New Initial D Movie: Legend 1 - Kakusei

This movie is a retelling of the first fifth of the original series, specifically the base rivalry between Takumi and Keisuke. The pacing of this movie works for the way it is. Nothing feels to rushed but the specifics of Natsuki's story is more hidden this time. Other than that, fans of Initial D who have prior exposure know what to expect. As for the final race, if you play the arcade games, the pace of the race works in accurate conjunction to that so I can't really make an excuse it feels to rushed. I mean, most players can beat Akina in about3 minutes. As fans of the original TV series are aware, the voice cast has entirely changed and I felt it was unnecessary. I mean, Gundam for the most part very rarely changes the cast and neither has the new Evangelion series. The cast are still active and can still play. The only name I can recognize is Miyano Mamoru, most famous as the voices of Light from Death Note and Setsuna from Gundam. I say his performance works for what it is but I think it is the voice direction as opposed to his abilities as a performer is what I have an issue with. There are instances where you can get a reaction out of him as opposed to saying you fucked Natsuki or whatever. I felt there were instances where his reactions were completely out of character, or at least what I am used to. Bunta's voice feels weak compared to Ishizuka Unshou's original performance. The rest of the cast to me lacks the personality of the original TV series voice actors. And in other sad news that I find criminal. The Eurobeat and MOVE are no longer part of the soundtrack. Try to imagine a Cowboy Bebop reboot/remake without the jazz and that's how some Initial D fans probably feel. Half of the music is heavy bass with weak techno cords and the other half is generic J-Rock. I say viewers who have no prior exposure to the original series will have no issue with this factor but to me, the Eurobeat and MOVE is part of the identity of Initial D. As for the character design, it is sharp and crisp and more in tune with that of 4th to Final Stage. As for the races, I felt it was too over reliant on above and below angles and close ups. I felt this ruined Takumi's inertia drift he did against his first race against Keisuke. In the 1998 series, granted the quality is not that great, but the set up and execution made it exciting. I felt this series lacked that. There are instances it works, and instances it doesn't. Another issue is the frame rate. With the upper angles, the frame rate felt rough but the lower angles the frame rate was much smoother. Overall, I say long time fans of Initial D will have mixed feelings for the right reasons. I say viewers with no familiarity will be more open minded to the changes and may enjoy it.

When I heard Initial D was being remade, I was excited. Sure it was fixing something that wasn't really broken, but I knew the first stage had a few flaws. This movie improved on some points but completely missed the mark on others. As this is a remake of Initial D, I thought I would do a bit of old vs. new. STORY- 5/10 DRAW: Initial D always represented a bit of a paradox in story terms to me. The plot remains simple and consistent throughout, but I could never really follow it. I know what happens, but it usually ends up becoming a big blurin my head. It by and large follows Character X races main character, main character wins in a very cool way. The story is a copy/paste from the manga and anime, but with a few differences. 1, Mogi is downplayed. 2, A lot of the 'meat' is trimmed off to make the story fit into an hour length package. 3, In the anime and manga, a character almost causes a head on collision and wrecks his car. In the movie, the same accident is caused not by another car, but a bump. and 4, In the anime and the manga, the main character goes straight home after the Akina race, but in the movie, a rival character confronts the main at the bottom of the mountain in order to have an important conversation that would not have fit elsewhere. I think that these differences are small enough to call this category a wash. ART- 9/10 NEW WINS: Holy crap. This is where the first stage needed this remake the most. In first stage, the animators used a CGI tool that they clearly did not have the hang of. Not only did it look like a PSone was rendering the frames, but the cars never really moved right, especially at low speeds. Now, the cars all look stunning, the action is fast-paced and crisp, and the cars are moving more or less like they actually would. There are a few jarring moments, like when a car does a J-turn, but the animators never got the hang of J-turns anyway. I am not a fan of some of the screenplay, for example, where the POV will be a wide angle, then suddenly moves forward an absurd amount to emphasize the action and goes back to wide angle to appear artsy. Fortunately, the wonky cinematography is the exception and not the rule, and I found myself enjoying many of the moving shots. The actual human characters look cleaner and sharper. by far the biggest improvement is Itsuki, who looks significantly less like a giant-faced mutant. All things considered, the new version has better art in nearly every way. The old just can't compare. SOUND- 3/10 OLD WINS: Betrayal is a pretty weak word to describe my feelings on the background music in the movie. Initial D always had fast, energetic, and catchy eurobeat music in the background for a sample, look up "Space Boy Initial D" or "Don't Stop the Music Initial D" on Youtube. It seems like a stupid combination at first, but it just 'clicks' in the most satisfying ways. The movie on the other hand, ditches the eurobeat in favor of the most generic rock music on the planet. Initial D First Stage relied less on the animation to convey speed and more on the eurobeat to draw the viewer into the race. This new version is quite the opposite. It ends up being so tragic, because if the producers had decided to keep the eurobeat and update the animation at the same time, the result would have been magnificent at worst. Like the Star Wars prequels with better acting... and no Jar-Jar. CHARACTER- 6/10 OLD WINS: Not much to talk about, both the anime and the movie have identical characters with identical stories, but the anime just had so much more time to develop them. An hour is really short for a feature length film, and the movie does its best and does a good job of character development, but it is not quite enough. ENJOYMENT- 7/10 OLD WINS:I wanted to like the movie more than the series, but I enjoyed the old anime series more than the new movie. The eurobeat is too good, the nostalgia too strong, and the QUALITY animation gives its share of laughs. OVERALL- 6/10 OLD WINS: The important part here is the movie COULD have been better than the original series if it had about 20 more minutes of hardcore supporting character development, and had the glorious eurobeat soundtrack. But the fact is, it doesn't. I just wish it did.

So i watched this Anime, i already liked Initial D years ago. But what i can tell is, that the Producers try with this new Movie to find more Fans maybe some who never Watched it before because the graphics where absolutly bad in past. What i liked is that some Details changed, changed maybe in the better way. The Characters changed a bit, but they see like they are more Mature. Also the drawing Style is super, thats why i think that Initial D will have new Fans. The old ones most of them probably will stay. What i didnt like is that thereis no more Eurobeat, they changed it too. What for me was bad is that the time was a little bit short. Also what i can say for people who want to watch this Movie but didnt watch the first stage, watch the first stage you will really enjoy it. Watch all the stages before and than this movie, than you can better relate is this movie better or not. What i like at most is that they still go on with this Serie and i hope they dont stop with it!

I've watched this story of the anime many many times. And I absolutely loved the changes in this movie's artwork. Rather than use 3D CGI in the battle scenes, they drew it, resulting in more fluid and dramatic racing scenes. The resulting product is much cooler to watch, as the image suddenly changes from one end of the car to another. You actually see lines in the spokes of a spinning wheel, rather than CGI modeling the actual spinning for you. I just think the lines in the spokes are way cooler to observe. The artwork for the active scenes in this movie are absolutelygorgeous.

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