- It's a well-thought-out and written story that shows two big threads from start to finish. True, I can say that for enough titles, but on the other hand, not one comic or anime broke down at one stage. An old buddy of mine, who was once my authority on a couple of things, remarked quite rightly that the Japanese don't know how to finish a story. More specifically - they know how to start it well, they develop it very well, but the ending is not always successful. It's been a while since I've watched all the episodes of ID, and I think I can look at them coldly. Anime has its worse and better moments, it cannot be avoided (unless we create a short story that we have mostly thought out - i.e. key points and stick to our plan), but it portrays the main character's path from the usual Tofu supplier very well, to the professional driver. We see how much you need to know and how much you need to learn. It is about at least elementary knowledge of car mechanics, knowing the advantages and disadvantages of cars and their components, having the right character (which consists of many factors, including being a bit arrogant at the same time, but also having a lot of humility, aggression, as well as being able to calm down instantly). The anime does not show all possible scenarios, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that what we got, exhausted the topic well. We have different drivers - both old and young, different driving styles, an extensive topic about mechanics, tuning and a few other things, so lovers of fast driving will find something for themselves.
- "Initial D" may not be my favorite title when it comes to heroes, but it definitely belongs to the group of better titles. They are not extensive, and I am not likely to lie, as I will say that the author of the manga does not focus on their development, but they meet my expectations. They are consistently written, they don't happen to get smarter or dumber than they are for a script, I was genuinely interested in how their path would end. Everyone has their own background, they go some way in their life, they turn into a plus. I liked every one of them, even those who pissed me off or made fun of me, like Orihime from Bleach or Hinata from Naruto. My favorites are the Takahashi brothers and Bunta Fujiwara. The former are the rivals of the main character at the beginning, and then they form Team D. I often compare their relationship to Goku and Vegeta from DBZ - Takumi is a playboy who has a natural talent and knows how to adapt to the opponent's skills and learns during the fight. Keisuke, in turn, is constantly training (to the extent that one girl is ready to do literally anything for him - yes, that's what you are thinking about too, and at some point he talks to her culturally, but aggressive "fuck off, you disturb me!") , relies on technique and has a similar character to Vegeta. In the fourth season, there was even almost a fight between him and a group of bandits. All the members of Team D escaped and Ryosuke said, "You don't have to worry about him, my little brother will do well, he has experience with this sort of thing." After that, we see a blonde man reaching for a wrench and going to the bandits, asking them directly: "Okay, gentlemen, how are we fucking? Do you want to get into the 1vs1 snout, or will you approach the whole group?". In racing, the two are an undefeated duo, but they wouldn't have achieved it without Ryosuke. I once compared him to John Carmack, one of the most important people in game-dev, and I stand by that opinion. It is a walking processor that thinks all the time and goes to sleep only when its brain is working too slowly and it is not profitable to work in this state. He's a terrible dick, but he does it in good faith, just like Rocky's coach. The guys drive until they fall on their faces with exhaustion, and repeat each route tediously, checking every detail. It is similar with Fujiwara, the father of the main character. He's the best driver we've met in this anime. A living legend, the master of cars and a sharp retort, who drifts without using his hands (because then he lights a cigarette). He raced with his son once and this race can be summed up in one sentence ... Have you ever played any game in multiplayer mode? If so, you probably happened to read a "lol, noob" statement at the end of a game where you got hard ass. Well, that's what it looked like xD. Soon I will be watching special episodes where the older ID characters get a little longer than the main TV series.
- Although the manga creator exaggerated a bit with some issues, such as Takumi's angel wings, showing the aura of cars and drivers, or over-coloring the reality, you have to give him one thing. It perfectly captured the speed, strength and overload experienced by drivers and their cars when they perform heavy maneuvers, dangerous drifts, change speed rapidly (from sudden braking from high revs, then pressing the accelerator pedal to the max), they generally use their vehicles to the maximum. We can see it in the cars and the reactions of drivers who must be constantly focused. Before I elaborate on this, I will refer briefly to 1 sentence - although these things are extremely twisted, which is a feature of Japanese cartoons, it's hard to deny their existence. Of course, we do not see aura or angel wings, life is not a "Dragon Ball", but if we are specialists in a given field and are not pompous or ignorant, we immediately sense that someone may be an expert in a given field. You can just feel it and see it - by its behavior, its characteristic gestures and actions (which can be seen especially among people who are really strong players in a given issue, e.g. e-sport, programming, cooking, anything else. people, we are careful observers and we know to look at it, when we observe them for a longer time, we will notice many common features). There is a slogan from psychology - "People are different, but the mechanisms that drive them are the same" (and if someone says that I am talking stupid things, I will instruct them to educate themselves in psychology and criminology).
It was back to the main theme of this point that the author of the manga ID presented the emotions of the characters, the strength of the cars, the loads they experience, just as well as Akira Toriyama did in his most important work. In this case, I haven't checked the manga and I don't know if I can say the same about the comic (in DBZ it feels like reading just static drawings), but when it comes to anime, I got excited with every tough race. Not only because of its weight or my emotional attitude towards the characters, but mainly because of showing the strength of our metal horses. During these really tough races (I'm talking especially about the race from season 4, a duel with two so-called Gods and a duel with a suicide driver who had a complete ass if he would fuck on the rocks or be crushed like a Pepsi can after fucking against the wall with full impetus), feel that they are both fucking as if they were fighting for their lives and realized that the slightest mistake would cause the rescuers to have to pull their warped corpse out of the massacred car. During this race, which I mentioned in parentheses, both riders miraculously avoided a collision at least a few times.And no, sorry, that's what people who do not know what to call it and resort to truisms - they did it thanks to gigantic cojones, outstanding emotional control, absolute calm, a well-equipped car and extraordinary skills. Also this one, if you want to see the "sports" version of the DBZ, the ID is one of the best items.
- In the review of "Kengan Ashura" I wrote that I do not know of a better anime in which the tournament would play an important role (or at some stage in history, such as in the case of DB or YYH finals - manga by the author of HxH). Not only that, I said it was fucking Emperor among other titles with such a plot. In the case of ID, it's a tad worse, but only a tad. Although the competition is bigger and more diverse, in my humble opinion, few titles can match ID in this field. Not much considering all the anime I've seen or heard about in my entire life. I would be able to name a dozen anime, maybe a little more with a comparatively excellent soundtrack, but ... They are also the elite among anime in this regard. Two factories speak in favor of "Initial D" - the amount of music and the European and not only, but mainly it, origins. There are times when anime take foreign composers to compose a soundtrack, or even some songs ("Guardian Angel" by Juno Reactor), but there are never that many. At least I don't know another anime like this, and I would be grateful if someone would tell me if I was wrong. Thanks to this, we have different styles - sometimes stronger, sometimes more delicate, sometimes more romantic, or melancholic in a way, other times stimulating or sometimes touching on hard-rock. Such music is always fun, and it is certainly a great change from Japanese composers. Without diminishing their abilities and talent, such a variety can add something new to the culture, create something unique, and also give interesting, original, sometimes excellent compositions. I am not a Euro-beat expert, but this is really good music that you can listen to as well as you did several dozen years ago. The good proof is that fans were buying up authors' records when YT was still a song of the future, giving them a profit as their popularity slowly declined. As for the quantity, I could write a second paragraph, maybe as long, in which I would list all the songs I liked. There is also a second proof - memes. There have been a lot of videos that use songs from this anime to comment on reality, for example from recent examples - the number of people suffering from Covid-19 in certain countries. That's over 4 hours of good music! Instead of listing the titles, I suggest an experiment - turn on this link when driving to work in the morning. I don't know about you, but when I listen to these songs, the driving is much more pleasant, especially on long journeys.
- The first episode was broadcast on April 18, 1998, and the last episode on June 22, 2014, for a total of 16 years. As I wrote in the review of "First Stage" and "Second Stage", the ID even at that time looked ugly and so on average (season 2 was noticeably nicer in all respects, but still I would not classify it as pretty). In the text on this 1, I compared it to anime that came out around a similar time, and well, if it weren't for the nice car models (CGI expert opinion, not mine) and the music, we probably wouldn't know about the anime today, because apart from the above factors and storyline had nothing to offer. Poor animation, characters moved quite stiff, some elements were drawn inaccurately, the soundtrack had a few noises that we could hear with Windows 95 or 98. Another improvement came with the season 3 film, but only from the 4th season we see a significant leap in quality, and further it only got better. The anime still has some weaknesses and I couldn't say it was all done right, but it doesn't matter - it was a giant leap forward for "Initial D". The car models look even better, and the characters, backgrounds and animations finally don't have to feel ashamed of their better cousins, as they have been before. In addition, the sound system has improved and when we watch the best races with good speakers, we feel as if we were watching them with our own eyes. The roar of the engine, the voice of braking tires, This gives us the opportunity to watch the title gradually transform from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan, and this is not often the case.
- This paragraph will be extremely short because my knowledge of CGI graphics is poor. As I wrote in the point above, I rely mainly on the opinion of an old friend who created some short animations inspired by this anime himself. He said that it was a very difficult matter, I do not remember the details, but looking at some frames, it is impossible to disagree. Fact, from what I remember from Quantum Soul's statements and comments from people who have spoken about CGI models in modern Disney cartoons, it is enough to make a good car model once and then animate it (correct me if I am wrong, but I suppose it is easier than drawing each frame separately). But some scenes make a big impression due to the low budget and the studio's approach to this anime ("Since some people are watching it, what's a problem for us to give a little money - at least it will be something to clog the TV program, and the viewers will watch the commercials and we will go our own way") , the creator of CGI could easily skip some of them, and we would be happy anyway. Sometimes I ridicule the Asian striving for perfection at all costs at the expense of efficiency (which is also often ridiculed by the author of the "Baki" manga, saying through the mouths of heroes that their striving for perfection is not worth shit, which they will show with one simple move), but in such matters it is worth appreciating, even if it's just art for art. This made the action scenes even more enjoyable.
- ID is probably not the only title that takes this subject seriously, but I don't think there is another title that is so similar to it (as is the case in battle-shonen or shojo manga). First, it is an anime that is intended for a male audience. You can see it in many things. Older heroes who know each other for over a dozen years talk to each other quite freely, just like men I have met over the course of my life - e.g. X says to Y "why did you come here? You only take my time and I have to look at your ugly face "or" listen, man, don't chase women - do your job, be good at it, take care of your appearance, and they will go to bed themselves ". Following on from the previous example, ID also focuses on male-female relationships. Who is popular with women? Chads, self-confident men who are in control of their emotions and not necessarily testosterone-dripping hunks. Who doesn't enjoy it? Losers, guys without character, those who try to love the fair sex as much as possible. Well, we even have threads about PUAs in several episodes (in short - rules and tricks for guys who do not know how to deal with women). ID shows a fairly wide range of different types of guys - kids of rich parents, regular boys, bad boys, chads, old men with their best years behind them, losers, guys who are half-losers, half-chads. You will definitely find someone to identify with. Let's add to that one of the characters who has her sugar-daddy and has "trained" a lot with Chads from her high school. All of this and the rest that I haven't mentioned has been presented in a real way, as if it were a normal adult series that is streaming abundantly. A year ago, when I watched "Initial D" I was in the middle of an intense work on myself - I was dating different girls, I tried to improve my character and I'll tell you this - I know RedPill and PUAs sometimes make a bad impression, but this anime shows that against criticism of these circles, there is a lot of truth in them about psychology and interpersonal relations. The more that Japan is a completely different culture from ours in Europe, and it generally looks the same there. All in all, I've seen various anime aimed at a male audience, but this is one of the best.
That's it. Let me know what the next text of this type you would like to see. So far I have no idea, maybe you can help me? As they used to say - "vox populi vox dei".