04-23-2004, 06:53 AM
Having watched the first episode of Initial D: 4th Stage, I must say I'm very impressed with the animation. Not only have they managed to blend the CG cars and digitally rendered characters quite seamlessly, but they've managed to reasonable retain the manga look of the characters, without making them a turn off to casual viewers. I like the cel-shading for the CG cars, but I'm hoping the action will resemble more of First Stage, with all the drive-by drifting shots, instead of all the in-car and car-following shots of Second Stage, which sometimes made it look like none of the cars are drifting, when often they are. The battle music still sounds like Eurobeat, but whether it'll always be like this is unsure. The OP and ED are very cool, although I originally expected the ED song to be used for the OP (as did most people). Very impressed.