Unlike his friends, Takumi Fujiwara is not particularly interested in cars, with little to no knowledge about the world of car enthusiasts and street racers. The son of a tofu shop owner, he is tasked to deliver tofu every morning without fail, driving along the mountain of Akina. Thus, conversations regarding cars or driving in general would only remind Takumi of the tiring daily routine forced upon him.
One night, the Akagi Red Suns, an infamous team of street racers, visit the town of Akina to challenge the local mountain pass. Led by their two aces, Ryousuke and Keisuke Takahashi, the Red Suns plan to conquer every racing course in Kanto, establishing themselves as the fastest crew in the region. However, much to their disbelief, one of their aces is overtaken by an old Toyota AE86 during a drive back home from Akina. After the incident, the Takahashi brothers are cautious of a mysterious driver geared with remarkable technique and experience in the local roads—the AE86 of Mount Akina.
Initial D is a popular franchise spawning a sizeable number of racing games released for arcades, home consoles, handhelds, and PC. The series was also adapted into a live-action movie in 2005, co-produced by Japan's Avex Inc. and Hong Kong's Media Group. While the film deviated considerably from the original story, it was nominated for multiple awards and won many of them, at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards.
I never thought a story about street car racing would be this entertaining. And if I had known what I would be watching when my friend made me watch the first few episodes, I would have said thanks, but no thanks. ...Boy, am I glad I didn't know.
Story: On the surface, it's about a pretty bland high school guy who's got a bunch of car-crazy friends... and turns out to be the 2nd fastest driver in Akina. (Who's first? Ooooh, don't you wanna know?) Below the surface...? Okay, pretty much the same thing. ;) Most of the
&quot;story&quot; is just a bunch of kids in cars racing through dark mountain passes ...or talking about racing through dark mountain passes. I know it doesn't sound interesting if you're not into car races, but it was. There's something about the speed and the pressure and the tension that sucks you into the show. And of course, there's also your normal sports anime type general plot of competition and desire, rising to the challenge, overcoming obstacles, etc.
Art: I have to say, this is the biggest downside of the show. Especially in the first season. Thankfully, by the fourth season, there's a remarkable improvement overall in animation quality. One of the most jarring things is the awkward usage of computer graphics for the racing scenes in the first season. There's kind of an old-school feel to the way the people look and the brightness of the show... and then all of sudden out of no where, there's a cgi car that looks like it's from a different decade than the guy driving it. I don't think I ever got used to that.
Sound: Personally, I always prefer subs to dubs. Here, I would really suggest the subs... the voices for English dub didn't feel anywhere near as &quot;right&quot; as the Japanese actors. Whenever I heard the dub, I felt like the voices made me like the characters less. The downside of watching the sub, however, is the Japanese soundtrack. Maybe it's my close-minded American taste, but I would have preferred hearing the hip-hop on the dub to whatever that was used originally.
Character: The main character, Takumi, was somewhat atypical for this genre, I think, and I liked it. Unlike the normal archetypes like the loser who tries really hard or the cocky natural-born genius, Takumi is sort of actually unique: he doesn't know anything about cars and doesn't even really like driving. It was a nice way for the series to start because I didn't care about street racing when I started the show either. So, even though they toss around a little bit of racing lingo, I was never more behind than the main character was... and, as a viewer, I got a chance to become interested in street racing while Takumi got interested in it. I really liked that his development on the show kind of went down the same road that mine did as a viewer. So I thought they did a great job on his character design and development because his attitude and experience is what hooks you and reels you in to what I assume would be an otherwise complicated and technical world of street racing.
Enjoyment: I think you can tell I enjoyed it, right? I had to make mental notes to slow down while driving for a bit after watching the show. Thankfully, I'm too cowardly to try drifting for real! ...And let me tell you, my Corolla never drove like the 86. ;) I think it was also really appealling because Takumi starts off the show as what seems like a normal, typical driver -- it made me feel like there was an inner Takumi just waiting to be woken up buried somewhere in me. (There's not, unfortunately, but I like to delude myself sometimes.)
Vroom vroom vroom it’s anime’s most popular racing series, Initial D. Initial D stars Takumi Fujiwara, a constantly spaced-out and quiet gas station worker with no hobbies or interests in life. The normally reserved Takumi is forced into the spotlight when his incredible talent for street racing is discovered, honed by years of doing tofu deliveries for his father’s business. Takumi is forcibly encouraged by his coworkers and friends into putting his racing abilities to the test in order to defend Akina’s hometown pride. Takumi, who first considers racing completely uninteresting and cars a bore, gradually discovers the sense of accomplishment and pride his new
skills bring, and he’s even more desperate to prove himself as a racer when his carsick love interest compliments his smooth driving.
Takumi is supported by his best friend and racing fanatic Itsuki, as well as upperclassman and lead racer of the Akina Speed Stars, Iketani. Also important are the opponents Takumi races against, most notably the Takahashi brothers, elite racers whose region-ruling elder brother Takahashi analytically plots to defeat the new unstoppable racer. Initial D’s cast is generally realistic and likeable, with mild yet distinct personality archetypes. Characters are passionate about their hobby and take it seriously, but winning or losing at the sport is hardly considered the end of the world. Takumi’s interest in cars and racing grows at an appropriately slow pace and noticing the nuances of his changed perspective on the subject is rewarding and feels natural, but beyond that little of the cast evolves as people. Takumi’s hobby brings out a competitive spirit in him, but he remains unassertive and distant throughout the season. It’s endearing at first when Takumi is the underdog, his lack of charisma going full circle and becoming genuine charisma when contrasted with his confident opponents, but the small range of his personality gets old. His incompetent relationship with Natsuki is cute and does evolve throughout the show, but is otherwise uninteresting to follow. Natsuki has no involvement with the part of the show having to do with racing, and their chemistry is only supported by the childhood friend angle. I have no idea why Natsuki would be interested in a guy who only gives one word responses, doesn’t start conversations, and has no interests or hobbies, but she’s all over him. The supporting cast is weak because everyone plays diffident comic cheerleader to Takumi. The screeching and melodramatic Itsuki straddles the fine line between endearing and unbelievably annoying, just barely landing on the former because of the few subplots in which his incompetency with racing and people despite his passion garners genuine sympathy from the viewer. Iketani ends up listless outside of a short romantic subplot. He’s supposed to be Akina’s number one racer until Takumi shows up, but what little we see of his driving ability is completely unimpressive and far from knowledgeable about racing compared to the rest of the cast. Takumi is also observed in the shadows by his father Bunta, a former street racer who was legendary in his time, and his boss Yuuichi, an experienced driver and friend of Bunta.
The main attraction of Initial D are the races, but there can be a lot of time between them spent on developing the next opponent, preparation, or comedy/daily life between the main characters. Probably more so than most sports anime. This can occasionally be a drag as the races themselves are never in more than three episodes, with even the final race being a meager two. The anime does assume a fair bit of prior knowledge regarding racing and car terminology on the viewer, and it’s arbitrary which parts are explained and to what detail. I had a particularly problem following the physical logic of the races, where characters would explain how a technique was pulled off but without any kind of visual aid. With little racing knowledge such as myself, hearing about how one of the cars moved by shifting gravity and whatnot seems sensible, but it’s difficult to envision and perfectly understand just through dialogue and the simple racing animations which also makes it harder to appreciate the creativity behind the races and the technique itself.
While the framerate of Initial D can be choppy and there might not be a lot of movement, the art itself is solid and pleasant to look at – for the most part. Many criticize the “fish-like” eyes and lips of the character designs, but they’re meant to resemble original manga artist Shigeno Shuuichi’s art style and it’s distinct otherwise, so I like it. By far the most controversial aspect of Initial D’s animation is its use of computer-generated 3D renders for the cars. CG animation was starting to catch on around this time with many studios believing it was the natural evolution of animation. Initial D’s studios jumped the gun on what was still a niche form of animation and haphazardly shoved it into their series in an attempt to look hip and progressive. The irony, as we know now, is that the CG is immediately the aspect of Initial D that dates it the most. Even though CG was a newer animation form than the cel animation used otherwise, the older form is professionally done by experienced animators and has hit around a universal standard of quality in anime, while the CG is technologically primitive and employed by people who have less experience using it. Initial D’s CG cars are basic models that lack texture to give them a realistic surface and have bold, flat colors that contrast heavily with the surrounding environment of 2D animation. So the animation styles clash, look ugly, and break the series cohesion, but what else?
Initial D’s studios also use the CG as an excuse to cut corners (as is often the case with CG ever since). One of the most noticeable things about scenes with CG in the frames is that the 2D cels they’re on will be completely unanimated. Not only is this awkward if you take the time to notice how everyone and everything in the background is as still as a tree as a car pulls up, but any attempts to mask this lack of moving frames is hilariously embarrassing. A constant technique used is to have a CG car pass in front of a group of people in the background, such as driving across a road horizontally, and then have that still frame of spectators swapped another single frame of them looking in the other direction. Cheap animation has been a part of anime since its inception, but not often will you find a 90s anime that reminds you of Astro Boy of all things. And It really is laziness – I can count on one hand the amount of times the series has 2D animation in the same frame as CG animation, but they can clearly do it. There are also occasional instances of disproportional scales and perspective, where a person standing by a car is way bigger than they should be given their distance. Use of CG also discourages use of traditional animation techniques to emphasize a sense of speed. There’s no motion lines, blur, or anything of that sort to drive that sense of whiplash in your face.
This makes the way the races are directed and portrayed far duller than they have to be, or should be. Without such things as those traditional techniques noted earlier there are no ways to distinguish how fast the cars are going in the animation other than speeding up the rate at which the CG model is dragged across the screen, which could look ridiculous. The visual dynamic of the races is extremely hindered in this way, as the cars going across the screen looks the same no matter how many times they do it throughout the series. This means the drama and intensity of the races is primarily conveyed to the viewer literally, by characters commenting on what’s happening during the race or the sense of speed. But the audience should feel like a front row spectator, not needing to have it explained to them in a visual medium about racing what the stakes are or what the rhythm of the race is. The visuals should shift throughout the races to mimic the adrenaline rush and conflicts of the drivers themselves and recreate the dramatic perspective of what the characters are experiencing, rather than have it delivered in such a plain, flavorless manner that it doesn’t sell the intensity of the race but instead dilutes it by having it conflict with the excitement of the literal narrative as delivered through the dialogue. This is, without a doubt, the weakest part of Initial D. The CG cars are not cute or endearing, nor do they simply look aesthetically unappealing as they clash with the primary animation style. The real issue is that they’re an active detriment to the very core purpose of the series, that are used to circumvent positive direction and animation techniques that would make the series more exciting. The studios didn’t have the ambition to take Initial D to the level it should have been and the most important part of the show, the races, suffer greatly for it. Basically, watch Redline and note the masterful ways it manipulates the motion of its animation to emphasize fluidity and speed and notice how none of them are used in Initial D. Even noting the fact that Redline is a blatant fantasy while Initial D is more grounded, that’s no excuse why a series in that vein can’t attempt more tactful use of such techniques to push the action without crossing the line into absurdity. If it’s not even going to try any of that, then what’s the point of animating?
I’m definitely interested in the future of Initial D. While storytelling progress in this first season has been leisurely at best, it hasn’t paused for long enough to give me the impression that Initial D has reached its full potential. Shuuichi Shigeno seems to realize the basics of having to introduce twists to keep the races interesting, and as he should predictably become more desperate he’ll hopefully bring more dramatic and significant deviations to the formula. This is all presumption though, as it still depends on Shigeno’s intelligence and ambition to take Initial D to the next level. Improvements in directing and animation could also be a major help. Though Initial D is a lukewarm thriller so far, there are enough hints of promise to keep me curious in where it could go so I’ll probably watch to its completion. A street racing anime is a fine concept, but it hasn’t come close to full throttle.
I just finished this series and I KNEW I had to review it right away! Holy shit this series was a trip! Initial D is a series that everyone has heard of, but not as many people have actually watched it. It's not in the top 600 most viewed series on MAL, yet it's somehow so famous that non-anime fans know about it. We all know it's that racing anime with the CHEESIEST OST in existence that spawned all those memes. It's also one of the only pre-2000 series in the MAL top 250. The others are all series like Rose of Versailles, Galactic Heroes,
Ashita no Joe, Evangelion. All of them are very serious, artsy kind of shows considered the crème de la crème of elitist anime...and then there's Initial D for some reason. Let me tell you straight up that this show does NOT fit in with those others. Initial D is dumb, DUMB anime and never tries to hide that for a second!
Why is this anime so glorious stupid? Oh my God, where do we even start? How about our main character, Takumi Fujiwara. He's an average high school kid who works a part-time job at the local gas station and doesn't have much ambition in life. He gets poor grades, has no real plans besides inheriting his dad's tofu shop and is a very spacey, sleepy looking guy. Oh and for some reason he's the best rally driver to ever live! His dad was a great street racer and he's been forcing Takumi to deliver groceries early in the morning since he was 14. That's all the explanation we get. He's the best driver in the world and instinctively knows how to pull off physics defying drifts and drive 140 MPH around corners because he's been delivering groceries in the morning for 2 years. It's like Saitama's explanation of his powers from One Punch Man, only Initial D isn't a comedy! Well, not intentionally anyways.
If you thought Kirito from SAO was OP, you haven't seen NOTHIN! In the first couple episodes, we find out that Takumi's buddies at the gas station have a local street racing team and they're horrible. They drag Takumi into racing for them and he instantly beats one of the best drivers in Japan. Takumi doesn't even know what model car he drives! He doesn't give a shit about racing. He just assumed he's an average driver and everyone in the world drove around corners at 140 MPH because he drives in the early morning and somehow has never seen anyone else drive. Yes...that's really the dumbass explanation the show goes with! This feels like an average shonen so far. Now Takumi will meet his first rival and lose for the first time right? NOPE! Takumi doesn't lose in all of season 1. He just smokes everyone for 26 episodes! It gets even better! He's driving a worse car than every one of his opponents! Takumi wins using a fucking Toyota Corolla! If Takumi was using a good car, he would have won every race in season 1 like Secretariat at the Belmont! This shit goes on for 7 seasons and he's already the best driver in Japan at the end of season 1! When I was watching the last episode I was in complete disbelief. SURELY this is where he loses. There's no way this show would be stupid enough to...OH MY GOD! I laughed so fucking hard. I LOVE this show!
You might think that Initial D is just another sports shonen, but you quickly learn there is something a little "off" about this series. Here's a fun example. Takumi's girlfriend is a whore. I mean she's literally an underaged whore, but Takumi is so spacey and thickheaded that he never figures out he's getting cucked by half the town. Eventually Takumi finds out and confronts the issue, but that's not until about 30 volumes deep into the manga and after readers kept incessantly sending letters to the mangaka to address it. Why is that a part of this story if the mangaka never intended to write drama and wanted to focus on fast cars like he's said in interviews? Did he just think it was funny? Why?! Here's another example. There's this racer chick who tells one of Takumi's stupid friends that she'll sleep with him if he can convince Takumi to race her. After Takumi races her and utterly destroys her, she tells the buddy to meet her at 8 for sex. He gets stuck in traffic and she becomes frustrated and drives off. This sub-plot never resolves. The racing chick never gets back together with Takumi's buddy and the buddy as far as we know remains a virgin for the rest of the 48 volumes! Who in the FUCK writes like this?! Another time, Takumi finds a date for this other super obnoxious friend and she leaves him the next episode. That sub-plot also is never resolved. Why does this series keep taunting us with these romances and then jerking back at the last minute?
Initial D is a seinen series. The Western equivalent would be like a Vertigo graphic novel. Something like Watchmen or Sandman. This is intended primarily for college students. You would expect that a sports drama for college students and older would take itself at least kind of seriously if it's not trying to be a raunchy comedy. Initial D is not here to play by the rules of your pathetic human logic! This is a series where an evil racer wins by forcing his opponents to crash at high speeds. Yet nobody ever gets seriously injured or dies in this series. He forces Takumi to race him by minorly injuring several of his friends in quick succession, because this show isn't even written at shonen level. It's written like bad professional wrestling! Takumi accepts the challenge and starts winning. Even though they're playing in a "Super Gum Gum Death Match" where you have to tie your left hand to the wheel. This is straight up some Yugioh Season Zero bullshit! What does the bad guy do? He attempts to kamikaze ram Takumi and kill them both rather than lose! Takumi dodges with a physics defying drift and the bad guy rams into the guard rail on a mountain pass at over 90 MPH. The bad guy gets some minor scrapes, but is perfectly fine. This series actually operates on "George of the Jungle" logic! "Nobody is allowed to die in this story, just get really big boo boos!"
The OST is most famous aspect of Initial D and it lives up to its reputation. High energy, disco Eurotrash all the way. You know how everyone on Rateyourmusic says they only enjoy Radiohead, Bob Dylan and Richard Wagner? This music is so tasteless I think those guys would react to it like the Nazis when Indiana Jones opens the Arc of Covenant. I have an offline buddy whose favorite band is Eiffel 65 and even he might be embarrassed to blast this shit in the car! I loved every second of it!
The cars are CGI and this is 1998, so gird your expectations. For the time though, it actually looked REALLY good! What doesn't look so great is the character art. Not only does it often feature those huge lips that I hate in anime, but half the male cast looks way too similar. Well it's a 90s anime, who cares if a few background characters look similar? No, I mean the main character looks similar enough to 2 other rivals that I had to do a double take a couple times. Wait was that Takumi?! Ok, yeah it was.
I know I spent this entire review just kicking the shit out of it, but I actually did love Initial D. This is the perfect guilty pleasure anime! It's gloriously dumb, but ceaselessly entertaining for 26 episodes! I can't count how many times I cheered when Takumi drifted into the lead accompanied by cheesy Eurobeat. It's wonderful! Simply wonderful! I highly recommend you watch this shit!
I like watching sports anime. People who know me and have accepted the fact that I am a hardcore couch-potato find this hilarious. But the irony doesn't end there. I am a member of minority who does not possess a driving license nor has the faintest clue about driving.
After my Yawara "Brain-Imploding-Annoyance-Rage" I was rather desperate. There were very few sports animes left I hadn't watched yet. And I was - still am actually, I can't take bludgeoned faces!- digging my heels in not to watch Hajime no Ippo.
Barring any alternatives I gave in to desperation and started watching Initial D though in
my couch potato opinion Street-Car-Racing is no sport.
The art took some getting used to. Every time I saw one of those "fish-on-land-gasping-for-air" mouths I just wanted to smash my fist into it. But then pretty soon something weird happened. I got sucked into the Takumi-Bunta duo.
The story itself is nothing world-moving; the synopsis tells it perfectly accurate.
Like ParaParaJMo says, this anime's hook for me was and is Takumi. He is not only a reluctant hero, but rather a lethargic hero. He breaths, he talks and he walks and he helps out his father with the tofu shop by driving out the goods but driving, it is a chore, that must be done. His heart is not in it. It is not that he is lazy but he has no passion nor any direction in life. Enter the "woman" and the rock starts rolling.
God knows, I would have been as much interested if not more if this was Bunta's -Takumi's father- story, because Bunta is a character like Hiruma & Co (Eyeshield 21). He does things with a purpose even if the main character doesn't have the dream of a clue why. In that manner, Bunta started his son on driving 5 years ago, when he was barely out of diapers and from what we understand he was a strict master. And the fruits of that are now very visible in Takumi.
I like an anime if I like the characters. I have watched and liked animes, anime-lovers would diss. I watch sports animes; yet I barely know the rules of any of the sports; just because I like the characters. The characters here grew on me too. Well most of them anyway. And in Itsuki's case (Takumi's best friend) it was rather like fungus. The development and growth of the characters drives the story on. Even though it is a repeated plot reel, - there is a challenge, Takumi drives, Takumi wins- weirdly it never gets old and you find yourself engaged time and again.
The music is just awesome. It had me wiggling around on my couch so much so that I had a b.tt-print on it every time I watched it.
I would have enjoyed it to the max if the female folk wasn't in there. And that is my only gripe about this anime. Honestly, I think the Mangaka needed to get laid really bad, or may be I am too outlandish but the female folk of this anime is just horrendous. Here is a summary of the female cast in this anime
Takumi's first love interest: A teenage prostitute. Literally. Also rather "I haven't exposed myself in the last 30 seconds so let me show you my panties" type. Color me stiff but if my girlfriend is ok with showing her panties to my father, I'd be rather "peeved"!
Mako: a challenger, also a love interest to Iketani, one of Takumi's friends/Sempai; here is what she says to Iketani: If you make the race happen between me and Takumi I will sleep with you.
Kyoko, a love interest to Keisuke: 3 Seconds after she sees him, he is her "Darling" and she is a whiny, clingy, .... something.
Oh and the mother is not even mentioned.
The art does get better, And by that I mean, thank God they do lose their utmost annoying fish mouths. And the girls are not always there so my annoyance was kept in check, which is why Initial D gets 9 Enjoyment points and 8 overall.
I recommend trying out Initial D. And extend the 3 episode rule to 4 if you are still undecided because Takumi doesn't officially race before the 4th episode. Initial D is worth at least that much of your time.
Do you know what was the first Racing anime series? Or the first Ninja anime series? What about the first Real Robot series to be aired? In this article, we’ll be looking at 10 of the first anime series of the different genres we have in anime today.