far-fetched that they were the most popular guys on the island (yes, living in an island give girls limited choice too). The ecchi was present in Kiraboshi female costumes and cybercasket scenes, but the girls didn't trip randomly for panchira and the camera wasn't constantly shooting up to their panties. Although these elements exist as little bonuses, they were never detrimental to the show.

The modern artwork is magnificent. Mecha, character, and costume designs were very unique, and the battle scenes were very exciting with fluid action. The visuals were so nice that the horrible CG-assisted recycled scenes seemed to be deliberately done for '70s influence, so-bad-it's-actually good. While the scenery in Zero Time was always amazing, the ordinary world was a bit too bland.

The voice acting is wonderful, especially for that of Takuto, Aqua Timez was perfect for the theme, and addictive like most of their tie-ups.

'STAR DRIVER' was a highly nostalgic mecha series for me, which successfully blended the tried-and-true retro qualities with cliché modern elements to create something completely different. ittedly, there is the gayness of Galactic Pretty Boy and Kiraboshi , the abundant corniness, and certain plot holes (like why don't they just shoot Takuto in real life?) that the viewer must overcome, but I believe series like this is what anime is all about. This is one of those series where you have to stop thinking and just feel the show. Is there still a child in you?

This review has spoilers. If you are reading this line, don't whine later.

This show is, in short, FABULOUS. It's unanimous; if you had to ask someone what the deal was with this show, chances are that's what they'd say: "It's Fabulous". Not in the lexical dictionary sense that it is exceptionally good, but in that it is the only word available by modern slang standards with which to describe it. Shiny is a close second, with Flamingly Awesome as a potential third. So that's that deal.

Art and Animation- 7
The art style of the series is very good. Shiny, well done, lot's of quick paced explosions and gestures which has become the norm for giant robot series of today, much like Macross Frontier, Gundam 00 and Gurren Lagann. There are bits in the animation where the frame rate drops, but these parts occur mostly near the mid season and finale episode battles but nothing too critical to ruin the overall value of the animation.

Another notable trait of the series' animation, and the series in general, is that it very heavily resembles Gurren Lagann, especially visually. This is mostly due to the similarities in the action choreography, over dramatic movements and the bright colors and explosions, but there is significant difference in drawing style and in that there are about 100 more rainbows in Stardriver. The similarity becomes most noticeable during the final episode, both in animation and drawing style.

Sound- 8.5 (or 9)
For reasons I can't figure out, the music in this series was freaking brilliant. Actually, I can figure it out, it was for multiple reasons. The intro and ending themes range from pretty good to wonderful, as is the rest of the background audio themes. But what really made this series kick ass was the recurring theme throughout the series of the maiden characters, each voiced by a Japanese idol vocalist, who would sing the mid-episode theme of when the main characters prepare to fight one another in their god machines. And they do a very good job with this, especially with the first maiden. During the first episode, the story is setting itself up nicely, the characters are introducing themselves, giant mechas start showing up and then BANG, epic music ques the first intro of the main protagonists battle machine, which I can only describe as "Hell yeah, fire up the giant robot, there's butts to be kicking". A common complaint I've both held, heard and which I've noticed even another reviewer point out on here is that the first maiden, who arguably has the best battle-mech-intro theme and is one of the most liked has her character practically removed from the series in episode 8 and does not make any significant contribution to the series thereafter (Oh look, liked main character gets knocked off in episode 8, just like in Gurren Lagann!). The other maiden songs that take place from there on range from good to mediocre but are of inferior quality to the first.

The OST sales for the series were significantly promoted by the feature of a full length, uninterrupted version of the first maidens song.

The remaining audio, such as voices, sound effects and other sounds that go KA-BOOM (There's a lot of explosions in this series, I like that) are all completely satisfactory.

Story- 5
Nothing great, nothing horrible, this series has a completely normal theme for a giant robot series. There exist giant robots, there are bad people who want to use said giant robots to "do stuff", enter the main protagonist with the strongest and shiniest of ALL the giant robots, and give him a reason to fight the bad people and their giant robots. The main protagonist has an angsty best friend and love interest, both strapped to him by crotch of his belt, providing both plot development and rivalry. The love interest turns out to be a sacred maiden whose presence is keeping the bad people from "doing stuff" with their giant robots, so the bad people want to, get this, have her summon her own giant robot (or just it's sparklingness) so they can chop it in half and break the seal that locks their giant robots in the "time out" zone. The main protagonist, seeing that this will have the same effect as ripping a band aid off on his love interest, decides to stop them for both love and justice. The bad guys immediately dub him "The Galactic Pretty Boy" and the story begins!

The show continues in now classic yet mundane way, in of story structure. Along the way, the show just gets silly, introducing evil creepy lesbians, confusing family situations for the main character and many unexplained events and plot holes regarding both the main antagonist and other characters who just seem to fade from the series after the show is done with them. The show preaches justice, feminism, strong male leads and fighting to protect the weak.

Still, enjoyable. Avoid the plot holes and nobody gets hurt.

Enjoyment- 10
Yeah, I like giant robots. This show is good. But that explanation sucks.

There is so much that I liked about this series. The audio was marvelous, as was the animation, and I still got a kick out of the normal-ish storyline. Overall, I find almost everything that BONES produces these days to be awesomely epic. One of the coolest features of this series was that BONES did a throwback reference to many of their older series; the two first enemy's character designs are styled after the protagonists of Cowboy Bebop and Soul Eater, Spike and Soul. The story also has a recurring plot device painting which heavily resembles a painting present in RahXephon. The third enemy's character design appears similar to the main protagonist of the series Xam'd: Lost Memories. There are similar character references and traits that seem to be borrowed from other BONES series, such as Darker Than Black and Eureka Seven. This alone made the series enjoyable.

There are 22 giant robots in the series, each with their own unique design and fighting style. Although 3 of the robots look as they belong in a set together, it's always nice to see originality and wide variance in design instead of a cut and paste method for creating enemies.

This series attempts top provide equal opportunity fan service, for both the guys and the gals! However, there is far more eye candy for the girls, I felt.

Characters-7
As I stated earlier, this show has characters styled after other popular characters from previous BONES series, something I got a kick out of. Although the series seems to have a problem with figuring out to do with character once they no longer progress the story, the characters in he series still work; some have complicated back stories. Some are mysterious. Some piss you the f*** off. And some are just weird in their own way that makes you wonder "What the hell is this character talking about, does it have to do with anything, are they going to explain this later and will they ever become normal human beings?". Usually, no, they don't. But at the end of the day, the characters work, achieving their short term goal of being the weekly cereal box villain of the series.

Also, the main protagonist triggers a fabulous costume and hair design transformation when activating his giant robot. Sailor Moon ain't got nothing on his digs. His robot looks like Puss in Boots, in that it has adorned a french motif, two fabulous heeled boos and a poofy hat, which through the power of mecha has steam vents which produce a space cloud, resembling a giant feather.

Value- 10
I've rewatched the first episodes 5 times already, the final episodes twice and many others at least once. This is, I believe, a must have for people striving to have a wall full of nothing but giant robot series. By normal standards, it is a good series, and I recommend it to everyone to give the first episode a try. The series never reached a slow part, I've noticed, and even the episodes spent for character and plot development and lacked any giant robot fighting was still very entertaining.

NUTSHELL:
*Good series, awesome mecha
*Series borrows heavily from other series, primarily other BONES series and Gurren Lagann
*Can be easily compared to Gurren Laggan, except that Stardriver is shinier, brighter, has less epic music, more rainbows and replaces manly spirit with glitter and sparkles, and for good measure, throw in some more rainbows.
*A Stardiver refers to somebody who pilots a cyber body, one of them fancy gian robots in the series. Now you know.

A not-so-FAAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUS review of a FAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUS anime. Most likely not doing it FAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUS amounts of justice, but whatever.

So hello there, Star Driver. I just finished watching your final episode a few hours ago, and I decided to write a review.

What the heck is this show about, you ask? Is it about romance? Is it about the power of love? Is it about friendship? Is it about... potatoes? Nah, none of that. It's a blerghish mixture of FAAAAAAAABULOUS mechas, cheap slice of life moments, hollow characters, shiny visuals and... err... a complete lack of sense.

Let's get started, shall we?

Animation

Okay, I'll have to fold on this one. This anime looks FAAAAAAAABULOUS... for the most part. The animation is nice and fluid, the characters all manage to look different from one another (even if they are somewhat color-coded and style-coded for your convenience, i.e. Takuto being the red-haired impulsive hothead, Sugata being the blue-haired cool guy who is more awesome than pie, the villains [yes, even the males] all wearing stripperrific outfits etc), the backgrounds look good, and Zero Time is a CG wank.

I do have one major (for me) complaint, though - THERE IS TOO MUCH STOCK FOOTAGE. I mean, really. How many times can one watch the same robot-summoning sequence and the very same I-am-a-fabulous-pilot-with-fancy-clothes-and-ridiculous-blond-bangs transformation before wanting to throw a brick at someone's head? In my case, it was exactly three. I didn't count, but I'd wager this show does it 18ish times, if not more. And that's without mentioning all the times the main mecha repeats its gimmicky super-special moves. With stock footage.

Sound

This anime sounds good. The music is good, the character voices are... decent... and did I mention the music? Oh, I'm not talking about all the music, just some of it. Some tunes (the sung ones, mostly) are extremely pleasant ear worms, while the rest is just sort of there. The quality is present, just not the content.

And as for the voice acting, everyone sounded different, but some voices did not fit their characters (Sugata sounds like he is 30 or something, for instance).

Story

What story? I mean, really. What story? None of it makes any sense whatsoever. As another reviewer stated, there are many more questions than answers, and most episodes don't even bother to try answering any of them. What we're left is a huge, steaming pile of what the **** happening and WHY OH WHY? In all seriousness, most things on this show seem to happen only because they can, without demanding or giving out any semblance of a logical explanation. Heck, they don't even care to give us illogical explanations for the most part.

Indeed, I happened to like the Fish Girl's narrative better than the entire plot for this anime.

If I had written the scripts for this show, I'd have committed seppuku a long time ago in order to atone for my acts of shamelessly bad writing.

Characters

I'm not going to elaborate a lot here, but you know something is deeply wrong with a show when your favorite character is an odd girl whose only purpose is to tell a story, sing and then be put on a bus on the 8th episode or so.

The characters are, in general, shallower than children's swimming pool. With the exception of the lead, who is shallower than a puddle. Yes, that's right - the main character is the worst of them all. He has absolutely no personality traits other than "I shall protect the blonde girl whom I'm not even sure likes me, and I'm not even sure I like women anyway, but I'll protect her nonetheless with my FAAAAAAAABULOUS mecha that I sorta kinda inherited from my grandpa for... some reason!!!!!!!!". His back-story is non-existent to the point that pretty much every character who gets a 5-minute flashback is ahead of him in of fleshing out.

Value & Enjoyment

I'm quite sure this anime was a big letdown for a great many people. Maybe it wasn't even a letdown to some, since their expectations might've been that low, but whatever.
I'm more than likely going to forget this show in a few weeks' time. Heck, I don't even know why I kept on watching it up 'til the very end. Suuuuuuuure, there are worse animes out there, but this one is far, but oh so VERY far from being one of the best.
As far as points go, this one gets an extra point in Enjoyment because I found the whole "Sam the Squid Piercer" fairy tale to be cute and, in a sense, better than the overall anime!

Star Driver: Takuto of the Radiance: "Takuto man, Takuto man, doing the things a Takuto can. What's he like? It's not important. Takuto man, will he win? Or it be a loss? Will he be challenged at all by the boss? And why should we at all give a toss? Nobody knows. Takuto man."

Studio BONES and I have a hate-love relationship. Every other year or so, they put out a new anime-original show. This show will inevitably have incredibly good visuals and animation and an excellent voice cast with good musical direction, but a story completely lacking in ‘whys’ and context and filled with vapid but pretty elements that get little explanation or connection. Also, it will shamelessly rip off a Studio Gainax show: For RahXephon, it was Evangelion (there, I said it). For Eureka Seven, it was (most likely) FLCL. For Darker Than Black, the ending ripped off Evangelion. For Xamd: Lost memories, the ending ripped off Evangelion. For Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, it was Evangelion’s ending yet again (this is really getting into a rut). Yet, for all these lacks, I will feel strangely compelled to watch the whole thing through from start to ending, despite how crap it will inevitably turn out to be, all the while complaining about its lacks from dawn to dusk. So far, only Eureka Seven has conspired to keep me from watching it, and so far I dare not approach.

By this point, I think it is clear that I need a freaking intervention (and BONES, in my opinion, need a better writing staff). More to the point, though, I need to get my issues about their latest endeavour, the fall 2010-spring 2011 super-robot show Star Driver, off my chest. The show is a very obvious Tengen Toppa homage, whose main problem is that that manages to fail horribly at the very thing it was supposed to be imitating. Like RahXephon failed to grasp the subtext of Evangelion’s psychological drama and just got confusing and dramatic for no reason, Star Driver fails at grasping the strong driving story elements of Tengen Toppa and its gleeful machismo, leaving a contextual-less blend of fanservice and light drama entertainment ed by some nicely-looking but ultimately hollow, boring and predictable robot fight sequences…

Bored with my ranting yet? I'm just getting warmed up. You may want to consider a potty break and a coffee. Go ahead, I'll be right here while you do it. This is going to take a while.

Visuals: 8/10 –- It’s FABULOUS!

Star Driver, as expected from a BONES show, looks lovely. The character models are fresh and vibrant, and are variable enough that you notice that not all of the characters are based on the same template. The hair and skin colours differ, a lot, and you’d basically have to be half-blind not to be able to tell the characters apart. The backgrounds are a little above average, containing a wide range of locales inside the island, and there is extremely little recycling of the locales the characters find themselves in.

This, by the way, is good stuff from the slice-of-life part of the show, which is the less impressive part of the show visually. Once the mech battles start off, the show really gets to show off the eye-candy: A stable of over twenty different mechs are all present, fighting each other in quite lovely and decently choreographed fight scenes in the psychedelic backgrounds of Zero Time. The animation is top-notch, and the visual effects are dazzling.

So, what’s there to complain about? Well… Water effects are a bit off. The sky in the real world looks unnatural, some of the characters (Wako) have really dull faces and default expressions, and the backgrounds, especially as the series goes on, becomes static with people frozen stuck as backgrounds becoming especially noticeable. Nobody ever seems to change clothing, and Glittering Crux should fire their fashion designer. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. I’ve seen less overall flamboyance levels at the parades in Rio. It’s all very small nitpicky things, but it’s still there. I still think Xamd: Lost Memories looked better.

Sound: 6/10 -- Decent music and voices. Nothing really grand, but it does the show credit.

Star Driver doesn't skimp much on the audio budget either. From the overly cheerful (yet oddly catchy) J-rock OP, to the song numbers that herald most of the mecha fights in the first half of the show, to a vibrant display of ambient sound effects and mecha battle SFX, the show has a well-done audio direction, hampered mainly by the lack of memorable background music beyond, well, those two tracks. The music underscoring the day-to-day slice-of-life parts is lacking, and the show does not have anything near the musical score of Tengen Toppa when it comes to underscoring and ing moments of particular drama or blood-pumping impressive action: To put it simply, there's no equivalent to "Libera Me From Hell" in this soundtrack and it shows. It could possibly have helped.

As for the voice acting, it's neither here nor there. It's easy to recognize some of the more famous voices behind it, like Jun Fuyukama (Lelouch from Code Geass, here playing Sugata) or Akira Ishida (Kaworu from Evangelion, here as the head of the evil organization of evil), and along with the somewhat more muddled side-characters they deliver an overall fair showing. Nothing I would really call bad, with both voices and fitness of character being just fine, but nothing I would really go jumping for joy for. While the overall image works, there are no particular high points, and the main character in particular... I dunno. He has lots more ion in his voice than your average Harem Lead, but I still think he's too... Wishy-washy for a supposedly hot-blooded Super Robot Driver. Maybe Domon and Kamina have simply set my bar too high.

Story: 2/10 –- "Kiraboshi man, Kiraboshi man, Kiraboshi man hates Takuto man. They have a fight, Takuto wins. Takuto man..."

Then, of course, there's the story. Ah, my eternal bane nemesis of BONES shows, and verily does it return in full force in this show. Putting it simply:

Taketo Tsunashi transfers to a new school on a remote island outside the coast of Japan, having come there in search of his missing father. This island is quickly revealed to be the home of a up-to-no-good and extremely flamboyant cult/organization called "Kiraboshi" ("Glittering Crux" in English), consisting of several of the teenaged islanders in painfully transparent disguises and extremely tarted-up uniforms, who are planning to use a large deposit of magical robots called "Cybodies" found underneath the island to do... Something-or-other. Probably take over the world (OF COURSE!). In order to gain full control of these robots, however, the Glittering Crux needs to defeat four traditional Shinto maidens who maintain a seal over the island. This seal restricts these cybodies to being used only inside a magical alternate dimension called Zero Time, that only the Crux can access. At the verge of defeating the second maiden, Wako, Takuto steps in and reveals himself to be the legendary Galactic Pretty Boy, someone who has a Super Special Fabulous mark of "I am a freaking Chosen One" that allows him access to a Super Special Fabulous mech called Tauburn, and will defend Wako to the last.

Feeling lost yet? It seems simple enough, really. The main problem with this show isn't really the premise, it's how that premise is treated, and what becomes of it. Let me just try to put it simply and combine the two main issues in one: The whole thing gets treated as a game. Yes, that sounds about right. Almost the entire rest of the show is treated essentially as a sort of game between Taketo and the Glittering Crux: Once Per Episode, they dig another new super-mech out of the closet, invoke Zero Time, and try to fight Takuto. They have a fight, Takuto's Super Special Fabulous mech wins. The Glittering Crux doesn't care, despite losing dozens of seemingly extremely valuable mechs to this joker, and never does anything despite knowing who Takuto is and where he lives. Takuto just spends time in-between fights acting all carefree and doing kendo as a way to 'grow stronger', and also doesn't care at all about this evil organization or their goals, or who else they mess over in their 'evil' plans: Apparently, he's only in it to defend Wako. Even the whole 'find my father' angle seems to be dismissed as unimportant the moment after it's been brought up.

Basically, it's another problem of subtext and motivations. Once you start asking yourself *why* these events happen at all, you come to the realization that Star Driver isn't trying to justify what's going on on-screen at all. Why doesn't the Glittering Crux, say, gang up on Takuto and beat him senseless, or just kill him outside of Zero Time? Are they really that careless about reaching their lifelong goals? Why are they trying to destroy the seals anyway? What do they have to gain? Or to lose? Why does Glittering Crux exist? Did a bunch of islanders once get it into their head to dress like the San Fransisco S&M Gay Pride Parade and go hang out in a cave when they discovered a bunch of robots there? Why does the plot devote so much of time to trivialities like kisses and theatre; are they that bad at just making a decent Super Robot Story? Why are those magical robots even there in the first place? And most importantly, why doesn't *anyone* in the whole bloody mess seem to take any part of it seriously at all? There's a dozen more of those questions that arise, practically from every episode, and they never ever get a satisfactory explanation, or not even an indication that the show is trying to address it as a mystery or indeed anything. It's all just excuses for giant robot fights.

And speaking of the robot fights: There is basically no suspense to this story. This is because if Takuto ever lost once, it would be all over. Thus, it's 25 episodes of pre-determined robot battles, where the only way we get some drama is by having a new and powerful villain *seemingly* dominate Takuto at first until some arbitrary Deus Ex Machina steps in and saves him. Ultimately, it's like watching a bunch of big kindergardeners playing a silly game, but without any playfulness to the narrative at all, and expecting us to take it seriously when they suddenly dump a bunch of drama and pathos in it.

Characters: 3/10 –- Hello, and welcome to Mary Sue Island Resort. I hope you like painfully ‘spechul’ individuals with no depth and driving pathos, because this place sure as hell isn’t lacking in them.

Well, in spite of the bad, context-less story, there's still the possibility of some real characters in it, people who can successfully make you forget the vapid story and give you some involvement, right? Well, yes, there is possibility. But like with the story, there is none in reality.

Much of the problem lies with Takuto himself. Takuto, in his freaky red hair, being good at everything and beloved by everyone and having a Super Special Fabulous power mecha, is a classical Mary Sue: Perfect, flawless... And also completely lacking in any actual character. Without anything he's good or bad at, anything particularly he's interested in, and no real goals or drive beyond "protect Wako", Takuto is a practical non-entity when it comes to having any relevance to the story progression: He's an entirely reactive character, and a very shallow and dull one at that. In other words, he has very little for the viewer to relate to.

Meanwhile, all the villains that throw themselves at him like lemmings in a row get their own time in the limelight as part of the episode, and we soon learn just how colourful, special and unique beings they all are -- nobody in the show is not somebody, to put it simply. Basically, almost all of them are Mary Sues of some differing degrees, although not as badly as Takuto. The irony is perhaps in that the villains, due to their brief 15 minutes of fame, actually get more fleshing out and more humanizing moments than Takuto (however little that is, and it's fairly little), and consequently end up looking more human than him. We basically get a story full of too-unique snowflakes, where the only one who doesn't get the time and effort to get some attempts at character depth is the main character. I guess in the end, the problem boils down to this: When everyone's 'super'... No-one is.

And the main character's still a boring, featureless tosser.

Value: 2/10 –- This, too, shall .

Star Driver may be ed, but it certainly won't be by me. This show is a rip-off of Gurren Lagann's mech battles coupled with a meaningless slice-of-life in a plastic world filled with Shiny Happy People whose struggles come off as meaningless and whose entire world seems based on a fractured set of plot holes. I have no doubt it will be licensed, but don't ask me to buy it: In fact, I would ask you not to. It has practically no re-watch value, because none of the plot will seem better in retrospect and character development is null, and practically no watch value in the first place. As just another BONES show, it's not historical and worthy of our memory slots either.

Enjoyment: 3/10 –- "Come on, come on, no-one can see me cry..."

Mmmmm... No. I just got mostly bored and skipped through half the show. When the everyday love story between Takuto and Wako is so predictable (even with the awkward love triangle with Sugata thrown in), and the mecha battles are pre-determined from the get-go, there is practically no suspense or drama on either side. The characters are dull and unengaging, especially the main characters, and the plot holes and lack of context means I can't help but analyze how much the whole thing falls apart at the seams. Ultimately, this was not an enjoyable experience, although I will say the mech battles looked good and, well, it had the potential to be better.

Final Score: 4/10 -– Just who the hell do you think you are?!

So, how do we sum this up? With Star Driver Studio BONES do exactly the same things wrong, and for almost exactly the same reasons, as they’ve done with almost every anime first show they’ve made. Their writers don’t know what ‘context’ – the events going on beneath the actions shown on screen – means, or how to use it effectively as a storytelling medium, and they seem to feel compelled to rip off better shows by GAINAX for parts of their aesthetics and story elements. So, why do I particularly single out this show?

Part of this is, I think, because Star Driver is the first show since RahXephon where the lack of a ‘why’ starts to become too dominant, given that we have a clearly plot-driven show that is supposed to tell an overhanging story. Darker than Black was a mystery show, and managed to get around the lack of explanations on the episode-based plot, sheer coolness factor of setting and protagonist, and the sense of mystery: The people in the show didn’t seem to know any more than we as viewers did, and where they did, they kept it secret. Xamd: Lost Memories spent a lot of time making sure Akuyuki flew around on that post ship and giving us emotional investment in the principal characters, keeping the episode-based slice-of-life separated from the overhanging story by multiple story threads or by keeping the episodes separate.

Star Driver has no such excuse. There is no reason why they can’t explain what this so-called ‘evil’ organization is all about and give us some context for the whole battle from the get-go: They’re just ‘evil’. There is no reason why they can’t try to give the main character some emotional or intellectual stake in this whole conflict apart from him being the Special Chosen One who Must Definitively Protect his Shallow Love Interest. Heck, there’s no reason why they can’t give the main character some personality traits that make us give two tucks of a dead dog’s **** about him, period. There’s no reason why they can’t make the villains act like, well, villains, instead of wasting one-shot characters on playfully challenging the overpowered main character in meaningless one-on-one battles where the show would be over if he were to lose once, so obviously he never will. There was potential, but all the potential is squandered on a meaningless trio of main characters, idiotic villains, and a story that goes nowhere fast.

In the end, Star Driver may *look* pretty, but the plot holes and lack of investment in the story and characters just drags it down into a mire of mediocre badness from where it truly never recovers. I see no reason to sugar-coat it: This anime is overall subpar, meaningless and trite. Not entirely unworthy as an entity of media, especially with the cool fights, but not particularly worthy either in any sense of the word.

THE STAFF
- Planned and animated by studio Bones, which automatically means very good production values, a complicating intriguing story, and a script written on the run without the slightest attempt to make sense or have consistency.
- Directed by Igarashi Takuya, who prior to this, did the quite famous Ouran Host Club, and Soul Eater. Too bad this is nowhere close to their greatness.

PROPER MINDSET
GALACTIC PRETTY BOYYYYY! Transform in the name of gayness!
Star Driver is a FABULOUS anecdote that will make you laugh hard the first few times you hear it before it becomes repetitive and dull. And you need to endure it 25 times.

One will wonder why the hell is this a full season anime, when the trend became a half season; especially for an anime whose story could easily be summed up in 3 episodes. It otherwise plays out as a repetitive monster of the week format. So ok, it wasn’t a problem back in the 70’s to have that sort of treatment. In fact, one would say Star Driver is short because it ONLY lasts 25 episodes while Mazinger Z is over a hundred. But we are no longer in the 70’s and thus this gimmick doesn’t work anymore.

PRODUCTION VALUES
Very high, with FABULOUS looking mecha and nice songs, weird backgrounds and some bizarre stuff going on in the story. In theory, this could be quite a controversial and in-depth series. Many compare it to Revolutionary Girl Utena for its repetitive format, liberal take on relationships and WTF sceneries but in practice it is nowhere NEAR as good as Utena. It doesn’t really offer symbolisms, allusions, indirect messages towards the freedom to be a homosexual, or incestuous, or whatever deviant thing comes to your mind; it’s just fooling around aimlessly. It is also closer to fujoshi fans rather than mecha fans, as the robot action is so far-fetched and repetitive, it loses interest fast. I mean, Tengen Toppa Gurenn Lagann was also far-fetched, but at least it had an on-going plot and stuff would build up along the way. Here, it is nothing.

SCRIPT
There is this weird mystery around maidens, cybodies, whacky S&M Kiraboshi transvestites, and a sinister plan to take over the world. But a boy appears and constantly kicks all that to the sensitive area. The premise sounds FABULOUS but quickly becomes unimportant, since there is no real plot. It is episodic and the only thing that keeps you watching is to see which guy will kiss which… guy. There are lots of homos in this one you see. But not even that is shown, so who cares. You end up laughing for the 25th time with the same retarded transformation sequence that usually lasts more than the actual battle that follows it.

Oh, and don’t try to reason with what is going on in the plot; it’s just random ideas around sexually deprived people who somehow found robots from another dimension, and decided to become transvestites and take over the world. Why? … Well, BECAUSE. How? … SOMEHOW. I didn’t even understand why they were all wearing masks when everybody knows who everybody else is.

CAST
Who even re after awhile that the protagonist is originally there to look for his father? Or that he knows right away where the bad guys’ headquarters are and can just go there and beat them all up any time he likes? Not even him apparently; he does absolutely nothing in the entire show. He just fools around while saving pretty girls, who of course are in love with him. But he doesn’t return the feeling, since he is too FABULOUS for that. He is even training at some parts to get stronger even when he owns all the villains in 5 seconds with his present powers. Other than that, he has zero depth or appeal. Oh well, at least he is not a wimp, useless, fat otaku, like most modern anime love to have as a hero.

The adversaries get more immersion than the main hero, and even they are nothing but episodic villains. All they do is reveal their inner desires to us, before attacking the hero with their robot and losing badly in just 5 seconds. And this repeats in each episode like they are Team Rocket. And of course they never think of ganging up on the hero instead of attacking one at a time. Or why they don’t try to beat him indirectly with some sleeping pill in his soda, even when he is away from his robot. And it’s not like they don’t know who he is or where he is all the time. It’s as if they don’t even care to win.

LEGACY
There are no redeeming qualities in this show; it is brain-dead style over substance that outlasted its welcome by about 22 episodes. There are no memorable characters or battles outside of the protagonist’s name and ridiculous transformations. The episodic nature ruins any replay value too and it was fun only the first few times you see the same thing happening.

Kenshiro in Hokuto no Ken is one of the most GAR leads ever but he is far more interesting because there is plot there and because he doesn’t need huge robots or even weapons to turn his opponents into mince-meat. But GALACTIC PRETTY BOY (lol what a ridiculous name) always needs his robot to play it almighty.