Product Details

• Actors: Nobuyuki Hiyama, Michiko Neya, Yumi Kakazu, Kôsuke Okano, Keiji Fujiwara
• Directors: Masami Hata, Noboru Mitsusawa
• Format: Animated, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English, Japanese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Tokyopop Pictures
• DVD Release Date: September 16, 2003
• Run Time: 150 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00009N1ZE
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #92,735 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #35 in

  Movies & TV > Anime & Manga > By Studio > Tokyo Pop

• For more information about "Initial D - Battle 1 - Akina's Downhill Specialist" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In a flyspeck town north of Tokyo, the teenagers' only thrill is street racing on Mt. Akina. Nerdy Takumi "Tak" Fujiwara isn't exited by racing like his friends Iggy and Cole. He doesn't realize that his ex-champion father has taught him all the racing tricks, making him deliver tofu up and down Mt. Akina without spilling a cup of water. Cole is injured when he tries to prepare to lead the local Speed Stars club against the arrogant Red Suns. He appeals to Mr. Fujiwara--who finagles Tak into racing. This 1998 broadcast series scored a bit hit in Japan, although in America, it plays like a tamer, animated Fast and the Furious. The CG cars, rock soundtrack, rapid-fire editing, and flashy camera work heighten the excitement--and make the disclaimer, "Follow the traffic rules and drive safely" sound insincere. (Rated 13 and older: tobacco use, minor profanity, street racing) --Charles Solomon

Product Description

Initial D tells the story of a 17-year-old delivery boy named Tak, who suddenly finds himself caught up in the heart-stopping world of street racing. Tak drives the "Eight-Six", a street term for the Toyota Trueno AE86. When chance puts him up against street racing legend, he gets hooked and the word quickly spreads about the famous "Eight-Six of Mount Akina." More rival racers appear to challenge Tak and his friends in a series of white-knuckle contests.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars TOKYOPOP really should get a backbone., August 12, 2003

By	"silkreelingpower" (Lubbock, TX United States) - See all my reviews

It's mangled, just like the manga (US release). In the English version on the disc, they really bent over for American Censorship (TM). K.T.? Natalie? Iggy? Who came up with these names? Also, the original creators actually sampled the authentic engine sounds for each of the different cars for the original version. But the english audio has these "tricked out" rice rockets in an attempt to be "cooler' and "more hip" to the same people who think "The Fast and the Furious" is real. The background music as well was mangled, as they replaced the original tracks with - face it - horrible garage and punk bands. The major KICK-IN-THE-PANTS is that the relationship between Natsumi (errr, Natalie?) and her "daddy" has been deeply removed. I guess enjou kosai is too deep a subject for American audiences. My advice? Don't buy the TOKYOPOP release. Save your money for the R2's.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inital D-Battle 1, October 4, 2003

By	"iamssgoku" (USA) - See all my reviews

I love Initial D. Initial D is one of the best animes out there. And I've been paciently waiting its arrival in the U.S. After buying and watching Battle 1 I've got a few things to say. There's good knews and bad knews. The good knews is that Inital D is a great show. The story, the characters, the cars, and definately the racing is awesome. I really like the whole CG effect used. The bad knews is that the "tricked out" version on this dvd is absolute garbage. They changed way too much. First off, they changed the music from the awesome eurobeat techno type of stuff which gets your blood pumping, to some really gay and loud rap. Not only is the music horrible, but in almost all parts of the episodes, the music is so loud you can't here what the characters are saying. Another bad thing is that the voices and some of the things they say have been somewhat changed. There is not possible way that they could have made Iggy's voice more annoying. The good thing is the enhanced video. It seems that the picture is clearer and brighter than the orriginal which makes it much easier to watch. Despite all these drawbacks, the best thing is that you can watch the original Japanese on this dvd. My advice is to choose the original version, make sure subtitles are on, and then also make sure in the settings part the video is on enhanced video. Because that way you can watch it with original music and voices, yet keep the higher quality video. That is the savior of this DVD. If it weren't for the horrible english version that has been created, I would have given this DVD a 5. Get it, no questions asked. Just make sure you watch it in Japanese. ^_^

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Save your $$, October 3, 2003

By	Liquid (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

Ugh, I've been a fan of Initial D for several years. For those of you not familiar with Initial D, the series has been divided into three stages, 1st stage, 2nd stage, and 3rd stage. From reading about the product on the website it sounded to me like this dvd contained all episosdes from first stage (probably 10+ episodes, im not sure the exact number). Well in actuality this dvd has 3 episodes from first stage, barely enough episodes to get the plot even started. I was very dissapointed when I found this out. Also, even though they have a classic setting on the dvd, they still changed the subtitles. Even despite that they change the wording, what I found particularly annoying was that they tended to cut long sentences in half. If you can read at any reasonable speed though, you are left waiting to read the next half of the sentence. It makes the dialog feel much less smooth. Maybe for the price I shouldn't have expected all of the first stage episodes, but at the same time, 3 episodes at probabably 20-25 minutes each doesn't seem like its worth what I paid (although with all the extra features they get to say they have 150 minutes of footage).

I was extremely dissapointed with this product, and I'm going to go see if I can exchange it or anything right this second.