MovieChat Forums > Initial D: Fourth Stage (2004) Discussion > DVD QUESTION........... PLEASE HELP

DVD QUESTION........... PLEASE HELP

posted 17 years ago by bub_a_ho_tep
5 replies | jump to latest

well...this is just a general question actually.....

i have never seen this ever in my life, just hear really good things about it.
i went to the video store to rent one and they have one called
"Initial D - Battle 1: Akina's Downhill Specialist"

--->my question really is...is this a good enough place to start my viewing....or should i just buy a set.......& even then...where do i start...what should i get......whats the difference between
---> stage 1,2,3...and so on.......& Battle's?????????

thanks for any help!

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[–] PaulOrozco 17 years ago

Well, The DVD's are in chronological order, so that would be the best place to start. The episodes are marked on the side of the DVD box, at the moment it is currently 1-14. As far as the stages go, that just labels the season.

1st stage (1st season about 1996)
2nd stage (2nd season about two or four years later not exactly sure when)
3rd stage (This is actually a full length feature movie)
4th stage / project D (This is the latest and greatest season)

They also have Impact Blue and Battle stage, but the impact blue episode is in the full set already, and apparently is inserted in it's proper chronological order around the time of second stage.

I will say this, the series gets much better as the years progress, the animation becomes far more dynamic and the computer animation grows by leaps and bounds thanks to the technology currently available.

Hope that helps

[–] janthefan 17 years ago

theres a seller on ebay, located in hong kong eshopanime, i bought the full set 100 bucks shipped, all first, second, extra, battle, and fourth stage, its in japanese, english subtitles are on all dvds, and the dvds are region free, so they will work in your dvd player, other than the bad translations in the fourth stage, its bout as good as u can get, and stay away from the tokyo pop version if at all possible

[–] mike-1826 16 years ago

First Stage - (TV Season from 1998)
-26 episodes
-Released across 9 DVDs known as Battle #1-9
-Officially released in the USA by TokyoPop

Second Stage - (TV Season from 1999)
-14 episodes
-Released across 5 DVDs known as Battle #10-14
-takes place chronologically right after season 1
-Officially released in the USA by TokyoPop

Third Stage - (Full Length Movies from 2001)
- 2 hours in length
-takes place chronologically right after season 2
- not to be confused with the live action initial d movie
- Never officially released in the USA

Forth Stage aka "Project D" - (TV Season from 2004)
-24 episodes
-takes place chronologically right after the movie
-Never officially released in the USA

Other Releases:

Extra Stage - (OVA = straight to video release)
-1 episode
-spin off series featuring 2 female drivers
-takes place during the timeline of season 2 and the movie
-Never officially released in the USA

Battle Stage 1 - (OVA = straight to video release)
- 2 episodes
- basically a review of seasons 1 and 2 with all new CG graphics, a quick way to get caught up on the series if you want to start at the movie
-Never officially released in the USA

Battle Stage 2 - (OVA = straight to video release)
-1 episode
-basically a review of the third TV season (fourth stage)
-Never officially released in the USA

TokyoPop has released only the first and second stages on DVD, they also own the rights to release all of the other stages but haven't yet.

Purists don't like the TokyoPop releases because they changed some things from the original Japanese airings
-changed some character names
-added "street lingo" ie: "drifting" became "slammin"
-replaced the original "eurobeat" soundtrack with a rap and hip hop soundtrack by "DJ Milky"
-changed some of the car specs

Supposedly they did those things to make it more appealing to americans. Most of those are "fixed" by simply listening to the Japanese audio track with sub titles instead of the English dub. I've watched both seasons released by tokyopop in the English dub as well and it's really not that bad. Honestly the voice acting is worse than the "Americanization" so you'd probably want to listen to it in Japanese anyway.

[–] SpazFrag 15 years ago

Actually TokyoPop has released the Extra Stage on DVD as well.

And you can watch them with the original japanese audio track including eurobeats and all with english subtitles.

[–] rainman37334 15 years ago

and tokyopop kind of misses natsuki's little sub story, and they tone down the swearing