You can watch it here: https://www.amazon.com/Initial-Legend-Awakening-English-Subtitled/dp/B07K3P28J4
In the end, I watched two "Initial D" movies. The opinion won't be long because there aren't many things I could write about. The cinematic films take an hour to complete, which is 3 anime episodes. The first season has 26 episodes, I don't know how many the second, but probably as many as well. Even if you could cut most of the content of the series and the film adaptation lost little on it, I assume that there must be something beyond racing, since the fairy tale gained quite a lot of popularity. There are not many plots, the characters are mostly irrelevant, and in their place, they could be almost anything else. Most of the time I write because I exclude the main character, his dad, and one of the Takahashi brothers from this irreverent group. Not that they were some outstanding creations, but they had at least interesting outlines of characters, while the rest were carved out of cardboard. Place-holders that add little to the story (or at least in its cinematic edition), but only serve to clog the background.
The plot is simple. On one complicated route (typical for mountain areas - i.e. more dangerous than on a regular road with more sharp turns) during the night. when there is minimal / no traffic, there are races between groups of drifters and professional drivers. Both locals and visitors take in them. Some of them are big fish, who enjoy recognition both in the press and in the underground world, where adrenaline-hungry people race on public routes. In a way, they can be compared to the aggressive part of the pseudo-fans who care so much about the match, and most of all about beating and killing the latter. The difference is that drivers are on a higher intellectual level and don't risk smashing their noses or blackening their eyes and all they need is a dopamine dose to the brain + a feeling of high risk.
As for the heroes, as I wrote - they only have an outline of the character, but they said some interesting points that gave them any personality. The protagonist is a natural-born talent who does what he likes on a subconscious level (i.e. he is damn good, but he never saw himself as a talent and his way of driving as an outstanding skill). His dad is an old fox who liked to push the gas hard in his youth but had to give up his hobby because of his age. Unfortunately, youth is too short-lived and our skills become blunted with the crossing of one spring. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, depending on our physical and mental condition. Realizing this, Dad abandoned professional racing and started making Tofu and became a mentor to his son. Takahashi didn't get much airtime, but he showed himself from the better side - as an honorable opponent who can swallow defeat and tell the truth about someone who is not close to him. I loved the scene at the end of the first movie where he fluffed Takumi up and down. Modesty is important, that's a fact, and "Initial D" shows it very well, but not bragging is one thing, ignoring your own skills is another. You can be good, but there will always be someone better who will destroy our ego like an asphalt roller.
The music is very good, but nothing with the fan version, the so-called "Eurobeat version" (I recommend you go to nyaa.si and download, just be warned, the timeline in the second part is broken and you will have to watch it in the original version). When I watched the first video, every time they showed some stage of the race, I had a dopamine shot directly into my brain. The standard soundtrack has nice songs too, and maybe even very cool ones, but I prefer fan-driven song selection. Anyway, fuck it, I was excited like I was 13 again and 30 years old me gave me a copy with the movie "Broly". Fortunately, I finally matured to this subject, because although I have a lot of fun driving a car, I don't know anything about cars and for many years I didn't really care about them. However, this has changed recently, which makes the subject of the film and conversations between the characters closer to me.
Speaking of racing ... In the TV series it looks very poor and the movie itself looks pretty ok. Maybe it's not a masterpiece because I've seen better 2014 anime, but I have no reason to complain either. It is quite different when it comes to the climate, expressing the emotions that drivers feel while driving fast. As my friend Ola said recently, people love to feel the power under their hands. Be it in the form of a creative power such as programmers, players, etc. whether from the fact of having a powerful tool in their control, such as military or such drivers. I don't know about realism, because I don't know anything about cars, but at least its elements are real. For example, a fragment from the second film, in which one of the participants breaks the Nitro drive. No, I take it back, everything is fine with it, it's just that the car was not fully adapted to such engine power, so other elements had a greater load than usual. The brakes and other parts of the front wheels blew and the race was over.
Overall, the anime is not outstanding and you might get bored, but if you like cars, fast driving or something related to them, you should like the "Initial D" movies. I recommend it nice and warm - only preferably with a loud enough car to feel the beautiful fucking of a powerful engine and the soundtrack. I fired around 70% and felt like heaven, although the neighbors were not necessarily happy xD.
This music gives a mega boost to power and skill for every driver. : D
