Forum - View topicShelf Life - Initial D Legend 1: Awakening
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Nate148
Posts: 466 |
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good bye super eurobeat we will miss you
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Raikuro
Posts: 347 |
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All of season 1, 2, and 3 part 1 are also on Funimation, with 3 part 2 going up tomorrow like they usually do when the dvds come out. And Hallow of course. |
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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I'll preface that I was once really big into Initial D, having knew about it well before it's US release thanks to places like the Anime Web Turnpike where I would stumble across fan sites for the series. I still have a lot of fandom items from the series including all the US releases of everything I could get hands on (including die-casts in every scale released), and I've imported every console title released. That out of the way...
One of the serious issues with Initial D that I don't think is talked about much in the series is it's time frame issues. I believe that Shuichi Shigeno did not anticipate how popular the series became in such a short time frame. The original story is only supposed to take place in roughly a year's worth of time in the mid-90s. We see Takumi race for a period of time in high school, graduate, get a job, and race a bit more. The animated version of Initial D didn't come until 1998 (If memory serves me the manga had been drawn up to the point of the first battles with the Emperor team). By the time the Project D story arc begins, Shigeno was having to add cars into the mix that would not have existed in the mid 90s to keep the series relevant (the appearances of the 350Z/Fairlady and MR-S immediately comes to mind) not to even divulge further into fashion and such. If you watch the recent remakes and you're rather familiar with Japanese models and marques you'll immediately notice that every vehicle used, both the "hero" cars and the subsequent minor roles of the Speedstars and RedSuns, are period correct for cars that would have likely been used in the mid-90s. Sans the filler material, there is also a stronger adherence to the source manga. The original series' first season ends with the Takahashi Ryosuke battle, whereas that battle occurs earlier on in the manga. The races themselves also play out closer to the manga whereas in the original series there were some aesthetics & similar differences that were implemented (likely due to the 3D animation used during that time). I'm fine overall where the recent remakes ended. Personally I grew to rather despise the entire Project D story arc. I thought it was repetitive, continuously building on a premise that never actually delivered, and I'm convinced that Shigeno's ending of the manga was ultimately he had nowhere else to go with it as he dragged the Project D arc on longer than he had the entire series prior. Mogi Natsuki's backstory in particular I thought was rather terrible in the original series just because you knew going into it that at some point Takumi was going to find out, it was just a matter of when & where, and ultimately it just served as an emotional plot device. |
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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I have to lean on not liking the remake movie to Initial D very much. Yes, the original show from 1998 is old looking and the visuals are hilarious with the 2D cut out people shown in racing scenes at times. But it was charming even despite it's low rent quality. Also the voicing changes in the Japanese version kind of hurt the movie acting wise. Also I think the removals of some things to cram content into each of these one hour movies also hurt for instance Natsuki Mogi's character is gutted pretty much. And of course the eurobeat being missing is one thing, but the fact the music being present in the movie is pretty awful or generic.
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1422 |
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The Legend movies are certainly a much better-looking version of the beginning of Initial D than the first TV series, which looks even more atrocious in HD than it should thanks to the terrible blurry upscale Q-Tec did for the Japanese BD release. Still, I'm too attached to the original voice cast and soundtrack, not to mention the movies skip the Impact Blue arc, so the TV series will always be my preferred adaptation.
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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That was another thing, Iketani was pretty awful in the movie version, the voice actor for him in the Japanese version was pathetic and pedestrian sounding and couldn't match with the gravelly voiced Kazuki Yao and any story surrounding him had been gutted also. |
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