When I look back at Star Driver a few months from now, I’ll probably think about how the show straddled the line between seemingly gratuitous, entertaining action and actually telling a story. A show that can actually pull both of these things off is a pretty rare thing. While Star Driver was at points able to do both of these things quite well, it never seemed able to do them at the same time. This ultimately keeps it from being great, and instead relegates it to the land of pretty good.
For everything that happened in Star Driver’s hectic finale, the episode pretty much focused on two tried and true anime themes, youth and friendship, and in that order. Though there were a few things that made me question how the series was written, the copious amounts of action, the levels of character growth, not to mention the background music made the conclusion to Star Driver a satisfying one that clearly does NOT need a sequel.
Least Important Part of This Episode
Continue reading ‘Star Driver 25 – Let the Real Battle Begin (END)’
So in the end, Sugata eventually did make his move for power as the show had been hinting at for some time. Still, before leaving, he made quite the grand exit with Wako before switching sides and joining the Glittering Crux. I thought this episode tried really hard to emphasize, via Takuto’s conversation with the RA and her trio, that Sugata wasn’t only leaving Wako, but the trio as a whole. That makes Sugata’s actions in Zero Time a little difficult to understand, as it seems he had already made up his mind to join the Crux early on in the episode.
Because showing a King of the Peacocks screen cap would be too easy
The play was certainly an interesting way to add some clarity to past events. Sarina’s veiled questioning of Takuto and his answers were certainly interesting enough, and I do get the feeling that he will back up his claims to protect Wako. Still, there is one thing that really seems out of place to me. Assuming that Takuto is the one who will eventually embrace Wako, that would make Sugata the one who had Wako, but lost her due to his dependence on the boat’s power. But for whatever reason I don’t get the feeling that real world Sugata has given in to the boat’s power yet, because I don’t know what his “boat” could possibly be.
I’d love to be the guy to add to the parade of comments about how Wako seems to be favoring Takuto over Sugata, but I feel I already did last week. Instead, I’d like to comment on what seems to be the apparent end of the Kou/Madoka arc. These two, aside from having the hots for each other, really seemed to be shallow characters without much of a back story, which may lead many to question why they were even in the series at all (Save filling air time). But, this isn’t a really new phenomenon, and many anime have utilized this late introduction of new characters to varying degrees of success, and Star Driver actually did a pretty good job.
Kou and Madoka helped Wako reach this point
It has been a few episodes since my last post on this show, but aside from some Karaoke and late night shenanigans from Keito, nothing much happened in episodes 18 and 19. It doesn’t help that I’m not really a fan of either Kou or Madoka, as I find their characters rather shallow. Episode 20, on the other hand, threw a whole bunch of stuff at us that is worth mentioning, but my main focus is going to be on the how the modern trio of Sugata, Wako, and Takuto is eerily familiar to the one fully introduced in this episode.
That was one hell of a way to shake things up. While the last episode was more of a conclusion to things that were really inevitable given the nature of the few episodes before it, this episode added a lot of things to this show that need to be discussed. First off, and most importantly I might add, were the introduction of Kou and Madoka.
Mizu....something or other. What was her name again
Surprisingly, there wasn’t some big new revelation or twist for Marino’s disappearance, but that things were exactly what most had been speculating for a few weeks now. That Marino was nothing more than a creation of Mizuno. The only thing this episode did to solve that puzzle was provide us with the details. Now did Mizuno create Marino mainly as a way to avoid dealing being abandoned by her mother or was it to avoid Zero Time. I don’t know, and at this point it doesn’t really matter as there are other questions to answer.
Crazy Old Guy
No Cybody fight this week, but this episode did a lot to bring the two big storylines closer to their conclusion. While I know a lot of people have been focusing on the Mizuno’s endless eight like experience, I thought the far more interesting storyline came from the very short segment between Sugata and Head.
For a show with a rather ridiculous premise, Star Driver sure is expecting a lot out of its viewers. Could you see the revelation that Head knew who Keito really was? Sure, if you wanted to analyze every little piece of information (end of episode 4), you probably could have deduced that Head knew who Keito was, and that the Glittering Crux would inevitably find out that Mizuno was a maiden. But still, it seemed a bit too convenient.
