Reviews

Star Driver is a perfect example of a show that takes a simple formula and makes the resulting show wayyyy more complicated than it needs to be. The formula that I am talking about (monster of the week) is common in kids shows. Yes, kids shows! You know those shows that you loved when you were 10 but you 'grew out of?' Well, I WOULD describe this show as sort of a teenagers version of a 'Monster of the week', except this show probably takes on the themes of at least 2 other shows through the time that I was watching it. For a 26 episode anime, this is simply too much to do in a 25 minute show in my opinion, especially since a third of the episode is taken up by a fight scene (every episode, hence Monster of the week).

Another issue with this show is the characters. I could find ONE character that I liked. The rest of the characters could all just disappear and I honestly would not give a shit. I'll try to describe the characters despite this. We have the three main characters - Takuto, well I could not find anything special about his character but apparently he can summon a robot under certain conditions and uses dual swords. Then we have Sugata and Wako, who are trapped on the island that this anime is set in for various reasons. Sugata and Wako are also engaged(not really important to the main story). I don't feel like describing the rest of the characters because
1. Too many characters. Way too many.
2. The characters are all forgettable, partly because of 1. Except for Mizuno. Maybe it's because I actually sympathized with here and she didn't suck as much as the other characters did, including Takuto and co.

Animation in this show was bright, colourful, fluid, all that jazz. However I do have an issue with the character designs. The characters all look like stick figures. It doesn't help this show's case that the main character looks more like a pussy than the smallest guy in my school. Also, I think they colour coded the character hair so that we could actually identify the characters from each other because they were so uninteresting otherwise.

Music/sound in the show was nothing to complain about really. The only problem with this section is that it is never explained why the girl in the cage is singing the song before the main characters jump to that other dimension (Zero Time). To me this seems like the show is giving the song meaning for no reason at all.

I don't know what else to say about this show. The concept of it sounded pretty cool at before I began to watch it but the series ended up being really boring because of a bunch of themes scattered all over the place and really uninteresting characters. I don't think I even got the character names right because of how uninteresting they are. Most of the characters contribute almost nothing to the story and are just there to fill time while the main villain just goes about his business. I don't think I will ever finish watching this show because I highly doubt the ending will save it for me. I don't really have an issue with 'monster of the week shows', but the parts between the fighting were really boring and pointless. I think I would have just preferred an endless series of fights.

To summarize, I would not recommend this show unless you really enjoy huge fighting mecha anime. You won't be thrilled at the characters/story so it would be best to just tolerate them while waiting for the inevitable clash between two huge robots. Otherwise, there are plenty of shows with cool characters that you can relate to and don't make watching a freaking show seem so much like a chore.

I hope this review is helpful.

This is my first review so feel free to message me and give me advice on how I can improve my future reviews.