Anime Rebirth

Review - Initial D Fourth Stage

Average 8.16
Animation 7
Sound 5
Story 8
Character 9
Value 10
Enjoyment 10

I`ve just finished viewing all of the “Stages” of Initial D. Fourth Stage is my favorite, with “first” stage coming in a close second. This is a great series, whether or not you love cars. Watching all of the Initial D seasons in chronological order will definitely enhance your enjoyment. There`s a lot of character development and many subtleties that depend on your having watched earlier episodes.

Animation
The races, cars, roads, weather, and even roadside shrubbery, signage, and guardrails depicted in this show are AMAZING. Usually, I hate CG in Anime, but here its effect is PRIMO. The race animation is so fluid that you truly forget it isn`t real. You can feel the road surfaces. The mountain passes where the action takes place are rendered so convincingly that they make me want to go to Akina, Akagi, and the other venues, to see the real places and verify things like the signage, sequences of hairpin turns, and types of gutters (seriously).

In contrast to the racing animation, the character animation is poor. It`s still done using hand-drawn lines, however, and that makes it much better than that of such series as Speed Grapher and Black Lagoon, which use too many “flat” monotone patches to render people. The characters` faces are executed with much harder, more stylized lines than they were in the first season. Although they are recognizable, several characters have been “uglified”. Takumi`s old friends, Itsuki, Kenji, and Iketani, are shockingly bad. Takahashi Ryosuke, Takahashi Keisuke, Fujiwara Takumi, and Takumi`s father, however, look good most of the time.

Sound
It`s hard for me to describe Anime music. Most of the opening and closing music was okay. However, I enjoyed the techno background accompaniment to the races. It had an addictive beat that enhanced the action. I liked Takahashi Keisuke`s leitmotif.

Story and Character
The story of Fujiwara Takumi`s humble background and steady rise to fame as a street racer is inseparable from the character portraits of those around him. This is yet another Anime where the main character is, symbolically, a litmus test for those in his environment.

Takumi`s unassuming car and divine racing abilities elicit the full gamut of reactions from spectators and competitors, from people close to and distant from him. There are insensitive boors who disdain Takumi based on his age and car, there are jealous competitors who try to beat him by cheating, and there are the rare few who, secure in their own efforts and abilities, recognize a fellow man of exceptional quality.

In addition to the landmark racing animation, this range of reactions from Takumi`s fellow racers, combined with Takahashi Ryosuke`s commentary during the races give this series depth. I love this series because of the character interaction and development.

There are several memorable people in this series, but I liked Takumi`s father, Bunta, the best. He`s the ultimate street driver and man of few words, his character built up molecule by molecule over several seasons, like a stalagmite. His parenting, like his steering, is minimal and perfectly timed. Although, clearly, he has raised Takumi carefully, the casual observer would never know it. I hope to see more of Bunta in future Initial D seasons.

And let`s not forget the tofu, the “character” that never speaks, but without which Takumi would be just an average kid. Tofu is suppposed to be a “sensitive” food, and it`s tongue-in-cheek amusing how Bunta is always smoking around the tofu vats. “Tofu” is to Initial D as the unremarkable name, “James Bond” is to the Bond series. Stoic Takumi drives like a maniac to deliver this blandest, most benign of foods to a mountaintop hotel which we never see. The simplicity of Bunta`s and Takumi`s tofu-centric home life is a refreshing counterpoint to their intensely competitive, dangerous racing life.

Although, at a high level, the milestones of this series are predictable, that almost never detracted from my enjoyment of Fourth Stage. The details of how the characters claw their way from point to point is one of the fascinating things about all of the Initial D seasons, especially this one.

This is a warm, straightforward and inspiring series about work and teamwork. Although Takumi starts off with a lot of talent, he grows because of relentless practice, kind, careful training from his dad, mentoring from Takahashi Ryosuke and, ultimately, prize words from his last Fourth Stage opponent.

This series complements Hikaru no Go. It`s about what it takes to pursue an art form and how you have to think in order to keep getting better. We`ve all felt competent at something at one time or another. Yet, most of us don`t seem to “have what it takes” to master anything. This series depicts what it takes to get past the low points and triumph, whether anyone is watching or not.

By the way, although there are very few funny scenes in Fourth Stage, those that are there are hilarious.

Value
I love this series and will definitely watch all of the Stages again.

Enjoyment
Prior to watching this series, I didn`t like cars at all. I saw a Lan Evo VIII last week, and it made me smile. If you enjoy the first two episodes of season I, I say download the whole collection. It`s enormously addictive.