Cerbeius's Blog

This may and will contain spoilers, be warned!

Initial D Fourth Stage

Fourth Stage is now completed and I really loved this stage a lot! Takumi and Keisuke have grown a lot, especially with their last opponents: God Hand and God Foot. These cool middle-aged men kinda remind me of Bunta: older men who own the young generation with amazing skill!

Now I can't wait to see a Fifth Stage, eventhough there's no idea when it'll come out... I do hope it's soon (and it would be awesome if School Rumble San Gakki would come out at the same time) 

This may and will contain spoilers, be warned!

Initial D Fourth Stage

Just finished episode 18 of the Fourth Stage of Initial D. There were some pretty awesome races and now Project D dominated Saitama Region aswell. I love everything I see, except one thing: Keisuke.

Ok, people must sometimes focus on one thing, one aspect in their life for a certain period (like the 1 year Project D) and you have to put some things aside. But if we all are honest, would you put aside a fine, good-looking woman, who almost has the same interests as you? I don't think you would, but he did! He prefers his car and his 'you-are-my-ultimate-rival-and-I-love-you-Takumi'-scenario.

This is just so sad if you look at the situation of Iketani and Itsuki, they had to put a big effort to almost get a woman (but failed... *snif* Lonely Driver 4 Evar!). Kyoko is totally into Keisuke and he prefers a car and a man! Now that is just wrong and frustrated for all the lonely drivers out there (like me!).

I do hope that all lonely drivers eventually will have their dream-woman... well, I am hoping!

Once again, beware when reading my thoughts, they may contain spoilers.

Initial D First Stage, Second Stage, Extra Stage, Third Stage, Battle Stage, Fourth Stage

So the last two weeks I've been watching Initial D. At the moment, I'm in the Fourth Stage (last one's episode 9 to be exact). For some reason, this serie hooks you up and never lets you down. The battles are great and with a little bit of humour and romance and we got our recipe!

I never thought I would this kind of serie, sure I like racing (arcade-style mostly) once in a while, racing with great speed and make cool drifts and so on. But just sit back and look at how people race was something new. Initial D has something magical, as I said before. Eventhough you're not that interested in cars and the technical part, this serie will make you so! I learned quite a bit about cars since I've been watching it and it somehow motivated me to get my own driving-license and drive my own car (no, I won't do illegal streetracings!).

So we start off at the First Stage of course and shows you how Takumi owns everybody who challenges him at his home course. He defenitly grows up, because the opponents become better and better. I mean, he totally got the big star Ryosuke interested and he defeated him! Of course, all on his home course which he had mastered for like five years.

Second Stage is one of my favourites: Takumi gets owned by some cheaty rally car-driver and the famous 86's engine died. Time to get a new one, a very powerful one and get some revenge! We also get to see another 86, the 86 Turbo (orignal names for their opponents huh?). Always nice to see 'underpowered' cars kicking the über-cars' asses.

Extra Stage is, as the titel implies, an extra which is not necessary to watch. I did as I was totally into Inital D and it's about our good-looking Mako who kicks ass in her home cours.

Third Stage was a movie which had everything as the past stages: enough racing, humour (Itsuki and others being a Lonely Driver) and romace (Takumi and Natsuki are sitting in a tree...). Was nice to see how certain characters have developed in a short period.

Battle Stage shows you the important races of the last Stages in a complete new CG-skin which is very nice to watch if you really loved the races and find it necessary to watch 'em again, eventhough you already know who will win.

And then we have Fourth Stage. Project D's been launched: Takumi and Keisuke are kicking ass all over the Gunma Region. Of course they get opponents who are always a bit stronger than them and for some reason, their all-knowing-leader Ryosuke always know a way on how to defeat the enemy. Now I'm going to be more detailed in this stage, because I started a bit too late with my blog to be more detailed in the past stages.

Episode 1-6 of Fourth Stage were kinda routine. Project D challenges a team who's the best of a certain pass. There are always two matches: uphill (done by Keisuke) and downhill (done by Akina's 86, Takumi). We always get to see the races of Takumi and never the ones of Keisuke (and he always wins, what a surprise). I was kinda getting depressed, because I wanted to see how the other drivers might have evolved as Takumi (he has suddenly become a pro driver).

Now episode 7 brings some good changes! While Takumi is practicing, he gets beaten by an unknown car, who knows the gutter-technique aswell. The suggestion that it's Bunta, Takumi's father (who I really admire and totally want to see in full action) is pretty obvious. We also get to see Iketani in action, though he isn't that good as our pro. And in episode 8 we finally get to see some Keisuke-action! He may be heat-headed all the time and he may secretly be in love with Takumi (he dumped Kyoko, a fine looking woman) and he may not be that good as our pro-racer, it's still pretty cool to see him in action.

Since I kinda like typing out my thoughts on things, I decided I'm going to add entries into my blog. I think they mostly will be 'reviews' of episodes I just saw, so it may contain spoilers. Don't blame me for not warning you.

FLCL

I just finished FLCL (aka Furi Kuri). It's a small serie, 6 episodes, but it shows a lot in little time because it goes really fast. The show doesn't really make any sense to me, small fantasy setting and fun to watch. But the speed can make it hard to follow because you think you'll see something interesting that's part of the plot, but it's just a worthless, non-sense-making scene (which most of the time is quite funny). Not only the fast-showing 'images' makes it a rushing serie , the music plays a great role aswell. The music is great and alive & kicking, which boosts the speed a lot during the serie. Some scenes are meant to be calm and quiet, if you follow the normal norms. But in FLCL they become kinda restless.

I don't know if the whole serie made parodies of other animes, but I was surprised I could recognize two elements in episode 5 with my not-that-big-yet knowledge of anime. First one was the 'furi-kuri furi-kura furi-furi furi-kura'-spell which of course was based on the 'Pipiru piru'-spell from Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan. Second was the outfit of Haruko when she was fighting. She wore a red bunny-outfit, just like Suzumiya Haruhi had (hers was black, however, she also has a red one if you look for example at the models that were created of her).

Now some things I really can't get over with are the weird things in this serie. Why are the weapons they use guitars? And they aren't normal ones, because they are indestructable when you hit big robots. Haruko's guitar seems to be the most special one, she can turn hers on like trying to turn on a lawn mower. It's not a big surprise the main character gets all the attention, but what's up with the weird 'horny' things coming out his head and pop out as a robot? I wonder if the creators were onto something when they made it. Last thing is the girl, Mamimi. She seems to be depressed when her boyfriend went off to the USA and (ab)uses Naota for (un)known reasons. I have no idea what her role in the serie was as she nothing the whole time but messing with Naota (like screwing up his head), not going to school and slacking off under the bridge. Maybe she had a purpose and I didn't notice it, that all can happen, but from what I have seen, I think she's worthless.