i'm disappointed.
lets start of with positive things.
art style is ok and animation is better than in original initial d. and voice actors tried their best to sound like original va for these chars, well, they are similar to my ears.
and now negative.
some characters look similar, at least to me. ryosuke is like takumi but with black hair, and kenji is similar to takumi too. we don't get too see much funny face expressions we saw in original initial d and don't get to hear itsuki making that weird sound when he gets excited. now, for what is initial d also famous for? for eurobeat. do we have eurobeat here? hell no. and i can't find myself to enjoy the races like i did in original initial d, because damn eurobeat did conjure up the whole series. initial d isn't initial d without eurobeat. and when they are racing, we don't hear that much sound of the engine which was expressed in the original series and gave u feeling like u're actually there in anime world watching the race.
in conclusion, the studios were more focused on better quality of the art and animation, but dropped off the things for what initial d is famous for. kinda reminds me of the spyro reignited trilogy. they focused on the designs just so u can feel nostalgic but other things feel rushed.
i'm going to watch second and third movie out of respect towards initial d. if u're initial d fan, watch this, but u have been warned. u wont have same feeling like u had for original inital d. if u are new to initial d, u can watch new initial d first, for all i care, it's just remake of initial d first stage. but then also watch initial d first stage before continuing second stage and compare new initial d to original initial d first stage, if u want to, compare them again when u finish original series. u'll just see how huge difference there is and that new initial d legends is just meh
