Story: 8/10: The story is pretty classic and is all you might want from an anime about street-racing. It's about recklessness, the will to aim always higher, etc...It's most of the time over the top, but in a good way: after each episode of Initial D you'll get seriously fired up, and even eating a sandwhich afterward will be fucking epic, it will have the taste of sweat and victory as you headbang to techno music.
Which is my next subject:
Music: 9/10: Damn, that OST is awesome. If you are into Eurobeat, just watch it already, but if you hate that 90s techno music, just go away, this anime is simply not for you and you will dislike it even if you like the characters and the story. However, I did not rate it 10/10 for one reason: when the race start, the music is intense and all, but once it ends and you come back to the daily life of the protagonists, the OST becomes old and unoriginal, sadly.
Character: 9/10: This anime isn't just a race after an other, there's actually a lot of enjoyable characters. The MC, while some people might call him a Gary Stu (his ennemies have literally no chance to win), there's actually some character development and your typical sleepyhead who becomes a beast when driving actually shows some depth. The same can be said about his crew and his opponents.
Also, the interaction between the characters are really interesting in the sense that they are rather mature and it shows (the way they handle the romance, for exemple, isn't the way it would be in your typical anime).
Art: 5/10: And now the worst part. Time wasn't really gentle with that anime. The art isn't great, the animation isn't fluid and worse, the CGI is horrible. Of course, I can easily imagine that at the time it was airing, those who watched it found it outstanding, but CGI gets old really fast, sadly.
Enjoyment: 10/10: It was amazing, I just can't stop listening to Night of Fire at full blast (and my mom now thinks I'm weird) and even if the CGi got old, the anime is still as enjoyable nowadays as it was before because a good anime never really dies and Initial D is definitely one of those.
