Product: Initial D: Fourth Stage, Part 1
Rating: 4.0
Initial D 4th Stage Part 1 - Reaching new heights with Project D
4th stage is all about Project D, a new traveling street racing team formed by Ryosuke Takahashi that has a very ambitious goal: Defeat every racing team in every prefecture of Japan. This goal should be accomplished by the 2 ace drivers: Takumi Fujiwara and Keisuke Takahashi.This 12 episodes of 4th stage are much more action-oriented than past seasons but there is a little bit of drama and romance that are very refreshing between the intense races. Project D shows the evolution of Takumi as a Street Racer and its pretty bizarre to hear him talk about technical details for the setup of a race or just describing a driver's technique.The opponents range from kamikaze or refined street racers to a pro driver .... yes, a pro driver !!! ... this translates to high-level driving and strategies, that show the real genius of Ryosuke. Overall, the Part 1 of the 4th Stage is very intense, crazy and surprisingly original and very well directed.In the technical aspect, this DVD still presents the 4:3 video SIMULATING WIDESCREEN, this is a bit odd for me but is not a big deal because its much more important to finally an official release.The animation hasn't been a strong point of the series but the new studio has vastly improved the quality of the anime. The picture and sound are high quality as expected and the package is not as good as 1st and 2nd stage but its acceptable.As i stated in the review of 3rd Stage, we should feel blessed with this release that seemed so far away from release in the past years so THIS IS A MUST BUY if you are fan of INITIAL D, you won't regret it, this season is by far the best.