Initial D - First Stage

6 reviews - 19.5 total score (Explanation of the rating system)
avg. score: (3.3)

Creator - Shuichi Shigeno
Director - Noboru Mitsusawa

6. Cross Scars

With the Fourth Stage anime now being released I'm a little behind the times in reviewing this original installment in the Initial D saga. If I had to sum up the series in one sentence it would have to be something like what the first reviewer here implied - it's Dragonball Z with cars. As odd as that may sound it's a pretty accurate representation of what you get with Initial D. The races between cars last multiple episodes and even longer is spent building up to the duel.

By associating a series with Dragonball Z any seasoned otaku is likely to instantly look away in disgust. Yet Initial D in my mind is still a decent series. It's obvious from the start whether you're going to like the series or not. Either you'll get into the over the top races or you'll just think the whole thing rather sad. Personally I find Initial D entertaining and that's about it. The characters are obviously rather flat and one-dimensional. The main romance is unfortunately rather similar although admittedly that's not fully concluded in this first installment. None the less, the races themselves are still fun provided you don't take them too seriously. Given the utterly cheesy Eurobeat soundtrack to the anime (another love it or hate it factor) it's quite difficult to do that. The animation looks especially dated when compared to what the more recent Stages of Initial D look like but I doubt that'll detract from a fan's enjoyment of the series.

The very fact that this is an anime about car racing should be enough to tell people whether it's a series for them. My own thoughts are that Initial D is a fun series, if cars are your thing, and nothing else. Just don't expect anything more.

5. Jin

Initial D is all about the cars and music. Forget everything you know about story, artwork, or characters. Initial D really accomplishes none of those in at least some form of mediocrity fashion. Initial D follows the racing life of Takumi, the main character, during a summer after school.

The story basically follows a monotonous path of races and even more predictable story. At times in the story I was really thinking hard of something else to happen instead of what I knew would happen. Also the car races were so predictable in what was going to happen. There may have been some drama points but the main thing that would keep you watching is to see how a race ends rather than wanting to see what the actual outcome of the race is since the outcome is predictable. There was even a whole romance subplot thrown in there. Unfortunately it really failed to grasp any noticing since everything was so heavily focused on the races.

The animation was pretty bad. The character designs were at best mediocre and some of the characters were just plain ugly. Itsuki being one character that sorely sticks out in your mind that needs a total redesign of character. If the bad character designs were intentional for him I don't know. But the artists could have made it just a bit more appealing. Also there were tons of reused cells and images along with pretty barren and dead background images.

The characters were some of the most dead characters in an anime I've ever seen. They really had no life to them and in all honesty you'd probably care more about the cars than the characters. Even with a lot of camera time on Takumi and his friends they seemed lifeless and rather dull. They were also very shallow for the most part. They loved their cars more than the other characters themselves. After a car accident I don't see how it's possible for someone to worry more about the car instead of your self.

But let's get on to the good points. The cars they used, while really really outdated, at least looked somewhat decent and really perked up interest for me as a car enthusiast and lover. I'm not sure about all the logical points behind an old 86 beating something like a GTR-32 or an RX-7 unless you went through some really serious suping, which even then doesn't make sense since both cars were suped, but if you can ignore all logical reasoning behind that and focus just on car techniques then the cars are definitely interesting. Another plus is the use of the Euro-beat music applied in the anime. I think it fit perfectly and fit the whole racing idea. The other point it gets for being good is that it's probably the only anime that attends to car enthusiasts and lovers. At least it was something different and could attend to one part of the anime fans out there.

Final judgment: Worth a look if you like cars or Euro-beat and don't mind seeing some bizarre car races that defy all logic. But if you're not into that you should skip over this anime.

4. h8er13

I've seen all of Initial D, but I didn't think there was much difference between seasons. The soundtrack is a raver's dream, I suppose, since it's mostly all techno. The character design wasn't a huge turn on though. Car aficionados will like this series because of the Lancer Evo's (the earlier generations, which I considered looked the best...much better than the Evo 8 that is in America). There's a Skyline GTR, a Silvia, and yes, the Trueno. Many people believe it's quite impossible for a Trueno to defeat an RX-7 in a mountain drift race. However, a Trueno was once considered one of the best drifting cars out there. The American version is called the Toyota Corolla, so some may think that's a bit odd. Anyway, Tsuchiya Keichi, Japan's drift king and his name is even mentioned once or twice in this anime, once defeated a Lancer Evo using a Trueno, but it was just a demonstration, not an official race or anything professional. This anime is, like many, a story of the unknown underdog gaining all the fame and glory and recognition in the end. Again though, this is a racing anime, with emphasis on drifting, not on speed or power, but technique. Fun to watch, but a bit melodramatic at times.

3. Olmanek

Anybody who knows anything about cars would be very disgruntled by the idea of an 8-6 beating an R32 GTR, unless of course the driver of the GTR was 10 or so years old utterly inexperienced and blindfolded, and Michael Schumacher was in the 8-6, even then it'd be close. But, on the same note, anybody well versed on the capabilities of the human body, would probably view most anime with contempt and morbid fascination, -I'm not just being cynical I do have a point, and that point is-, if you do happen to have an extensive knowledge of cars, you'll have to let go of your apprehension to reject reality and general capabilities of machines, otherwise you may as well avoid this series unless of course you enjoy being angry. I'm a cynic, but I try not to be, I watched this series with a bunch of friends and we sat there criticizing every scrutable moment of this series, with their being an unnatural abundance of these, it's not hard to pick up that this series is flawed, some say that the imperfections of something is what make it classic, these people are pretentious fools who latch onto clichéd sayings and try to pass them off as original words of wisdom, avoid them and their beliefs at all costs, you are not here to watch this series because you want it to be brilliant or because it looks good, you watch it initially because you are bored and enjoy anime, you then keep watching it for various reasons; novelty value, as a good way to take out cynicism, because of some morbid fascination, or if you're a jaded otaku as a way to think to yourself "Wow, this sure makes Love Hina look like a masterpiece" thus helping to justify your irrational like of that series.

2. The Boss

Fujiwara Takumi is an 18 years old boy who works at his fathers place delivering tofu by night at the Akina mountain, and works at a gas station after school. Akina Speed Stars is a local racing team which gets challenged by another team named Redsuns. A training battle erupts and it’s oblivious for the local team that they can’t match the Redsuns driving skills. Keisuke who is second place in the Redsuns is one of the last Redsuns members to leave the Akina mountain as most of the drivers have gone home because of the time. However Takumi with his tuned 86 meets up with Keisuke on the downhill after completing his tofu delivery. Soon after a private battle erupts where Takumi wins and leaves Keisuke completely surprised. Initial D has all its races animated in 3D CGI which is nice to look at. Add the cool blazing techno beat that’s the highlight of the show and you’ll get an experience you never had before. My only really complaint is the character design which is ugly to look at and takes time to get used to.

1. cron

Yo! Here we go... and so the series starts with a techno beat that's the highlight of the show. Initial D takes place in the shadow of Akina mountain following a high school student Takumi Fujiwara. Takumi is an 18 year old sleepy student that just got his license a few months ago but has been driving secretly delivering tofu for his fathers story every morning in the wee early hours. During this time Takumi has become faster and faster at driving the Akina pass and so fast that he beats a famous racer and becomes drawn into the world of street racing. The story plays out the traditional mistaken identity, good vs evil, David and Goliath, and Pretty Woman clichés, it's good with high points in character development. The car "battles" or races play out like DragonBall Z (they are dragged out over like 2-3 episodes) but are usually entertaining and fast paced. Animation.. God the character design is awful (look at their freaking mouths) and the 3D CGI car animation is decent. What makes the series in my mind is the combination with the music, a good plot, some fun character development ("Don't stand close to me...they might think we're friends"), and the absolutely amazing detail and time spent in the technical side of cars. Summary, very fun to watch and it hooks you.. but don't expect an amazing series.