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Forum - View topicShelf Life - Star Power
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bj_waters
 Posts: 234 |
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Regarding Star Driver, interesting choice of associations. I myself couldn't shake the fact that it was a less subtle remake of Utena. Its episodic nature, its back-and-forth between school drama and end-of-episode fights, its antagonist as a creepy organization with big connections and big plans for the world dealing with some mysterious apocalyptic power, its semi-convoluted relationship diagrams; I'm serious. Take out all of the shadow play and symbolism out of Utena and replace it with super robots and you end up with Star Driver.
I'm not saying it was bad; when I finished it I thought it was pretty enjoyable, but I don't see myself ever watching it again. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I remember that there was a DtB manga that took place between the end of the first season and the beginning of the OVAs which filled in a few gaps (personally I think that and the OVAs should have been made into their own season), think it's called Darker than Black: The Jet Black Flower. I also remember being really annoyed not at the ending of the series but at one of the people who made it (the director?) who afterwords said that everything was done and explained (huh?) now so there wouldn't be anymore, barely anything about the setting was explained!
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Keichitsu0305
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Eh...More like, "I was a badass but spoiler[now that my powers are gone] I have to train this otaku bait girl." 
I was really hoping for S. 2 to explain how the Gate came to be, more on Hei's backstory, and the history of Contractors. But no; we got Suou. I don't hate Season 2 but I rather rent it. At least the OVAs were nice for some Hei X Yin shipping~ The best parts of Star Driver are the mech battles; everything else is extra fluff. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1525 |
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Did we really need an explanation for the Gate? I think the long and short of it was a "naturally occuring, super-empowering cosmic anomaly". Kind of satisfied with that really. Unless people really wanted to "space aliens did it" or "goverment partical accelorator experiment gone horrible wrong!"
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belvadeer
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Ah Star Driver. You just reminded me that there was a DLC tie-in with Tales of Xillia. XP
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v1cious
 Posts: 6235 Location: Houston, TX |
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I just couldn't get into Star Driver at all, I thought it was awful. It's bad enough every character in the show was a generic trope, but the mech fights lacked any kind of tension. with the exception of the last fight, Every single battle followed the same formula: Ginga shows up and gets hit a few times, and then Tauburn pulls some new attack out of nowhere and kills the enemy with one hit. This is not even to mention the confusing plot.
Love the first opening, though. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8503 Location: Penguinopolis |
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I find the colors of the DBZ Level Set to be a little too dark. Not to mention it lacks Japanese episode title cards and is clearly geared more towards the fans of the shitty English dubbed version. I suppose it's a decent alternative to the Dragon Boxes, but I won't be out buying these sets anytime soon, if at all.
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Seraphim_Alchemist
 Posts: 114 Location: Camuy, P.R. (US) |
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Can't wait to get DTB2, loved the first season
 ... how was the bluray quality though? Good or meh?
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rojse
 Posts: 234 |
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Put me down as one of the people who actually thought Star Driver was quite good - not as an enjoyably bad show, not as a show with beautifully-animated mecha combat, but genuinely good, in terms of both telling a story, and for remaking seventies-style mecha anime for a more demanding and mature audience.
In more detail, "Star Driver" is not merely based on mecha anime from the seventies, but also reconstructs the story-telling style based on the criticisms that the genre made of itself in the last thirty years. From the seventies, it takes away flamboyant and exaggerated heroes and villians, ridiculous over-the-top mecha action, episodic storytelling, and a cheerful and optimistic tone. "Star Driver" then fixes the problems that were usually present from shows of the era - characters are well-developed (even if they are exaggerated and over the top), there's an overarching story that isn't just a quick excuse for mecha action, there's consistency in both the story's narrative and the character's actions, and excellent quality animation, too. Oh, and fan service that goes both ways, too - whether that's an improvement or not depends on the viewer. Certainly, the show is not without its flaws - I did think it occasionally dragged along in places - but I do think it's much better than what it is being credited for both in the review and on the forums here. |
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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I was excited for Star Driver initially, but something felt off from the first episode and it slowly snowballed until I could no longer ignore all of its faults, much like my experience with Gundam SEED Destiny. Star Driver was really like Utena (the series, not the character) having a little sister playing dress-up and trying to be like its "big sister". In the end, as much as it tried to be "Utena", it was not Utena. It was all surface and uninspired, but even worse--and what really caused me to seriously despise the series--was how utterly spoiler[ball-less] it was. It took no chances, there was no sort of drama or tension in the mecha fights--now matter how much it tried to set it up (for the precise reasons v1cious brought up), the characters--likable most were--were unremarkable (for many of the same points the review stated), and the plot was pathetically limp and lacking clear detail and scope. For the most part, it was all pointless, and the adolescent tale it tried to tell has been told better elsewhere spoiler[(see…Utena)]. Overall, it was a sorry waste of talent (including some first-time original work by great character designer Yoshiyuki Ito) and tons of potential. It is really hard to believe that it was all penned by Utena's own screenwriter, Yoji Enokido! I don't know if he was trying to recreate "the magic", but it came across more like someone trying to pulling off a cheap knockoff of Utena (not to mention Gurren Lagann, among others) than the "Second Coming" of it. |
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tsunayakuin
Posts: 91 |
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Funny. As much as I love being a perv I was here for story, Hei and his group not Suou. |
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N.R.
Posts: 232 |
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@Annelisa: I haven't read GetBackers so I'm not sure if I'm the one who should say this, but if you like GetBackers I recommend you buy all the remaining books now. Why? Because Tokyopop has lost the licenses to all its manga and those GetBackers books will soon be out of print and out of reach.
About the DBZ BD...It doesn't look good. That filter really makes it look horrible. I liked Dragon Ball Z when I saw it on TV. Luckily I like it but am not obsessed enough to buy all those crazy iterations of it. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2316 Location: Online Terminal |
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I agree on Star Driver being a throwback, but I felt it was in no way successful in pleasing more discerning tastes. However, it's seventies-ness lowered the bar enough that I enjoyed it whenever I got the chance to watch it. While it was juvenile, ridiculous, and generally stupefying, I found the whole "love-powered robots" thing novel, and I'm good for some over-the-top tokustatsu-styled mech action ever now and then. Don't think I'm buying it, though. I'm in a bit of a PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINCH |
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here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
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It's funny... Star Driver had been off my radar (I'm not into mecha) until this week when I stumbled across 3 different blogs that gave it good reviews. So I started to watch it on Crunchyroll and am enjoying it. I'm really on the fence about whether I should continue with Crunchyroll or watch in on Bluray. The fact that it might go out of print in a few months and that it's on sale at RS right now is pushing me to get it...
But then again, I've already spent a lot on pre-orders... (Madoka, Princess Jellyfish, Arakawa, Kimi no Todoke, House of Five Leaves, various Figuarts figures, not to mention the cash I blew on the 13 Days of Christmas sale.) Anyone know where I can find a tree that grows money? |
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BunnyCupCakes
 Posts: 224 Location: The Sunshine State |
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Actually, some fans speculated Takeshi Obata originally did the chara-designs. If you look at some of the concept sketches, it definitely screams out Obata's art style. Also both Bakuman and Star Driver's school uniforms look kinda similar too (or at least to me they do lol) Sure Star Driver wasn't anything ground breaking or mind-blowing but I had lots of fun watching it. Plus that sakuga animation <3 Last edited by BunnyCupCakes on Mon Jan 02, 2012 9:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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