Capeta

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: カペタ

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 52

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 4, 2005 to Sep 26, 2006

Premiered: Fall 2005

Broadcast: Tuesdays at 18:00 (JST)

Producers: TV Tokyo, Sotsu, Marvelous Entertainment, Delfi Sound

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Studio Comet

Source: Manga

Genre: Sports

Theme: Racing

Demographic: Shounen

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG - Children

Statistics

Score: 7.83¹ (scored by 11,517 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #872²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #4117

Members: 26,486

Favorites: 302

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Synopsis

After losing his mother at a very young age, elementary school student Capeta Taira is forced to become more independent to avoid his father worrying for him. Working in a paving company, his father is often busy and has to work overtime to make ends meet. However, no matter how tough he acts in front of his father, Capeta is ultimately just a lonely kid with a rough life. In addition to his typical house duties, he has to deal with the bully Nobu Andou which makes him feel worse, despite support from his classmate, Monami Suzuki.

One day, Capeta's father sees young go-kart drivers racing at high speeds and gets inspired by the scene. He then decides to collect scrapped parts available on the track and begins working on a gift for his son. Meanwhile, Capeta and Monami sneak into his workplace, suspecting that his father is up to something. Much to their surprise, they see a go-kart built from discarded parts—with Capeta's name attached to it! Although it lacks an engine and looks worn out, the kart is mostly complete and functional.

Despite the heavy rain, Capeta cannot resist the urge to try out this new machinery. As he drives the kart downhill on a wet road, an incident that is almost a dangerous accident instead becomes a thrilling obsession. No longer bored with life, the engine of Capeta's heart is ignited with a new passion as he journeys into the world of racing.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:

Capeta

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Characters & Voice Actors

Taira, Capeta

Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Minamoto, Naomi

Main

Naitou, Ryou
Japanese

Andou, Nobu

Main

Kiyasu, Kohei
Japanese

Suzuki, Monami

Main

Kikuchi, Mika
Japanese

Minamoto, Nanako

Supporting

Daiki, Yuu
Japanese

Taira, Shigeo

Supporting

Kote, Shinya
Japanese

Noriko, Hata

Supporting

Saitou, Maki
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Sekiyama, Akihiro

Producer

Yamakawa, Norio

Producer

Misawa, Shin

Director

Hamano, Kazuzou

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

	1: "Never Ever" by Tsubasa Imai (eps 1-35)
	2: "Doukasen" by BAZRA (eps 36-52)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Bokura" by BAZRA (eps 1-14)
	2: "Nana Navigation" by Nanase Hoshii (eps 15-32)
	3: "Here we go" by Missile Innovation (eps 33-43)
	4: "My Star" by Mika Kikuchi (eps 44-52)

Reviews

Apr 6, 2023

Shiva_Kumar_J

Recommended

Simply one of the best Sports Series I have ever watched & as well as the one of the most underrated Anime Series or Manga.
Well !!! being a Formula 1 Fan this is a true Pleasure for my Mind & Body.

Hope they reboot this series while storyline going in manga direction and hoping that they go all the way to the end.

Wish there was English Official translations for this Manga Series, for me to pick up the story from the anime,, But Scans are taking so much time, One Day i would love ...

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Aug 6, 2021

MrSpenfo

Recommended

Capeta is a really good universe, and I don't mean that as some kind of lazy way of saying, "the writing was good" or something like that. No, I say it because of the characters that inhabit the world of this story; the majority of characters, regardless of how they are initially introduced, are easily defined as being good-natured, and more so, there is no one that I would define as intentionally evil to any degree.

Story: 8, The ironic thing about Capeta is that even though it's a racing anime, and more specifically a sports anime, ya know, the type of genre that gets ... dominated by man vs man conflict types? Yeah, but instead, Capeta has primarily man vs nature conflicts, which is an ironic way to describe it, seeing as a car isn't part of nature, but hear me out... Capeta (the character) isn't constantly struggling to beat another racer, he's constantly struggling to beat another racer while driving a much worse vehicle. This is why I say that the core of the conflict is man vs nature, as the primary conflicts are, the cart is damaged, we are too poor, etc. He's attempting to overcome the very nature of the racing world. Most of these conflicts are overcome by Capeta (the character) learning to adapt and in most cases, using the fact that he's driving a worse car to his advantage by changing his own driving style to match the unique characteristics of the vehicle. The core thought behind every obstacle Capeta (the character) comes to face with isn't, "how do I beat this guy?" it's, "how can I drive this car even faster?".

Art: 9, The art style is a pretty subjective one, and personally I think part of the reason I like it so much is because its very reminiscent of Hajime no Ippo, which I really enjoyed. Additionally, the art style really matches the hard-working nature of this show. Lastly, some of the scenes towards the end of the series are animated really beautifully.

Sound: 9, All of the OSTs fit the scenes they're put in perfectly, and the OP and EDs fit the core nature of the anime just as well. Most of the voice acting was spot on as well, really the only thing that held this back from a 10 in sound was the voice acting specifically for the little kid characters. Most of them are pretty annoying in my opinion, with Monami hands down earning most annoying, but I will say that this is probably compounded by the fact that I find Monami to also be the hands down most annoying character even without taking her voice into consideration.

Character: 9, The beautiful thing about almost every character in this anime is, regardless of their level of importance, every character is typically introduced in a heavily flat manner, or to be more specific; they are introduced in a manner that specifically makes them seem like a very flat, very troupe-driven character, however, that is anything but what that character actually is. Its a level of hidden ingenuity in this anime; instead of trying to blow you away with an amazing character right out the gate, the writer intentionally made his characters seem flat, so that their progression as round, dynamic characters would be both surprising and enjoyable. Naomi is probably the character that this rings truest for, as he is very much introduced as just some stereotypical douche, but I'd be shocked if you said you watched all 52 episodes and still felt that way about him.
There is a single character that holds this anime back from being a 10/10 in character, and that is hands down Monami, or at least that's what I would have said at the beginning of the anime. While I do like her a lot more by the end, I think a lot of her character is just straight up obnoxious, to the point that I literally had to skip over certain scenes in the beginning because she single-handedly made me want to stop watching. Regardless, there is still one other negative I see in character, and that's a result of the fact that the anime kinda gets tunnel vision a lot, and to explain what I mean; The anime has a habit of becoming too focused on its core narrative, and while I think other shows could learn a thing or two from it, at the same time, this anime gets tunnel-vision to the point of you asking, "so whatever happened to that one guy?" and even if they do pop-up again we really never learn why they faded into irrelevance for the series.

Enjoyment: 9, Part of the enjoyment of Capeta is that Capeta (the character) doesn't win every race, and they take a very realistic approach by not having him win every race (especially considering that basically everyone else is racing top of the line machines with dedicated mechanics, and Capeta (the character) is racing a trash-kart made by his complete amateur of a father (also, not dissing his dad, its just the truth)). However, foreshadowing is like the most abused story mechanic in Capeta, and it made some things a little overly predictable at times.

Overall: 9, By halfway through the first episode, I had already fallen in love with this anime, and I'm glad to say that I never lost that feeling throughout the watching experience. However, reaching the end was a truly bittersweet moment simply because it felt that it came too fast. Capeta has several time skips in it that honestly feel like a shame simply because I really wanted to be able to follow Capeta's entire journey from karts all the way to F1. Additionally, while it is teased at the end that they do eventually make it to the F1 level, its never shown directly in the anime (not sure if the anime covers everything that the manga did), and I definitely thought we were gonna get to the F1 level, so I'm a bit disappointed in that.

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Oct 18, 2021

katsucats

Mixed Feelings

Capeta is surprisingly watchable considering it was made in 2005, a decade when bad CGI in anime became rampant. Capeta escapes that since its art is basic, with simple settings and plain backgrounds that perhaps made static frames not as noticeable as its contemporaries. The character designs are oddly old school even for its time, with squarish faces and big round noses like it's Doug from Nickelodeon. This distracted me a bit since I know someone in real life that looks exactly like Capeta, who's as naive and a bit dull like he is (although the guy I know isn't a racing genius). It also ... uses a monkey, which is an old technique to use small animals introduce scenes or a bit of comedic relief.

Regardless of its artistic quirks, Capeta really capitalizes on the underdog sports genre, methodically introducing handicaps to stack all cards against Capeta, only to have him invent some brilliant technique on the spot to sweep us off our feet. The races are believable, especially since these techniques aren't without consequences -- Capeta often get injured for using his body weight to compensate for flaws in his cart. There are a number of sports anime that use this formula, but the races are still fun to watch without being too predictable. If I'm to enumerate the points of success, I would say it doesn't overly rely on bystander commentary (although it still does). It's also good at introducing disadvantages at random points. I know that something is about to happen, but Capeta works well to keep the suspense so that I couldn't tell exactly when it would happen. Although the side characters and cheerleaders have somewhat annoying and typical personalities, there are still wholesome moments that justify their existence. For example, the manager character Nobu seems like just a groupie with no personal goals at first, but eventually I can't help but be impressed by how hard he works.

However, like many other shounen protagonists, Capeta holds the typical stubborn disregard for process that make him seem to miss the point at times, or worse, appear insincere at others. It's a shounen convention to have the main character be brash and dimwitted, only to come through with genius and willpower without much calculation. Perhaps the calculation lies in the author's attempt to write sympathetic characters that don't appear to be scheming. That backfires here. Capeta turns down offers from professional teams with the resources to help him find success, arguing that his team must be with his friends and father. He's aloof to his friends and fellow competitors, never asking for help even when he really needs it. He neglects to practice outside of competitions in key situations when it would have been common sense to do so. All these oversights might have been disastrous if it weren't for Capeta's ability to improvise techniques based on the response from the cart. Write that off as him being a genius, but learning stick shift, down shifting during a race, and heel-and-toe all within a day? And more, not having practiced these things when a mistake would easily wreck the transmission -- a roughly $40,000 bill Capeta's father could not afford -- would be the crux of negligence, if he weren't constantly saved by plot armor. The amount of indiscretion Capeta and team commit almost becomes antagonistic at times.

Yes, he works hard at his part time job. Yes, he has to go to school at the same time. Yes, he practices hard when everything is handed to him. Yes, he's poor. But some of these seems like manufactured problems, and all the little things build up. Yes, the father works hard at two jobs and overtime to pay for Capeta's dream. But at the same time he's out of his mind for not helping Capeta understand the advantages of joining a team. He's driven stick for presumably his life, but he becomes silent as a mime when Capeta needs to learn how to shift.

The show does a great job covering for these flaws in the action. I forget about all these things during the races. Despite it looking dated, the dramatic timing is on point. But sometimes what's more important is what happens in between the action, and in these times, Capeta just couldn't rise above it's shounen conventional roots.

If you love racing, give Capeta a watch. It's a sometimes well executed, but very typical sports anime.

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"Capeta" is "demon" in portuguese biaotaku39 - Jan 6	1 replies	by lrdalucard »» Jan 6, 1:10 PM
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Poll: Capeta Episode 7 Discussion Monad - Feb 25, 2012	3 replies	by removed-user »» Jun 26, 2022 3:22 AM
Poll: Capeta Episode 52 Discussion Ranivus - Jun 18, 2008	13 replies	by bluberrybit »» Jul 8, 2021 11:36 PM
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