Star Driver: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Star Driver: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Neither a traditional shonen nor a mecha, 'Star Driver' is an odd hybrid.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 21, 2011

Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto is one of the latest anime offerings from the Bones production house, and like a lot of Bones outings, Star Driver plops the viewer down in what seems like the middle of the story, leaving him or her to fend for themselves in terms of figuring out exactly what’s going on, not to mention any semblance of understanding the back story and how various characters interact. The series also is almost schizophrenic in its extremely slow, deliberate shonen-esque portrayal of high school life among a group of teenagers and its hyperbolic, supercharged mecha-esque portrayal of huge robotic weapons whom these same teens inhabit to battle each other. With all of that said, Star Driver, while arguably nothing new in the anime universe, also manages to achieve a little momentum after a rather lugubrious beginning. That beginning finds Wako, a young girl and Sugata, a young boy, walking a beach together underneath a glowing starlit sky as they discuss what sounds like Wako’s impending departure for Tokyo. In one of the funnier translations of Japanese I’ve personally experienced recently, suddenly Wako says she “smells” a boy, one who “is fading,” which turns out to be a reference to a body which has evidently washed up on the shore. Wako quickly runs over to the unconscious young man and performs mouth to mouth resuscitation, at which point the story lurches forward to the next morning when the young man turns out to be Takuto Tsunashi, who will become the hero of Star Driver.

Just as quickly as the focus changes to Takuto, suddenly we’re once again thrust into another plot arc as a secret society underneath the local high school turns out to be plotting to take over the universe, or something like that. This group, called the Glittering Crux Brigade, is able to don huge mechas called Cybodies, which exist in an alternate universe of sorts called Zero Time. Over the course of the ensuing episodes, it slowly (too slowly, some would argue) becomes evident that the Glittering Crux Brigade is seeking to break the Cybodies out of their Zero Time exile so that they can operate in the “real world” (such as it exists in Star Driver), and that Takuto is the predestined savior whose abilities will hopefully prevent that from ever happening.

Several other subplots add to the intrigue of Star Driver, though they are deliberately revealed over the course of several episodes, and not always in a straightforward way. The action takes place on an island called Southern Cross Isle and it turns out that Wako is a Priestess of sorts, called a Shrine Maiden. There are several such Maidens, all of whom have the ability to keep the island safe as well as to keep the Cybodies from escaping. Also playing into the evolving storyline is a relationship between Sugata and Wako, who are betrothed according to custom, though Takuto’s appearance seems to set those plans at least slightly awry. These are just the barest outlines of the plot of Star Driver, and presenting them in such a condensed manner may lead to two misconceptions, first of which is that events happen quickly in the series (they don’t), and second, that plot elements are properly explained and easy to understand (they aren’t, at least not all of the time).

Star Driver struggles to achieve, let alone maintain, momentum for several reasons. Probably the biggest of these, at least in the series’ opening handful or so of episodes, is the sheer number of new characters who are introduced, usually at the rate of only one or two per episode. In terms of the overall arc of this first set of episodes (this two disc set goes up through Episode 13), probably the most overarching issue is the series’ kind of weird bifurcated approach, where school life can amble along without much (if anything) happening, which is just as suddenly (and sometimes fairly incomprehensibly) interrupted by the parallel plot of the Cybodies and the various battles that ensue. What is really odd about these two parallel paths which make up the bulk of Star Driver is how poorly integrated they are. There’s virtually no thread tying these two strands together, and that’s made even more evident by that old superhero trope of a simple mask being able to effectively hide someone’s identity. Seemingly none of these high school people seem to realize who other masked people are, despite it being patently obvious to any outsider. That’s a niggling qualm, and one that could be mentioned with any number of superhero franchises (let’s face it, Superman doesn’t even have a mask to shield his identity), but when so much of this series ping pongs back and forth between these two worlds it becomes perhaps more obvious and grating than it would otherwise have been.

What ultimately saves Star Driver is, as so often happens with Bones productions, its incredibly visceral and engaging animation style. This is one of the most relentlessly colorful and explosive animes in recent memory, and that visual acuity is increased immensely by some wonderfully rendered CGI elements. When Zero Time erupts (or whatever the proper verb for Zero Time should be), we get huge spinning kaleidoscopes of every color in the rainbow (and then some), and often Takuto and his various nemeses do battle against gorgeous backgrounds that look like slowly wafting versions of the Aurora Borealis, full of expressive purples and teals, as well as a variety of other bright hues. While a strong visual presentation is not always enough to elevate standard animes much above their kin, the sheer force and beauty of Star Driver repeatedly makes it more engaging than its mere storyline might suggest, and that’s a testament to the very skilled workforce at Bones, which continues to be one of the most innovative studios providing anime fans with fare these days.

Star Driver: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Star Driver Part 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Bandai Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is for the most part a spectacular looking transfer that offers really stunning color and exceptionally sharp line detail, along with some extremely impressive CGI elements that continually surprise with their cartwheeling, mandala like entrances. While character designs aren't especially innovative, they're unfailingly well animated, though in a kind of interesting aside, it seems like perhaps key animators changed somewhere through this set of episodes, as there are some subtle yet noticeable differences in some of the character designs toward the end of this two disc's set 13 episode arc. The overall image quality here is extremely sharp and well detailed but as with other Bones offerings, some of the backgrounds are rendered in an intentionally soft, almost abstract manner.

Star Driver: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Star Driver Part 1 like many Bandai offerings offers the listener only the original Japanese track, in this case via a very well rendered uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo mix. (While no English dub is included, the English subtitles are optional, which is useful for those who speak Japanese or even for those who want to see the nice looking animation with the intrusion of added print). Voicework here is very good throughout, and the track sports effortless fidelity, albeit across a narrow soundstage. Probably the best element with regard to showing off the track is the nice music, which includes not just the typical opening and ending themes and underscore, but a couple of songs that work their way into various episodes courtesy of one of the Shrine Maidens. There's a bit more low end on this 2.0 track than might initially be expected, and dynamic range is very good throughout the series.

Star Driver: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Textless Opening (HD; 1:33)
• Textless Ending (Sakana-chan Version) (HD; 2:01)
• Textless Ending (Mizuno Version) (HD; 2:01)
• Trailer (HD; 1:28)
• Previews of other Bandai Releases

Star Driver: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This first part of Star Driver takes its good time getting going, and even then it never moves very fast, but it somehow manages to be fairly engaging nonetheless. There are a number of lingering questions and mysteries as this first set of episodes comes to a close, and if those are effectively handled in the second set of episodes which is due here in about a month or so, the overall entertainment value of the series will probably increase exponentially. As it stands, the series works in fits and starts from a story perspective, but visually it is simply downright amazing a lot of the time, and that helps to overcome some of the slow going. With caveats noted, this excellent looking and sounding release comes Recommended.