Initial D is the most famous racing anime ever created… and for a reason. It is centered on an absent-minded tofu delivery guy who, despite being a genius downhill racing specialist, has little to no interest in racing or cars. Nonetheless, he does tend to, rather unwillingly, race when best racers around Japan come to challenge him as the unbeatable Akina’s Eight-Six. While Initial D projects rather lame production values, it offers enough fun to mask all the shortcomings. Upbeat music and exciting races are engrossing and many people, racing fans or not, will enjoy this show to the fullest. Want to see some of the best racing anime offers? Then hop on and check Initial D, it’s lots of fun.

My FD can’t outrun an old Eight-Six?! Is this some sort of nightmare?! Damnit!

Originally written as manga by Shigeno Shuuichi (Baribari Densetsu) and directed by Masaki Shinichi Initial D is a blood boiling show about driving cars real fast. People sweating over a race. People giving their best to win, to prove that they are the fastest. Their manly pride run on this. There is nothing more terrifying for them than being passed on their home course. Sounds like crap doesn’t it? I mean, for racing or car maniacs it might sound cool, but for me and as far as I know most of the world population a car is nothing more than a tool for transport. After I’ve seen “Too Fast and Furious” and fell asleep in the cinema grounds I was thinking that I wont touch any racing related stuff anymore. I have no idea why I picked this show to watch, really, it was like a sudden idea to try something new, as I haven’t seen any racing anime yet. To tell the truth I wasn’t disappointed with Initial D, to the contrary, I was very pleasantly surprised. This show is much better than it looks from the first sight.

Basically the plot revolves around races and badly portrayed love stories. The reason why I found the races to be so exciting is because they are just, well, simply, fresh fun. It’s not two tough-acting cool dudes racing each other in a billion spectators group. In fact the main character doesn’t even like racing, he’s not even interested in cars. It’s just that his job is to deliver tofu through the curly Akina mountain pass. He’s been doing his job for 5 years trying to improve his speed on the pass simply because he wanted to get home faster. Well, one day the so called strongest racing team in Gunma region comes to check out Akina’s local racers, beat them and conquer the mountain. Unfortunately, one of their best happens to meet the delivery boy on the road and gets totally vanquished. And so the guy, not willingly, gets dragged into the racing world. Soon a legend of undefeated Eight-Six (ten years old outdated car) is born and many challengers appear. I don’t know about you, but I have a huge smile on my face when racers with their highly tuned cars start to shake in fear by the sight of an old wreck.

Animation: 2

Animation done by Pastel is definitely the weakest part of the show. Even for 1998 standards it’s crappy. It’s been awhile since I have seen character designs as ugly as in here, furthermore 3D graphics are really bland, so you shouldn’t expect spectacular stuff. It’s true that animation improves through the seasons, as the show spans for nearly ten years in our world, however, even in the Fourth Stage made in 2007 character designs are still horrible. They always change with each stage, but the more they do, the more messed up they become. Actually in 1998 version Takumi and his friends looks the best in my opinion. Backgrounds also improve, but not much, since most of the races happen during the night, you usually only see the roads, some vague trees and the cars, not many scenery pictures around. 3D is the only aspect which visibly improves with every season. Though at the beginning it’s so bland it’s sad, in the last season they made it to the level where even splashing water during the rainy races looks perfectly realistic. Actually, the only aspect of animation which is worthy of real praise is the directorial ability of Noboru Furuse (Urusei Yatsura). Along with music, great shots at racer eyes during gasp moments, stunned faces of audience, tasty angles of spinning cars and an idea to show four different actions at once at a divided screen creates an outstanding atmosphere for this show.

Sound: 4

Initial D possesses some of the most awesome OSTs out of all anime I have ever seen. This licensed soundtrack was collected and arranged by Katsumata Ryuuichi. Though I usually prefer originally composed music, this time licensed version is so good and fits the show so well, that, damn, it brings out half of the Initial D’s fun factor. If not the awesome music I would not have enjoyed the races as much as I did now. Sometimes it gets so good I was literally jumping / half dancing in my chair. Even now, I remember the best parts of the show first by music, later by action. Unfortunately, for some reason in the stages after the first one music gets tuned down a lot. It’s not like the quality drops significantly, but its direction and most importantly the level of the volume is fucked up. In the stages after the first car squealing sounds usually overshadow the music and that sucks. Not to say that squealing is done bad, nope, it’s pretty cool, along with all other sound effects, but darn, I prefer the music, seriously. While First Stage feels like a half musical, other stages, are, well, just normal anime with normal OST.

OPs and EDs vary in quality, but most of them are pretty good. Especially the first ending Rage your Dream and Fourth Stage’s first opening Dogfight both by Move are damn good songs. Counting many above average others, Initial D, in my opinion, has some of the best opening/ending combinations from all the anime I have seen. The live-action animation in endings is also a pretty neat idea, for some reason it goes along with the anime’s mood very well.

Then there is voice-acting, is quite solid in this show. While the main character is voiced by Shinchiro Miki (.hack//Sign as Crim, Bleach as Urahara Kisuke) and doesn’t sound exceptional, seiyuu list include awesome names like Tomokazu Seki (Full Metal Panic! as Sagara Sousuke, Escaflowne as Van Fanel), Koyasu Takehito (Gundam Seed as Mwu la Fllaga, Gungrave as Balladbird Lee) and Hiyama Nobuyuki (Infinite Ryvius as Airs Blue, Yuu Yuu Hakusho as Hiei). While none of the stars exhibit their full potential in this show, they still make sound stage quite pleasant to listen to. Voices of side characters, however, are quite lame, some even got on my nerves. I’d say overall voice-acting in Initial D is just above average.

Story: 3

The story revolves around a laid back guy Fujiwara Takumi realizing his racing talent. There are some badly done love stories to spice things up, unfortunately most of them, rather than affecting you emotionally, gets on your nerves. Still the quality of romance improves with seasons, in Fourth one you might even feel touched at times. The races still overwhelm everything and they will be basically everything you will want from this show. Though I found the Oh my god, that guy kicked the ass of a pro racer with an outdated wreck?! of the First Stage much cooler, stuff in Stage Four, when everything already goes pro against pro is also really exciting. Though minus the super show-off factor those races don’t feel as blood boiling as the ones in First Stage. Seriously, I will probably never forget the scene when one of the pro guys notices a lame old car following him while driving leisurely through the mountain pass after having made fun of all the locals (he had plenty of rights to make fun of them); obviously he tries to lose it, yet manages only to get owned like a kid nearly crashing in the end, all when having feelings like What the fuck??!!!.

It’s also cool that the show is pretty educating. Some characters always explain all the technical stuff about cars and since I didn’t know a thing about cars prior to watching this show, it was pretty fun to listen.

Character: 3

At first glance the cast looks boring as hell, later you realize that they are not. Main character, Fujiwara Takumi, is the silent type absent-minded protagonist who spends a lot of time just standing there, gazing into the space. He has trouble communicating with others so he usually denies discussing harder matters as too troublesome and goes back to his own inner world. The cool thing is, he seems to never have any interest in anything, and doesn’t even drive seriously most of the time. It just adds up to the tremendous pressure his opponents feel and, of course, the fun factor. When I realized this I suddenly grew to like his character very much, I mean, we don’t usually see this kind in the roles of protagonists. Side characters include many Fujiwara’s opponents and some of his friends, most interesting of which are Iketani and Mako. Both are racers. Iketani suffers from inferiority complex and is a way worse driver than Mako. What’s funny is that they both love each other, yet Iketani thinks that Mako is too good for him. On the other hand Mako believes that Iketani simply doesn’t care about her, since he’s too scared to approach her. It was one of the few relationships in which I was actually interested in, too bad it never gets solved, or at least, not yet.

There are other characters, but most of them are not worth mentioning. All main character’s opponents are interesting in one way or another, but they disappear shortly after the race. Main character’s best friend, whose name I keep forgetting is as annoying as his character design. Though he has his good moments, particularly in the episode he bought his car, he never fails to come back to his usual annoying self. Oh, and there’s Mogi, main character’s love interest, but I so didn’t give shit about her that I would snooze whenever she appeared.

Conclusion: I’d recommend this anime to any action or sports fans out here, of course racing fans would feel the best while watching this. Initial D is by no means a bad show, it’s not astounding, but it does well for a show this type. I didn’t expect much, hence I’ve got a lot more than I have bargained for. Races are fun, upbeat music is great and characters don’t suck. If you’ve enjoyed Initial D you might want to check other sport anime, Slam Dunk is one of the better gems from the past.