EX-DRIVER

DESCRIPTION

CAST

OVA ActioneX-Driver: Nina & Rei Danger Zone
MOVIE AdventureeX-Driver the Movie

REVIEWS

• 

  MutexFate

  70/100
  The only anime to ever touch upon automated cars and their issues. Unfortunately, it was a short comedy OVA series.

  éX-Driver is one of those anime that is fading away into obscurity as time goes on. Which is really unfortunate since it's very a unique anime with an interesting idea. An idea that I had hoped that newer similar shows could expand or explore more deeply, due to it's huge potential and similarities with our real world technologies.

  Anyways, regarding the plot of éX-Driver, there is no real major storyline in this series. Rather, the series is mostly episodic barring the final two episodes. The general premise is that, in the distant future A.I controlled cars or fully automated cars have become the norm. As a result, most of the people don't drive the cars themselves. But, there are still a few people around the world who are able to drive the older non-A.I cars. And these people are collectively known as the éX-Drivers. The éX-Drivers job primarily is to stop any A.I car that has gone haywire and stop it from running around wildly. And this is achieved through certain interesting techniques.

  While the éX-Drivers are present all over the world, the series mostly focuses on the team present in Japan. Which consists of three High/Mid-Schoolers Lorna Endō, Lisa Sakakino and Sōichi Sugano. And yes, anybody can become a éX-Driver as long as they have the necessary skills. Age is a non-factor here.

  All the three main characters have their own personalities and quirks. So, they are somewhat unique and have some depth towards them and not just too bland. And, there are some character developments between the main characters. Especially between Lisa and Sōichi as they grow, respect and accept each other as the series progresses. The character development or depth is nothing too great or interesting but it gets the job done for a short OVA series.

  While the series is essentially about the daily life of these three characters and how they work together to stop some A.I vehicle that has gone haywire. The series also lightly touches upon Automated and A.I technologies and how they can be useful in solving problems such as traffic congestion or collisions. But, at the same time it reminds us that nothing is perfect and how technology can be misused. And, unfortunately, I think this is the biggest weakness of this show. The show never really goes in depth about the concepts and ideas it showcases in the show. The series could have been much more interesting if it went in more detailed regarding the ideas it presented or at least explored further on the issues related to these concepts.

  Regarding the art and animation, the series is mostly decent looking for the most part. All the characters are for the most part consistently drawn. One thing I like about the series is that the cars are all hand drawn and not 3D CGI. And, most of the cars are also drawn fairly detailed for the most part. The animation is also fairly decent nothing too spectacular but nothing too bad either. Although, I did find the animation for the episode with the Ducati Bike to be one of my favorites from the series and also being noteworthy. It's a shame though, the éX-Drivers movie didn't employ hand drawn cars but rather went with the 3D CGI. Anyways, the the art and animation for the 6-episode OVA series is similar to other decently animated 90's anime (or basically before the shift to digipaint ).

  As for the soundtrack, I particularly enjoyed it and thought it suited the show well. It gets the job done. But, it was nothing to noteworthy.

  Overall, I think the show is good for what it was made to be. But, because of that it limited itself in becoming something more interesting and solid. And, the sad thing is that there are no other series yet that have used this as a platform to expand and develop the concept further. Anyways, If you enjoyed the series and want more then don't forget to also check out the Movie and the special episode. Otherwise, you can skip them since they don't really add much to the series.

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• 

  megafat

  46/100
  A series that doesn't really live up to it's potential.

  When I saw that this series was written by Kosuke Fujishima, author of the "Oh My Goddess!" and "You're Under Arrest", being a fan of "You're Under Arrest" and hearing good things about "Oh My Goddess!", I became interested in checking it out. After seeing that it wasn't as popular as his other works, I went into eX-Driver with moderately set expectations that I would get at least some entertainment out of the six episodes. And after watching it, I can easily see why this wasn't as popular or well remembered as his other works.

  Set at some point in the 22nd century, people no longer drive cars themselves, instead relying on an artificial intelligence to drive for them. But when the AI systems in these cars started malfunctioning, causing the cars to lose control, a team called eX-Drivers (or eX-D for short) are formed, driven by actual drivers, chase down the cars that have gone crazy. I don't know why the group of people who actually drive cars are the ones called eX-Drivers, but whatever.

  The series follows three such eX-Drivers, Lorna, Lisa, and new addition to the group, Soichi. Soichi is the youngest of the group at 12 years old, and the other two are in their teens. I imagine that making them younger was to appeal to a younger audience, and I don't really mind having three kids as the main characters, but it just raises questions to me, like how does a 12 year get a license, especially for such a dangerous job. But I'm guessing this is going off of Pokemon rules, and that's how the series universe works, and the characters never actually get into any serious danger.

  EX-Driver does bring up some neat concepts to explore, such as an underground mentioned in the first episode where characters have a boost button in their car and have modified the cars programming, and later in the series, there are characters with gasoline cars that can't be tracked by the same system as the AI cars and are off the grid. It would have been neat if the series explored this stuff, but unfortunately due to it being only 6 episodes, it never really gets to do that.

  And that's not taking into account other stuff that it could have brought up. Is there no one would doesn't trust the automated systems of the cars, and even cites statistics of AI failures, or at least talks about all of the news stories of failing AI as a reason to not have an AI car? Or even just dislikes the idea in general, based purely on personal preference. What about people who simply can't afford the AI cars, or simply don't care about what car they drive, and just want a way of getting to where they're going? And I'm pretty sure there are car enthusiasts out there who would want to drive, tune, and build their own cars, or just want to buy and deal with classic cars.

  There could have even been an episode where the characters didn't have access to cars, like being stranded somewhere where they didn't have access to the system, or being forced to take a break since the job is clearly stressing them out, and it ends up being a bonding experience. There was enough here for it to expand out to a 12-episode series at least, but unfortunately we got stuck with what we have.

  All of these could have been good ideas for episodes, and could have easily broken up the monotony of the series.

  Which is unfortunate, because the series clearly shows off Kosuke Fujishima's love of cars, and by extension, motorcycles, and it seems like such a wast to not let him use his love of said vehicles and let him stretch his creativity a bit. If this couldn't have been continued as an anime, it would have been nice to see Kosuke continue it as a manga at least.

  The only interesting thing about this series is just how predictive of self-driving cars it was. But since it never goes that in-depth with the concept either, so there's no real reason to watch the series based on that alone.

  While eX-Driver is nowhere near the worst thing that I've watched, I doubt that anyone is clamoring for a re-release, but I'm pretty sure that Discotek might pick it up at some point. Unless this get some sort of new series that actually expands on the concepts of the series, I can't really recommend it.

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