Ranked #944

Initial D Battle Stage

Does exactly what is says on the tin, a compilation of all the races during the first 3 seasons of Initial D.

The earlier races in the season have benefitted from advances made in CGI and have been rerendered and look better then ever.

Theres also a nice (albeit short) race that was not featured in the anime but was in the manga, Keisuke vs Seiji.

Theres no story to speak off, basically it announces the 2 drivers and then shows the battle, then onto the next battle and so on.

If you want to watch only the action packed part of Initial D and refresh your memory this is what you need to watch.

Basically there is no story. The whole 40 minutes is a simple copy and paste of all the races from the first three stages. Some of them seem to be out of order however which is kinda bothersome to say the least.

When it comes to art. The races have been remastered a bit to look better, but still the character animation, especially that of the first season looks pretty bad. I was acutally hoping that they would make the effort to remaster it to the Third Stage level, but unfortunately that did not happen.

The sound has been directly taken out from the earlier episode. So there nothing to it. Personally, the only new thing about the sound, which would be the annoucer, sounds below average, and the OVA would do equally good without him.

Since it is only a recap of the races there is not too much to enjoy, but still if you want to refresh your memory about Initial D, this is the first thing I'd watch if I were you.

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