One and a half years later, and flying in the face of the recommendations just a few posts ago to not marathon it...
Star Driver 19-25 (end)
I did this for two reasons: one, of course, is because of the movie announcement. The other is to finally get a sense of closure, since it was the first show I started watching when I began to follow currently airing anime way back in the fall of 2010.
Jumping back into this, I made absolutely no real effort to remind myself of what was actually going on plotwise, relying only on faded memories of the first eighteen episodes. It worked well enough.
Episodes 19-21 were the last dregs of the "fight-of-the-week" formula that was what had been dragging the series down and caused me to drop it back then. Somewhere in there I think they tried to explain the main bad guy's backstory, but with no context it didn't really make much sense. I think I skipped over about 40% of the non-fight scenes here.
Episode 22 was actually really cool and I liked it a lot. The play was creative, funny, good performances all around, and laden with metaphors to the actual show's plot.
Episode 23 was more or less just setup for the final two episodes.
Episode 24 was the first half of the finale and I suppose it was trying to tie together all the main plot threads revealed so far but as I'd forgotten most of them it flew over my head.
Episode 25 was, of course, goddamn amazing and makes me extremely hopeful for what the movie can do with an increased budget and a stricter focus.
Anyway, at least now I have a mental weight off my shoulders and can await February with anticipation, with the movie date coincidentally being almost two years to the date from when I dropped the show.
