VISHNU VIJAY MENON

Initial D is good choice to begin the journey of becoming a "weeb". Honestly, you will rarely notice the difference b/w reality and fiction in this show. The creators have done a commendable job on maintaining the pulse of the story through most of the show, except in first few episodes of the Fifth Stage. Mind that the english dub is only available till stage 4, so better start watching with the subbed version. Although Takumi Fujiwara, the downhill specialist of the Northern Kanto region has been developed in a good way, the real star of the show for me were the Takahashi brothers(Ryosuke and Keisuke). They were shown as the antagonists through the first two stages but at the end of third stage, Ryosuke forms an expeditionary mountain racing team "Project D" with Takumi, Keisuke and his few crew members, from which Ryosuke along with Keisuke become the protagonists of the series. The only area where the series was bit of a letdown was in first few episodes of the fifth stage, where Takumi's winning streak was explained somewhat ambiguously, could not have been a bad thing, if it weren't for the logical reasoning till that point. However it was countered with Keisuke's races (which wasn't shown much during the Project D's introductory races). Trust me, even if you aren't into cars or anime, the show will change that for sure.