Capeta

After losing his mother at a very young age, elementary school student Capeta Taira is forced to become more independent to avoid his father worrying for him. Working in a paving company, his father is often busy and has to work overtime to make ends meet. However, no matter how tough he acts in front of his father, Capeta is ultimately just a lonely kid with a rough life. In addition to his typical house duties, he has to deal with the bully Nobu Andou which makes him feel worse, despite support from his classmate, Monami Suzuki.

One day, Capeta's father sees young go-kart drivers racing at high speeds and gets inspired by the scene. He then decides to collect scrapped parts available on the track and begins working on a gift for his son. Meanwhile, Capeta and Monami sneak into his workplace, suspecting that his father is up to something. Much to their surprise, they see a go-kart built from discarded parts—with Capeta's name attached to it! Although it lacks an engine and looks worn out, the kart is mostly complete and functional.

Despite the heavy rain, Capeta cannot resist the urge to try out this new machinery. As he drives the kart downhill on a wet road, an incident that is almost a dangerous accident instead becomes a thrilling obsession. No longer bored with life, the engine of Capeta's heart is ignited with a new passion as he journeys into the world of racing.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Taira, Capeta Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki Japanese

Minamoto, Naomi Main

Naitou, Ryou Japanese

Andou, Nobu Main

Kiyasu, Kouhei Japanese

Suzuki, Monami Main

Kikuchi, Mika Japanese

Minamoto, Nanako Supporting

Daiki, Yuu Japanese

Taira, Shigeo Supporting

Kote, Shinya Japanese

Noriko, Hata Supporting

Saitou, Maki Japanese

Kajiwara, Kei Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Reinhart III Supporting

Ishibashi, Mika Japanese

Yamakawa, Norio Producer

Sekiyama, Akihiro Producer

Itabashi, Hidenori Producer

Misawa, Shin Director

Reviews

Apr 6, 2023

Shiva_Kumar_J

Recommended

Simply one of the best Sports Series I have ever watched & as well as the one of the most underrated Anime Series or Manga.
Well !!! being a Formula 1 Fan this is a true Pleasure for my Mind & Body.

Hope they reboot this series while storyline going in manga direction and hoping that they go all the way to the end.

Wish there was English Official translations for this Manga Series, for me to pick up the story from the anime,, But Scans are taking so much time, One Day i would love ... to own the complete Manga & Anime box sets.


Overall this is great show , Would love to see more of this .

True Gem lost in Time, due to unpopularity amidst the newly releasing ones where half of them are trash but still get good traction as the Anime community is quite active now.


Must watch for any F1 or Cars fan , a feast to your eyes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 6, 2021

MrSpenfo

Recommended

Capeta is a really good universe, and I don't mean that as some kind of lazy way of saying, "the writing was good" or something like that. No, I say it because of the characters that inhabit the world of this story; the majority of characters, regardless of how they are initially introduced, are easily defined as being good-natured, and more so, there is no one that I would define as intentionally evil to any degree.

Story: 8, The ironic thing about Capeta is that even though it's a racing anime, and more specifically a sports anime, ya know, the type of genre that gets ... dominated by man vs man conflict types? Yeah, but instead, Capeta has primarily man vs nature conflicts, which is an ironic way to describe it, seeing as a car isn't part of nature, but hear me out... Capeta (the character) isn't constantly struggling to beat another racer, he's constantly struggling to beat another racer while driving a much worse vehicle. This is why I say that the core of the conflict is man vs nature, as the primary conflicts are, the cart is damaged, we are too poor, etc. He's attempting to overcome the very nature of the racing world. Most of these conflicts are overcome by Capeta (the character) learning to adapt and in most cases, using the fact that he's driving a worse car to his advantage by changing his own driving style to match the unique characteristics of the vehicle. The core thought behind every obstacle Capeta (the character) comes to face with isn't, "how do I beat this guy?" it's, "how can I drive this car even faster?".

Art: 9, The art style is a pretty subjective one, and personally I think part of the reason I like it so much is because its very reminiscent of Hajime no Ippo, which I really enjoyed. Additionally, the art style really matches the hard-working nature of this show. Lastly, some of the scenes towards the end of the series are animated really beautifully.

Sound: 9, All of the OSTs fit the scenes they're put in perfectly, and the OP and EDs fit the core nature of the anime just as well. Most of the voice acting was spot on as well, really the only thing that held this back from a 10 in sound was the voice acting specifically for the little kid characters. Most of them are pretty annoying in my opinion, with Monami hands down earning most annoying, but I will say that this is probably compounded by the fact that I find Monami to also be the hands down most annoying character even without taking her voice into consideration.

Character: 9, The beautiful thing about almost every character in this anime is, regardless of their level of importance, every character is typically introduced in a heavily flat manner, or to be more specific; they are introduced in a manner that specifically makes them seem like a very flat, very troupe-driven character, however, that is anything but what that character actually is. Its a level of hidden ingenuity in this anime; instead of trying to blow you away with an amazing character right out the gate, the writer intentionally made his characters seem flat, so that their progression as round, dynamic characters would be both surprising and enjoyable. Naomi is probably the character that this rings truest for, as he is very much introduced as just some stereotypical douche, but I'd be shocked if you said you watched all 52 episodes and still felt that way about him.
There is a single character that holds this anime back from being a 10/10 in character, and that is hands down Monami, or at least that's what I would have said at the beginning of the anime. While I do like her a lot more by the end, I think a lot of her character is just straight up obnoxious, to the point that I literally had to skip over certain scenes in the beginning because she single-handedly made me want to stop watching. Regardless, there is still one other negative I see in character, and that's a result of the fact that the anime kinda gets tunnel vision a lot, and to explain what I mean; The anime has a habit of becoming too focused on its core narrative, and while I think other shows could learn a thing or two from it, at the same time, this anime gets tunnel-vision to the point of you asking, "so whatever happened to that one guy?" and even if they do pop-up again we really never learn why they faded into irrelevance for the series.


Enjoyment: 9, Part of the enjoyment of Capeta is that Capeta (the character) doesn't win every race, and they take a very realistic approach by not having him win every race (especially considering that basically everyone else is racing top of the line machines with dedicated mechanics, and Capeta (the character) is racing a trash-kart made by his complete amateur of a father (also, not dissing his dad, its just the truth)). However, foreshadowing is like the most abused story mechanic in Capeta, and it made some things a little overly predictable at times.

Overall: 9, By halfway through the first episode, I had already fallen in love with this anime, and I'm glad to say that I never lost that feeling throughout the watching experience. However, reaching the end was a truly bittersweet moment simply because it felt that it came too fast. Capeta has several time skips in it that honestly feel like a shame simply because I really wanted to be able to follow Capeta's entire journey from karts all the way to F1. Additionally, while it is teased at the end that they do eventually make it to the F1 level, its never shown directly in the anime (not sure if the anime covers everything that the manga did), and I definitely thought we were gonna get to the F1 level, so I'm a bit disappointed in that.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 19, 2021

DiogoT555

Recommended

This will be a very simple review as I don't want to say spoilers.
I first watched this incredible anime when I was a kid and recently i decided to rewatch it because I showed a race to a friend who never heard of this anime and we both got goosebumps.

Story: Capeta trys the Karts at a very young age and he decides to start racing as he loved it. Capeta as many challenges along the way but with is ability and his friends and family he overcomes those chalenges step by step race by race league by league as one of his dreams is to ... race with is "rival" Minamoto Naomi who was a year older so he was always a step further than Capeta.

Art: For me is a 10/10 very original and I can't imagine this anime without this art.

Sound: Absolutely incredible it fits the scenes very well and very VERY emocional.

Character: I like them a lot, they have good development and one thing I like about capeta and what makes this shounen very original is there is no antagonist, all the racers are kind likeble as they have cool personalities and are not bad people they just wanna race and be fast.

Overall: 10/10 amazing anime wish it could continue as we only have the first 3 arcs adapted.

Final words: This is the most underated anime of all time seriously if you're still reading this please take my advise and watch this masterpiece, it is so unkown that it is sad and I can't understand why. Hiden gem.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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	Poll: Capeta Episode 3 Discussion LouM - Dec 6, 2016	6 replies	by Lylaaz »» Aug 11, 4:17 PM
	Poll: Capeta Episode 5 Discussion Monad - Feb 25, 2012	4 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Aug 4, 11:54 AM
	Poll: Capeta Episode 4 Discussion Monad - Feb 25, 2012	2 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Aug 4, 11:42 AM
	Poll: Capeta Episode 2 Discussion jacobpaige - Mar 4, 2011	5 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Aug 4, 5:43 AM
	Poll: Capeta Episode 1 Discussion jacobpaige - Mar 4, 2011	5 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Aug 3, 9:37 PM

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