Wow, so much improvement from 2nd Stage which I thought was an improvement from 1st stage. And it looks like the races were made from Maya rather than 3D Studio max. However, the designs this time tends to make the characters much more slimmer. And Ryousuke's hair is back to black :lol:. Anyway, the races look much more awesome in this one that ever before and even shows a cool snow chase as Takumi has to save Natsuki.

The Eurobeat is back and better than ever. The dialouge is crisp to hear and is DVD standard

The Eurobeat is back and better than ever. The dialouge is crisp to hear and is DVD standard

Perfectly resolves the issues from 2nd stage between Takumi and Natsuki and also perfectly transcends to 4th Stage, when Takumi decides to join Project D. You see a lot of development in Takumi's skill as he learns to race on other people's turf.

The video seems to be taken from an R2 DVD. It was nearly perfect. There is some very minor pixelation that is present if you pay really close attention to it. The overall standard of the artwork and CG is much improved over the 1st two stages. There are some flashbacks to previous races, and it is apparent that they went back and redid the CG in them as well.

The audio is only available in a Japanese track. It says Dolby Digital on the packaging, but without surround sound, I cannot confirm this. The soundtrack is awesome as always for any Initial D series. The sound effects fit in perfectly with the racing scenes as well. The only drawback in the audio was that there is a slight background hum that is present. It gets annoying at times. But you forget about it when watching the race sequences.

The audio is only available in a Japanese track. It says Dolby Digital on the packaging, but without surround sound, I cannot confirm this. The soundtrack is awesome as always for any Initial D series. The sound effects fit in perfectly with the racing scenes as well. The only drawback in the audio was that there is a slight background hum that is present. It gets annoying at times. But you forget about it when watching the race sequences.

As an Initial D fan, I was ecstatic to see this released. If you?re a fan of the series, you will love it. I can?t recommend it enough. The animation and CG has been improved. The story ties up a lot of loose ends that were present at the end of the 2nd stage. Questions such as ?What?s going to happen between Takumi and Natsuki? and ?What is Takumi going to do with his future?. It actually deals a lot more with Takumi's personal life than either of the previous two series did. Not to worry though since there is still plenty of racing present for all you AE86 fans.

Video: This was originally produced as a widescreen theatrical release but they've done a combination of pan and scan as well as squishing the picture so everything looks too skinny. What's worse is in the making of section on the disc, they show you most of the scenes in letterbox format so you can really see what you're missing. Aside from that one problem, the video is crisp with good colour saturation. Audio: The levels were recorded too low so by the time you've turned the sound up, you are hearing a fairly pronounced hum. This is a real shame because of all the audio details there are in this release. Subs: The subs are very nice. Easy to read and well translated. There are a few timing issue and a couple of dropped sentances though. Overall: This movie wraps up most of the story lines from the first two stages. There is less driving and more story here than in the TV series. For people just interested in seeing the movie on its own, the recaps do a good job of bringing the viewer up to speed. I can't write this review without noting the incredible leap the animation quality made from the TV show to this movie. I'd really like to see it in a letterboxed release that can do the picture more justice.