Star driver stars Takuto, a Ginga Bishounen (Galactic Pretty Boy), as he transfers schools to an island in search of his father. The island has a hidden secret: cybodies, powerful humanoid creations which give their users immense power, but are sealed by the island’s maidens. Takuto becomes embattled in trying to protect the maidens from a secret organization, the Glittering Crux, comprised of his schoolmates, that is trying to break the seals. The show is divided between ordinary school life and ritualistic battles reminiscent of the writer’s other work Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Star Driver did an excellent job at character development— it started out with some completely ridiculous characters and made them into actually likable people. Probably the best example of this is Kanako. She starts out as a young bride who married into wealth and is quite proud of it. She lives on a luxury cruise ship, has two live-in servants and a pet alligator. She kisses random people at school through a glass window. Yet by the end of the show, the creators manage to turn her into the most prepared and dependable character there is. Most of the other characters the creators spent time on become interesting characters in their own right as well— but due to the short nature of the show, this didn’t include everybody. The development was especially lacking around the main villain’s allies.
Star Driver is a fun show. It has fantastic characters and an interesting setting. It does an excellent job at building up the characters and revealing the layers of the mystery. It keeps you sitting on the edge of your seat and waiting to see what will happen in the next episode. But the biggest problem is that it wasn’t really able to pull everything together for the conclusion. I think it was a bit too ambitious for the amount of time it had, and could have used another twelve episodes.
Still, the buildup is certainly worth watching, and the journey’s more important than the destination, right?
- Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Excellent plot and storytelling, except for the end. Some time was wasted in the middle with too much school antics and random lesbian enemies appearing out of nowhere.
- Characters – 9 / 10 – Large cast of characters, many of them with substantial depth.
- Production – 8 / 10 – Consistently good animation. Nice explosions.
- Overall – B
Recommendations – Utena, Mai HiMe, Code Geass
watching this now, god this show is so full of energy, it reminds me a lot of gaogaigar! not sure if its any good coz im only half way through but it sure is fun, makes me wonder how they screwed up captain earth so badly.
im not even mad about how wako wants to have a threesome though there seems to be a void of romantic chemistry with blue haired man, maybe later in the series.
Yeah, this was a very energetic series. Even if it didn’t make the most sense all the time the energy really got through.