Customer Reviews

Initial D: Second Stage - The Complete Second Season

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow, I have not seen this one for more than ten years ago. Time sure flies. When I see this product in stores, I was a bit hesitating because I have seen the trailer in english dubbed and music changed. Once I have heard from friends who rented or owned it, they said the japanese versions were kept in tact. You know, they were right!. That made me happy. I tried to give english version a chance, but I cannot surpass the music, the new given names, and the new special effects during the race. It just not the same! Just to be fair, I will only review only the original japanese version. The picture and the sound are really clean for a TV series. The contents are kept intact. I do not recall any scenes have been edited out. It also include "Extra Stage" to complete the series. This is a surprising add on which I almost forgot about. I recommend who enjoys classic sport cars do battle and remind how good the cars in their time.

I love the series. I'm a die hard anime fan and for a time was a street racer. So when I stumbled upon Initial D I was instantly intrested and once I started I couldnt stop. I bought each of the 14 disks Toyo Pop released of the series as they came out.

My only quesiton is does funimation have any more episodes in these sets than I have in my toyko pop dvd's? Someone please let me know.

Thanks

I love initial D and drifting as a whole. This box set even has extra stage included. Second stage was good but it was too short compared to first stage. If you like the series or street racing in general check this out.

I began my Initial D experience with Live-Evil & Ideology's translation and reproduction of Fourth Stage. It was near flawless in my opinion. Every added subtitle and other translation (signs, etc) looked like it belonged there. I'm not sure who produced this version, but the placement of the subtitles is horrible at times, i.e. placed so that you can't read it, and acceptable at others. For example at the begining of a new episode when you see the Kanji title, the English title will often be right on top of it in the same color, so you can't read the title of the episode. The subtitles also look like they are written in a low grade font, the letters are not smooth at all and look like they were added afterwards instead of looking like part of the cartoon (i.e. Live-Evil's version).

This version of Second Stage is on two discs. The chapters are set up so that each chapter is an episode, as opposed to Tokyo Pop's versions which begin each chapter at a commercial break. It means that if you want to see a particular battle in some episode, you have to fast forward.

I love the story of Second Stage, and while the animation is of course dated, it is better than that of First Stage. Second Stage is short, having only 13 or 14 episodes, but the battles are memorable, and there is significant character development. For example, you see Takumi go from this kid who knows nothing about cars and isn't interested in them, to having his head under the hood working on the 86 at the end of the season.

Overall, I don't regret this purchase, and I still pop this DVD in to watch some of the better battles. Though, I really wish it was done better. I would pay twice what I paid for this season if I could get a version with none of the production flaws that this version has.