Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I imagine we’re in for one hell of a bumpy ride, as we join Takuto for the grand finale of the whimsical, richly layered, and altogether thrilling Star Driver. With anime legends Igarashi and Enokido at the helm, Star Driver has offered plenty of the theatrical embellishments, adolescent psychological inquiry, and grand theories of human relations that I’d expect from such distinctive, creatively driven artists. We’ve rambled from baseball episodes to creation myths, pursuing all the while that indistinct horizon of the adult world, where the legends and rituals that have guided us prove themselves either trustworthy signposts or merely the bars of a larger cage.
Southern Cross Isle’s patriarchal order is ultimately ruled by fear; fear of female agency, fear of the adult world, and most fundamentally fear of being unmoored, of no longer being the lord of your domain. Sugata’s predecessors feared losing power so much that they essentially became avatars of power alone, sacrificing their ability to choose their own destiny just to ensure that others would be similarly contained. Kiraboshi have come up with a unique solution to their simultaneous fear of the external world and desire for greater power: simply expand their cage outward, capturing the entire world within the domain of their abilities. But to those who’ve chosen to walk away from the island, to all those painted women Tokio failed to capture, the solution is far simpler. Can Takuto break the bars of Southern Cross, and rise fearlessly upward into adulthood? Let’s find out!