YMMV / Star Driver

• Die for Our Ship:
  • Despite there being no hard feelings whatsoever between the characters in the show, many Takuto/Mizuno shippers are known to hate Wako with all the fervor they possess. Or pair her with Sugata.
  • Wako receives it from some Takuto/Sugata shippers as well, although it's less common due to the OT3 angle the show itself pushes.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Some fans like to pardon Keito/Ivrogne for her actions based on her being the East Maiden and the fact that she was doing them "out of love" for Sugata, ignoring that she'd wanted to corrupt Sugata into a Face–Heel Turn so that he could Take Over the World with Samekh's power and she could be at his side for that, having him all to herself.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Lady Sugaga for Sugata, due to the Navel-Deep Neckline and peacock feathers of his Crux outfit.
  • Mami Yano gained the rather obvious nickname of Freckles.
  • The Japanese fandom and some Western viewers tend to call Shingo Sleeping Beauty ^note  Called "Nemuri Hime" (lit. "Sleeping Princess") in Japanese.
• Fanfic Fuel: Given that the movie was mostly a recap of the series, the scene at the movie's beginning where Tauburn is fighting cybodies in Shinjuku leaves a lot of questions and plot hooks.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Between the Science Guild's pear-shaped clown outfits, Kou and Madoka's enormous nipple-plugs, and Ryousuke's man-thong and see-through body-stocking, the Order of the Glittering Crux has something for everyone.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Reiji Miyabi aka Head, real name Tokio Tsunashi, leads the Vanishing Age faction of the Glittering Crux Brigade and serves as the group's de facto director. Reiji brought the Crux together in an effort to break all four seals on Southern Cross Isle. He befriends the North Maiden to coax her into allowing him to break her seal, and forms a strategy to both capture the West Maiden and finally defeat Tauburn, the Cybody driven by his son, Takuto. Even after defeat, Reiji initiates a coup that allows his faction to anex all others and grant him more power. Anticipating the betrayal of Keito Nichi, the East Maiden, Reiji is able to awaken a boy he'd seduced from his years long coma and be given his mark that enables his new Cybody to control all other Cybodies. In the final battle in Zero Time, Reiji reveals his goal to destroy the world while he gains the power to travel to the past, where he can relive his best days as much as he pleases. While childish and self-centered to the extreme, Reiji is also a refined artist whose magnetic persona and dangerously keen intellect makes him a gravitational force unto himself.
  • Kanako Watanabe aka President, in addition to leading the Adult Bank faction of the Glittering Crux Brigade, co-manages the business of her husband Leon, and has control over all of its profits and assets. Despite being a High Schooler, Kanako married Leon for his wealth, and while the things she does with it are done often either for pragmatic reasons or just for her own amusement, she's much more intelligent and calculating than she frequently lets on, often monitoring her underlings and knowing what other people are planning or doing but not acting so long as she senses no danger. Also a champion-level boxer and a tactical combatant, Kanako enjoys her fight with Takuto so much that she steals his first kiss as reward. Kanako greatly values her half sister Simone Aragon and cares for the citizens of Southern Cross Island, proving to be Crazy-Prepared when it's revealed that she bought her large yacht with the intention of making it an evacuation vessel to use during a crisis.
• Moe: Come on, you just have to admit it: Mizuno is adorable. There's even Lampshade Hanging on this when Wako refers to Mizuno as "ridiculously cute" in Episode 15.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Madoka's "3.5" fusion with Hegent in episode 21 makes Ayingott seem cute and cuddly by comparison. Creepy visuals combined with the most blatantly psychotic character in the series? No thank you.
  • The scene in Episode 16 where Mizuno is captured by the Crux, particularly when she's grabbed by the underlings and Keito touches her mark. "Let me go! Don't touch me there!"
• Periphery Demographic: Let's be honest: Most of this show's fans are 12-20 year old girls who squeal at Takuto/Sugata.
• One True Threesome: Since listing specific examples would take up most of the page, let's just say that this show has a lot of Takuto/Wako/Sugata Ship Tease and leave it at that. The end of the series points towards this, especially with Wako's line of "You don't know how much it hurts to deeply love two people at once.". Neither Takuto nor Sugata seem to mind.
• The Scrappy:
  • Madoka and Kou are two of the least liked characters in the anime, mostly because they only show up on the island in the middle of the series, aren't really developed at all, and spend about 5 episodes stealing away screentime from other characters that could have used the development.
  • The other three Star Drivers in Vanishing Age - Sword Star, Stick Star, and Camel Star - aren't particular popular mong fans either due to being disposable Flat Characters in all of their appearances, with Sword Star being a creepy incel-like Hopeless Suitor for Marino, Camel Star being an Insufferable Genius who poisons Takuto outside of combat, and Stick Star being such a third wheel that he has no definable features whatsoever.
• Squick:
  • Whatever Keito was doing to Sugata at the end of Episode 18 required her to be naked and him to be unconscious and unaware of her presence... and she was given the go-ahead by his own family. Even if we don't assume the worst, the vibes given off by that scene were very unsettling indeed. The infamous Gag Sub "Please do not imitate rapists" didn't help.
  • Keito has other moments of this, namely with Tiger in Episode 4 and with Mizuno in Episode 16, both of which involves her having both girls in her science lab and drugging them, all while she acts in a very predatory way.
  • Episode 19 provides another disturbing incident, in the form of our resident Depraved Bisexual Madoka cornering Wako and attempting to kiss her (and possibly a little bit more) whilst wearing Takuto's body and using it as a hostage. All in all, it was good news for all concerned that Wako had Sugata's knife on her at the time.
  • Also, we have Head, and his relationship to Takuto. Remember when they fought each other in episode 16? Rewatch those scenes with the knowledge that Takuto's his son. Yeah. And that Head knows this too. Yeesh.
  • Head attempting to break Wako's seal in the last episode, which results in a few agonizingly long minutes of what's basically a supernatural Attempted Rape considering all the symbolism of the participants involved, with "fitting" sounds from both characters to boot. And Takuto can't do anything to stop it in that moment.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: We're clearly meant to feel for Keito during the last few episodes, but it's difficult to when she had been one of the most remorseless dog-kickers in the entire series, and her motivations, to have Sugata for herself and get her former friend Wako out of the picture, are very petty and selfish, more so when you consider that the only reason Wako was credited entirely with saving Sugata as a child and made Sugata's fiance is that Keito was too shy and indecisive to stay at Sugata's side as he came to, yet she's become The Resenter towards Wako because of this.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?:
  • Not the world's deepest symbolism, but every Cybody is named after a letter of the Phoenician alphabet, and each letter of the Phoenician alphabet has a name whose meaning informs the abilities of the Cybody and its controller. Alf is "ox" (piloted by Raging Bull), tet is "wheel" (Speed Kid), pe is "mouth" (Scarlet Kiss), nun is "fish" (as in "Little Fish"), samekh is "pillar," ayin is "eye," etc. etc. You could figure out who will control what based on their codename (rosh means "Head," gee, I wonder who will pilot that?), as well as how many Cybodies there will likely be (22), which was confirmed in series.
  • Matthew 19:24 "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God". Now who was it who stopped Camel Star from advancing to the fourth phase?
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The female members of Vanishing Age. The outfits they wear, complete with skintight spandex, and metal bat nipples, make the outfits the regular female members of the Crux wear look almost sensible.
• The Woobie: It's a tossup as to whose life sucks more:
  • Simone, whose father abandoned her and her mother for a girl one year older than her.
  • Mizuno, who suffered a Trauma Conga Line by having all her romantic dreams crushed in a single day by an eavesdrop on Takuto, then immediately having to deal with the return of her mother, the temporary loss of her sister, and the realization of her destiny as a Maiden.
  • Sora, Takuto's mom who was driven by the unresponsiveness of her fiancee to a man who did not love her.
  • Or Ryousuke Sora's fiancee, who loved her all along, and who blinded himself when he witnessed her infidelity through his first phase.

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