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 blur
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in 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.
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Jan 15, 2016
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 blur ... 
Dec 8, 2015
Ippatsu Hicchuu!! Devander
(Anime)
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I have no idea how this OVA came to my attention, but I am glad it did. I came in expecting nothing, and what I got was a wonderful world of plotholes and nonsense.
STORY: 1/10 Beats whatever potential it had with a bloody wooden spoon. Basically a cliche evil Planet X needs 'energy' to keep existing and the best/most convenient/most plot driving target is.... EARTH! The Earth is invaded and blah blah blah, several contrived plot devices later, the 'only' person that can do anything about it is our male lead. Several red flags pop up about halfway through when the ... 
Nov 7, 2015
F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu
(Anime)
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Let me be clear, I am a hardcore F-Zero fan. This anime is loosely based on the CHARACTERS of F-Zero instead of the story of F-Zero. Why? Because F-Zero never really had a plot. It took the series 13 years to give the characters back story. And what a back story they got. From superheros to supervillians, bounty hunters to intergalactic fed-ex employees to a disgruntled ex taxi driver using his cab as a racer. given these new intensive backstories, combined with the hardcore action and raw speed of the games, an F-Zero anime sounded like a great
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