Alternative TitlesSynonyms: ID Japanese: 頭文字〈イニシャル〉D
Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 26
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Apr 19, 1998 to Dec 6, 1998
Duration:
25 min. per episode Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
L represents licensing company
StatisticsScore: 8.161 (scored by 11802 users)
Ranked: #3132
Popularity: #657
Members: 18,813
Favorites: 424 1 indicates a weighted score
My Info
Popular Tags
cars drama racing sports |
SynopsisHigh school student Takumi Fujiwara works as a gas station attendant during the day and a delivery boy for his father's tofu shop during late nights. Little does he know that his precise driving skills and his father's modified Toyota Sprinter AE86 Trueno make him the best amateur road racer on Mt. Akina's highway. Because of this, racing groups from all over the Gunma prefecture issue challenges to Takumi to see if he really has what it takes to be a road legend.
(Source: ANN) |
Related AnimeAdaptation: Initial D
Sequel: Initial D Second Stage
Summary: Initial D: Project D to the Next Stage - Project D e Mukete
Characters & Voice Actors
Staff
Reviews
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GeekCritic89
15 of 19 people found this review helpful
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26 of 26 episodes seen
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| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
10 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
You know, it's hard for a lot of anime staff members nowadays to come up with something different and new for an anime. The types of animes that we mostly see are mechas that deals with political issues, animes that involves competitions whether it's spinning tops, cards or monsters, and some slice of life animes that deals with the ups and downs of a romantic couple. Now granted, Japan will come up with an original anime every now and then. But it's is never easy to do that. And most of the times, the animes that we are so used to nowadays as I described can be really fun to watch. But sometimes, it wears off some anime fans because we seen those kinds of animes 100 times before. Well back in 1998, there was one particular anime that was different from many animes at that time. And that anime I'm talking about is Initial D: First Stage.
It's an anime that involves import street racing and if you think about it, there's really not a lot of animes that center on this subject. And it's a pretty good anime overall. But many anime fans weren't even aware of the anime's existence at the time. Maybe because anime was still in the underground route and import street racing wasn't really popular in the late 90's. That is until we reached the 2000's when we had movies like the Fast & The Furious trilogy and some video games like Need for Speed Underground, it's sequels and the Midnight Club franchise that brought the import racing world to the popularity at where it's at today.
Initial D centers on a character named Takumi Fujiwara, who is a high school student that works at a gas station in the daytime and works as a tofu delivery boy from a tofu shop run by his father at night. But little does he know that he has some really good skills in him with his father's vechicle which would lead him to be one of the best amateur race car drivers. But, he doesn't give a crap about the whole racing stuff. Until one night when Takumi was making a delivery, he drove next to one of the racers named Keisuke Takahashi, who's part of a team called the Red Suns. Both characters have gotten themselves into this mini-race until Takumi beats Keisuke. Keisuke wants to find out who is this mysterious driver that beaten him and decides to do a rematch with him. So Keisuke finds out that the driver that beaten him is Takumi, gets all shocked because he couldn't believe that a teenager has beaten him, they race again for real and Takumi beats Keisuke again. And because of that, a racer in certain teams around Japan want to held races and race against Takumi so that they could find out if he is really that excellent of a driver. And that's the story of Initial D.
The story may not be very deep. But it is a very solid and fun story for a sports anime. And it's quite surprising if you will. Because when you think of an anime like this where it deals with import racing, you may be thinking to yourself that you will not get hooked into this because of the concept. I was a little skeptic about this myself and I know I'm not alone on this. And once I got to experience the execution of Initial D, I find it to be very entertaining and I always find myself on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what will happen next. And this is coming from someone that isn't really the biggest gear head on the planet. So bottom line, the story in this anime works quite well.
There is a good number of characters in Initial D and pretty much they are pretty likeable and all get some solid development. I don't think many people will get a big kick out of Takumi because he does lack charisma. But I don't mind that because he has his own personality that is something I could deal with and not to mention that he is quite a monster when he gets his hands on the sterring whell, which gives him kind of a cold-hearted personality if you will. So, I do like Takuma.
The rest of the characters are also solid. Characters like Iketani, Bunta, the Takahashi Brothers and Itsuki are all enjoyable and they do a good job for serving a point in the anime. The one character that I don't care for, however, is Mogi Natsuki. She is the love interest for Takumi and she seems to be only there just for the sake of having a love interest. Though romance doesn't really play much of a big part in Initial D to begin with. But that doesn't necessarly mean that Takumi and Natsuki's love relationship is bad. In fact, it's good and decently well developed. It's not great, but it's not bad. But there are 2 other particular love interests that are very under-developed and they are the weakiest part of the anime, which brings me to a question: If the staff did a ok job for the love triangle for Takumi and Natsuki, why couldn't they put some effort into the 2 love interests? Now like I said, Initial D isn't meant to be a romance anime by any means. But, it something that bugs me.
Since this anime centers on street racing, you will see a good number of street racing scenes in this anime, drift racing scenes to be specific, and they are quite fun to watch. There is never a moment where I find a race scene to be boring or anything. I was pretty well entertained by watching those races.
The art and animation is different for an anime. The manga artist, Shuuichi Shigeno, has a very weird and different way of drawing his characters. And the character designs in the anime is something that most people are probably not going to like very much. To me, it is a bit weird but it's something that I can get used to because I don't find the weirdness of the character's designs to be a serious flaw in the anime. The backgrounds look great and the animation is spot-on. The races are all rendered in CG. For an anime released in 1998, it does look quite good. I mean if you were compare it to the CG that we have today, it's not that awesome looking. But compare to any anime that had CG in the 80's and 90's, it definitely looks a lot better then some animes at the time that did use CG. One example being Golgo 13: The Professional.
I do have some problems that deals with 2 particular character designs. First, what is the whole always eyes-closed thing in animes. The only character that has that is Takumi's father, Bunta. His eyes are always closed in the anime. He never opens them and this is a cliche that you will see in animes, mainly old-school ones since not a whole lot of animes from the last decade had this kind of cliche. But anyway, that bothers me because seriously how can you tell what you are doing if you have eyes closed 24/7?
Also, this anime is inaccurate for one character design. There is a character in the anime named Mako Satou, who is a girl that Iketani had a crush on and was one of the racers that Takumi raced against. In the anime, her color was brown. But if you watch the first intro to the show and look at Mako's character design, you could tell that her hair color in that intro is way off in comparision to what her hair color is the actual anime. I don't understand how the anime staff got away with that. But aside from those 2 issues, the art and animation is great.
The sound in Initial D is quite good. The soundtrack consists of techno and eurobeat tracks that really fits to the anime's action very, very well. The first opening and ending theme's by the Japanese band M.O.V.E. are very fun to listen to. However, my feelings for the second opening and ending theme are different. The second opening theme is also done by M.O.V.E. and it's an ok song. But, I felt that it didn't have that snap and catchyness that the song in the first opening theme had. As for the second ending theme by JRock band, Galla, is a good song. But, it feels out of place for a soundtrack in an anime that's consists of dance tracks. But that's my opinion. But overall, I love the music in Initial D.
Now, there are 3 dub versions of Initial D. There's the original japanese dub, the original english dub which is known as the Tokyopop dub and the new Funimation dub. I only saw this anime in japanese and the japanese voice acting is top notch. I never bothered seeing the Tokyopop dub and I refuse to experience that dub. Why? Because that version caused quite a few major edits in the anime. Like changing the names of the characters, giving them some slang in their dialogue like the word "slammin" for example and the eurobeat soundtrack was replaced with rock music.
All I gotta say is why the hell would you do that? Why would you amercanize an anime, making it urban like, so that american audiences would enjoy it since they liked Fast and the Furious. It would've been a lot better if you were to just dub it normally. There is no point in doing something like that. As for the soundtrack, I say it's completely stupid that you had to changed the soundtrack that way. And why? What is so bad about eurobeat music? I really like rock music, don't get me wrong. And a lot of times rock music can be done well in racing video games because a lot of racing games use rock music in their soundtracks. But, again why? It's both stupid and pointless for anyone to do that. Even if that dub has some english voice actors that I like include Crispin Freeman, Dave Wittenberg and Steve Blum, I still will not watch the Tokyopop dub because of it's edits.
Funimation has redubbed and re-released this anime last year and from what I've heard, they even brought back the eurobeat soundtrack that was in the japanese dub. Kudos to Funimation for making a great move like that.
All in all, Initial D: First Stage is a fun and engaging anime that anime fans should enjoy. What makes this anime works is it's story, characters, the races, it's visual presentation and it's excellent soundtrack. And all that stuff makes Initial D a great anime to add in your collection. It's certainly not perfect, because it does have problems regarding aspects of some of it's characters and some parts technically like some of it's character designs and some of the songs. But regardless of those things, it's still a great anime to watch. And if you are into the whole street racing stuff or if you want to see something different in an anime, then this is something that you should check out. This anime also has a bunch of sequels and even a live-action movie. But I haven't seen any of them yet, though I will get into them eventually.
But overall in my own rating, I give Initial D: First Stage a 4 out of 5. read more
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lowell
53 of 71 people found this review helpful
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26 of 26 episodes seen
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| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Animation |
6 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
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 "story" 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 "right" 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.) read more
Recommendations
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Both series feature seemingly ordinary protagonists, that is until you put them behind the wheel of a car. Both series are about racing tuner cars during the nighttime. Both feature a very similar art style, although Wangan is more refined in this aspect. Pacing is the same with both series starting out slowly, but gaining momentum in the later episodes. Both series spend a lot of time focused on the cars themselves, treating them as a part of the main cast.
Bottom line is if you liked one, then you'll like the other. And if you hated one then you'll most likely hate the other. I recommend both series only to those into cars.
Both are Based on Street-Racing, But Initial D is based on Mountain Drifting and Wangan Midnight is Based on Motorway Street-Racing.
Both are racing anime and have plenty of recognizable cars.
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Capeta has a younger feel to it than Initial D, but both are your competitive/sports animes about racing. Capeta drives a go cart and Takumi is a street racer, but they have similar themes about skill vs equipment and the meld of man and machine. The main difference is probably attitude: Capeta has a blue collar, constant struggle feel to it (like Hajime no Ippo) and Initial D is much more of a diamond waiting to be polished (like Major).
Both of these series have to do with racing.
Initial D is more of a street racing series.
Racing through a mountain course that consists of both a drifting style and grip style, though this series leans more of a drifting theme.
Capeta is more of an official racing series.
Racing on a track that starts with go-karts to gp2 racing vehicles. This series leans more on a grip style racing that shows the path of starting from go-karting to F1(formula one) racing league.
all in all, both of these series have to do with racing technique and contain racing theory here and there.
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Opening Theme#1: "Around the World" by Move (eps 1-19)
#2: "Break in 2 the Nite" by Move (eps 20-26)
Ending Theme#1: "Rage Your Dream" by Move (eps 1-14)
#2: "Kiseki no Hana (Flower of Miracles)" by Galla (eps 15-26)
Fansubbing Groups
Which fansubbers do you like the best? Click + to approve of their subs for this show. Click - if you don't think they did such a great job.
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