I’m kinda behind on these Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto posts, but at least these couple of days, not that many shows come out. Seems like it’s all on the weekends. Well, this episode wasn’t too interesting, with the first half being plot development via the character Watanabe Kanako and the latter half being the usual fight.

Watanabe’s got that seductress air about her, with that sultry voice and gentle nudges to Takuto about her being a lonely wife. She’s also quite loaded, with servants giving her haircuts in class and living aboard a private cruise ship, not to mention being a witty gold-digger who trades her body for the moolah. I notice that the character designs for this series are extremely well done, with even minor characters getting an appearance treatment worthy of mention. Simone Aragon (Taketatsu Ayana) and Dai Takashi (Akabane Kenji) all have the looks for a main character, especially Takashi, whose name and appearance seem like the typical protagonist look in animes.

Although Watanabe is known in Kiraboshi as Adult Bank (weird name…) she seems more intent on entertaining herself than getting the job done. It’s like those villains who enjoy watching their enemy grow stronger, and even help in doing so, at either the amusement of eventually crushing them (which doesn’t happen, usually), or in a nonchalant shrugoff of the entire evil organization. So it’s hard to see her get frustrated; she’s probably going to be like “ara, what a powerful opponent we have here! he makes me feel all hot inside…”

It’s also worth noting that Kiraboshi members do everything with flair, even something like crossing your legs. It was hard to pin any type of seriousness in their meeting with all that leg swishing going on. The leader guy looks pretty bipolar as well, with him becoming all morose when he’s talking to Sakana, whose become quite an important character now. The whole fairy tale story involving Sam and the fish planet is pretty interesting, like a huge metaphor of what Takuto is going through right now. I love those little things in storytelling like that, and the acting is top notch. Tomatsu Haruka’s one of my favorite seiyuus, and her rendition of the soft spoken Sakana is another addition to her wide range of voices, which also include genki girls like Lala from To Love-ru and Nagi from Kannagi.

Development between Takuto and Wako is pretty obvious. While the two don’t really talk much, her opinion of him gets better with every ass-kicking he delivers upon the Kiraboshi. Speaking of that fight, the animation turned all Gurren Lagann style with dark shaded lines and choppy shounen mecha action. It reminded me of a certain episode in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou where the characters turned all DBZ like, except this time it was a lot smoother given that we’re dealing with mechas. I personally prefer the smoother jaw-dropping fight sequences like in the first episode, but I guess I don’t mind if they experiment around.

And as anime laws dictate, two is definitely better than one. This law is mostly applied in the field of Gundams: Gundam 00 twin drive, Gundam Wing dual buster rifles, Gundam Seed strike-freedom dual rifles. This time, Takuto suddenly gets uber powerful with TWIN SWORDS!!! The exclamation from Watanabe really cracked me up, “He’s a DUAL WIELDER!!” So with the Tau Radiance (whatever that means) Takuto beats another weekly baddy and saves the day once again. I don’t really like the monster of the week format, and it seems like they’ll repeat the transformation scene and the scene where Tauburn breaks in through the wall.

Interesting note: Takashi’s got a mark too.
And the eyecatch was pretty hilarious, with a choral “STAR DRIVER!!!” catchphrase (though it’s not nearly as good as FMA’s eyecatch statements).

I really need some sleep. Kiraboshi!