Rating: 
Summary: don't waste your money
Review: It's series like this that dampen the beautitude of anime. I bought Initial D after I read an artical and found the story intriguing. While watching though, I could hardly pay attention... I had literally dropped my jaw at how awful a thing I was watching. The animation is generally terrible and hardly fluid. Many times in one episode the screen even tended to shudder. During the cg car sequences the enhanced cars did not fit in well with the normal backgrounds, and why someone found it necessary to replace the original and better car audio with a horrible new track in the english version keeps me awake at night. Also in the english version, the original music was replaced by some annoying hiphop or punk sounding junk. Could the horrible quality of this dvd partially (or mostly) be Tokyopop's fault? Probably... For those who enjoy watching translated anime, you will be VERY disappointed with Initial D's english version for many more reasons than just the new car sounds and music. Most of the voices are terrible and unprofessional, and the dialouge has been thoroughly damaged through translating. Many characters have also been given ridiculous new names... this was quite insulting... for me anyway. I mean, it's not THAT hard to remember the original japanese names of these people. Street racing is an interesting concept for an anime, and though I despised this dvd I still like the story of Intial D. As dissapointing as both original and english versions were, it's nice knowing that the series was not "all action" and there was an actual deeper story involved. So, if you're interested in the story of Initial D (which I failed to mention anything about and no longer have any room left to do so) I suggest reading the manga... it can't be worse than this dvd. Please... I beg you, avoid the anime if you do not wish to feel the regret that I have in buying it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Content -- Good Value
Review: Let me say in advance that I am not a fan of tokoypop. Never have been. Furthermore, I had read in advance about all the "horrible" things which were going to pop up in this US series of DVD releases... and I can honestly say that I'm more impressed and pleased with the product than I was expecting. The Good: Original Japanese video track and audio track. Ability to "customize" your viewing between different language and video tracks.
The Bad: Horrific English audio track with awful voice acting and a ridiculous amount of script-changing.
The Ugly: 'Tricked Out' Graphics.
Just Sad: English subtitles EDITED for some "questionable" content.
Conclusion: At this price, I say it's worth the buy, if only for watching the original japanese subtitled version of the episodes. Don't like the english audio? Then don't listen to it. You're not paying any extra for it anyway, thus I won't down-rate the product for it. Frankly the only reason I give this 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the content editing in the subtitles. There is absolutely no excuse for this. Overall, still very enjoyable and I'm glad to finally have it in North America.
Rating:
Summary: Good Content -- Good Value
Review: Let me say in advance that I am not a fan of tokoypop. Never have been. Furthermore, I had read in advance about all the "horrible" things which were going to pop up in this US series of DVD releases... and I can honestly say that I'm more impressed and pleased with the product than I was expecting. The Good: Original Japanese video track and audio track. Ability to "customize" your viewing between different language and video tracks.
The Bad: Horrific English audio track with awful voice acting and a ridiculous amount of script-changing.
The Ugly: 'Tricked Out' Graphics.
Just Sad: English subtitles EDITED for some "questionable" content.
Conclusion: At this price, I say it's worth the buy, if only for watching the original japanese subtitled version of the episodes. Don't like the english audio? Then don't listen to it. You're not paying any extra for it anyway, thus I won't down-rate the product for it. Frankly the only reason I give this 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the content editing in the subtitles. There is absolutely no excuse for this. Overall, still very enjoyable and I'm glad to finally have it in North America.
Rating:
Summary: Great Show, but ONE OF THE WORST DUBS TO COME OUT IN YEARS.
Review: Let me start by saying that this show is great. It's very original and very addicting. Even if you're not into cars you will find this show very interesting and very good. Provided you stay as far away from the dub as possible. After 7 years they finally brought it to U.S. shores. Too bad we recieved one of the most butured animes to come out in a long time. Don't get me wrong, it's uncut and uncensored. Well, sort of. While no footage was cut, the dub is terrible. They basically decided to make the show more "hip" and "happening" by having the characters talk like ex-members of The New Kids of the Block. The diologue is fit for a poorly dubbed anime on Kid's WB. Lines are changed and just plained tarnished by this mess of a dub. If that's not enough, sound effects and music have been changed in order to make it sound more "cool". The shame of this is the fact that one of the big features of the show originally was that the Japanese version sampled sounds from the actual models of the cars for the sound effects. That and the original music is very popular in the anime world. They ignored this and it made it look and sound more like a lame MTV music video rather than a real street race. Luckly you have the option to switch back to the original video and Japanese audio. I must also say that the back of the cover lies about the running time. It may say 180 mins but it's actually close to about 70 minutes. It only contains 3 episodes, but since there are different versions of those three episodes they displayed the running time to 180 minutes. Again, this is a great original show, but set this DVD to "Classic" and to Japanese with English subtitles for the real deal.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have Anime For Car Lovers
Review: Man I am reading some of your reviews and I must say STOP BI*CHING! I mean I see people complaining about the American version of Inital D and how they changed the music SO WHAT! Toykopop also added the Japanese verison for people that like to read the fast subtitles and miss the action. The story is great about Tak not even knowing that he is a born street racer and he non-shalate (sp?) atittude makes he a very good main character. To me this is the best of Anime and street racing all in one cartoon!
Rating: 
Summary: Reconsider.......
Review: Man, I have never seen any animation that keeps me glue to the seat and on want to continue watching Initial D. After seeing battle 1-4 from Toyokopop studio, I decided to buy the Hong Kong version (which have Chinese & English subtitles) and finish watching the rest of this "Stage 1" series which have 26 episodes and 2 other stages because I don't want to wait for every 2 months for them to release the next battle which only have 3 episodes. There is also "Stage 2" have 13 episodes and "Stage 3" is the movie. I would recommended everyone to watch the Japanese dialog track because the character voices and the music are ways better than the dub version. If you have to watch the dub version, switch over to Japan version whenever they race. You will know what I mean the differences in car audio sound and music from the dub version. I heard that "Stage 4" is being air on Japan right now and DVD vol. 1 contain espisodes 1&2 is out. Every 2 month, they gonna air 2 espisodes on Japan pay-per-view TV. Stage 4 I heard have 14 espisodes and there might be "Stage 5" and is going a be a movie. I can't until next year to get "Stage 4" DVD because I don't want to get volume by volume, hopefully they will put all the espisode into one package.
Natsuki has a secret and you guys will know in "Stage 2" series. *Hint* The old man in a Mercedes is not her real father even though the subtitle said "papa".
Rating:
Summary: TokyoPop killed yet another...
Review: the entire reason i dislike this dvd is because of how much tokyopop changed. they cut story elements from the original japanese, they changed a LARGE percentage of dialog. when i mean changed, they changed WAAAY too much. the basic jist of what the characters say is more or less the same, but tokyopop tried to direct the dialogue towards teenagers still living in 1993 despite how fairly recent the anime is (1995 in japan at earliest is my guess...1997-1998 in north america via tokyopop at earliest). initial d is all about the driving skill and techniques. the animation was never great because the anime is driven by the races and the events leading up. tokyopop apparently didn't realise this and REMOVED a good percentage of the technical talk. the tokyopop version has been HORRIBLY dumbed down, and thus is pointless for a drift fan to watch. the only reason i'd suggest you purchasing this is so you can legally get a fansub of it and watch the anime with proper dialogue and real racing music rather than old-school rap. i love rap, but it has no place in racing games
Rating:
Summary: A really cool anime
Review: The Initial D series as a whole is just interesting. I came into it hating cars, and such, and now after seeing all 26 episodes of the first stage(this dvd is a part of) the whole battle stage(intrim) the Movie(3rd Stage), and all of the current episodes of 4th stage(current season), I have come out loving the sport of drifting. The series is just genuinely interesting as it covers the love, work, and racing of the characters. The story (non racing) parts of the series tend to drag on in the later episodes, but they build such a suspense that the viewer is on the edge of their seats for the races. The races are where this series truely shines, one because they are fast and frentic, but two they are where the main character grows and develops as a person. I highly recommend at least trying the first DVD, because this is a cool series that deserves watching.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story!!!but.....
Review: Theres only one thing wrong with this anime. The characters are poorly drawn, but other than that its an awesome anime with a great story behind it. The story starts with a car formally called a 86' toyota driving down the hill of Akina. There are conflicts between the racing gangs known as the RedSuns and the SpeedStars. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes a good story and enjoys cars!!!
Rating:
Summary: Drift or Die
Review: This is an anime that really has a chance to cross over and make it into the hearts of Americans. It gives us a young, not so popular and rarely fully awake hero, Takumi. You will feel he really just does not get it or care to. The fact of the matter is he has been driving illegally for 6 years because that was his father's way of training him to become the best. Honestly I have not seen the DVD that Tokyo Pop has made, but if it has the original As well as their version, you won't lose. The Japanese version is very edgy with some of the personal conflicts and yes the relationship of certain people and a gargle of swearing. Think about it though folks if your car is not doing what you tell it to do you just give it kind words about it is the trying that counts? No, you will swear. It is very unrealistic in a realistic way. You find yourself wishing for the little AE86 to beat the big bad Skyline. I did and I love Skylines, which leaves me to hope this really takes off because there are talks that filming of a live action Initial D movie is in the works. I'm sure the English version will have all kinds of different things to keep it more palatable to everyone, but if you find it a let down try the Japanese version with subtitles like I imported back in late 1999 and fell in love with. The cars might not be the most beautiful animation by Pixar standards but you will never get to see Woody using an inertia drift.
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