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Best Anime About Cars & Racing To Watch (Reviews)

New Initial D is the most thrilling car racing movie series.
New Initial D is the most thrilling car racing movie series.

Car racing is another cool genre of Anime and let’s not deny the thrill of watching a car racing Anime with exceptional soundtracks. Since not everyone can live out their dream of driving a race car, they surrender those dreams to movies.

Well, there are very few car-themed Anime which include Two Car, F-Zero: GP Legend, What’s Up Mechadoc, Future GPX Cyber Formula, Redline, and a few more.

Moreover, there’s a car racing movie series as well, which has got a lot of attention. There’re three movies of New Initial D: New Initial D the Movie Legend 1: Awakening (2014), New Initial D the Movie Legend 2: Racer (2015), and New Initial D the Movie Legend 3: Dream (2016), which are written by Mayori Sekijima.

New Initial D films are an adaption of the Manga series written by Shuichi Shigeno, these movies are considered remarkable because of many aspects like the visuals and audio are just immaculate, and the way characters’ personalities resemble their cars is quite interesting to watch.

Stick around if you want to know more about these movies.

New Initial D the Movie Legend 1: Awakening

If you are even slightly interested in car racing Anime, New Initial D movies are for you.
If you are even slightly interested in car racing Anime, New Initial D movies are for you.

New Initial D Legend 1: Awakening is the first movie from the series, it was released in 2014, and has a rating of 7.2 on IMDb.

The movie starts with Koichiro Iketani, who is driving home when he sees a fight going on between Keisuke Takahashi of the Akagi Red Suns and an enigmatic Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86, who is also known as the “Eight-Six”, Keisuke loses.

The next morning, Iketani asks his co-workers (who are his street racing team called Akina Speedstars), Takumi Fujiwara, and Itsuki Takeuchi to meet him at a gas station. However, later that very night, they discover that the Akagi RedSuns and the Akina Speedstars have already arrived at the gas station.

While Keisuke wants to hunt down and challenge the mysterious Eight-Six, his brother, Ryosuke, who is also the leader of the RedSuns takes advantage of the meet-up to begin his plan of dominating the Kanto region.

During the practice, the Speedstars kiss their pride goodbye as they’re defeated by the RedSuns, whose driving tactics can’t be matched, however, that doesn’t stop Iketani from trying to keep up, which unfortunately leads to a crash.

The Best Car Anime for Car Enthusiasts and Speed Demons 💨

The next day comes, and Iketani’s boss named Yuichi Tachibana tells him that the Eight-Six is actually a delivery vehicle, a tofu delivery vehicle to be specific, which is owned by Takumi’s father, Bunta Fujiwara.

Then Ikatani asks Bunta if he can replace him, however, Bunta declines as he thinks he’s too old to replace Iketani. A few days later, Takumi asks his father, Bunta for the Eight-Six as he’s planning on going on a date with his girlfriend, Bunta agrees to lend Takumi the vehicle, but on condition, Bunta asks Takumi to go to Akina on Saturday and defeat Keisuke in a race.

Well, as Takumi agrees to the condition, Takumi’s arrival at the race leaves the Speedstars in confusion, however, Takumi explains to Iketani why he is here. After hearing the reason for Takumi’s arrival, Iketani agrees to let Takumi race.

The race begins, in which Keisuke took the lead, but Takumi’s driving skills allowed him to catch up and eventually win the race.

As the race ended, Keisuke asks Takumi to not lose any race until their next match.

New Initial D the Movie Legend 2: Racer

The 3rd New Initial D movie is a blast as it includes a race between the drivers, who have amazing driving techniques.
The 3rd New Initial D movie is a blast as it includes a race between the drivers, who have amazing driving techniques.

The second movie starts with Takeshi Nakazato, who is the leader of the Myogi NightKids, challenging Ryosuke Takahashi to a downhill race and talks to him about witnessing Takumi’s gutter technique which he used to defeat Iketani.

As Nakazato was expressing his interest in the gutter technique, he also shows interest in racing Takumi, however, Ryosuke believes that Nakazato’s car will never be able to defeat Takumi’s Eight-Six.

Takumi isn’t into car races as he isn’t a professional racer, however, he accepts the challenge to race. The next day, Takumi goes to the Akina in his Eight-Six, where he sees the Speedstars apologizing to the NightKids for their mistakes.

Well eventually, the race starts, in which Nakazato is in the lead, while Ryosuko and Keisuke are following as spectators. In addition, Nakazato may have taken the lead, Takumi was at his tail as Bunta had tuned the suspension of Eight-Six. The race, as predicted ends with Nakazato losing while trying to block Takumi.

The day after, Iketani’s car is ready to be driven, so Iketani and Itsuki take it from a test drive to Akina, where they encounter a group of NightKids which is led by Nakazato’s teammate, Shingo Shoji.

Takumi arrives right when Shingo bumps into Iketani’s car, which makes Iketani’s car spin out, so Iketani asks Shingo to apologize, to which Shingo agrees only if he loses the “Gum Tape Deathmatch” challenge against Takumi, this silly challenge includes right hand of the driver taped to the steering wheel.

During this race, Takumi nearly crashes because of his taped hand, however, Shingo becomes impatient seeing Takumi not being able to crash, so Shingo takes matters into his hands and bumps into Takumi which causes him to spin out. However, Takumi somehow manages to prevent crashing and regain control.

Eventually, Takumi takes the lead and uses the gutter technique, however, Shingo being Shingo, refuses to lose, so he tries to cause a double crash but Takumi moves out of the way, which results in Shingo’s defeat.

Check out this video to see which car is the best:

Is Eight-Six really the best car in New Initial D movies?

New Initial D the Movie Legend 3: Dream

The movie begins which Takumi running after the NightKids racers as they made fun of Itsuki’s new Toyota Corolla Levin SR AE85. The following, as Takumi’s race against Ryosuke is approaching, he finds himself curious about the outcome, while on a date with his girlfriend named Natsuki Mogi.

Meanwhile, Ryosuke is downgrading his white Mazda RX-7 FC3S to 260 hp as he thinks, it will help him win and defeat Takumi.

On the night before the day of the race, Ryosuke makes a confession to Keisuke that if he loses to Takumi, he will retire from street racing and reaffirm his goals of ruling the Kanto region.

The day arrives and so does everyone, while Takumi is in the front, he feels the pressure of Ryosuke’s incredible driving techniques.

The race begins and Takumi has the lead, however, that doesn’t last for long as he makes mistakes because of all the pressure, which allows Ryosuke to take the lead.

Unfortunately, Ryosuke’s tires wear out, which gave Takumi enough time to come level with him. Well, there were many overtakes, and eventually, Takumi won the race.

However, Takumi feels that Ryosuke let him win by slowing down, to clear his mind he asks Ryosuke why he slowed down in the last part of the race, to which Ryosuke says that he accepts his defeat and gives advice to Takumi to not limit himself to such a small stage like Akina and that there is a much bigger world that he should be a part of.

Check out the table below for some information about the New Initial D movie series:

New Initial D Movie SeriesInformation
Directed ByMasamitsu Hidaka,
Tomohito Naka
Written ByMayori Sekijima
Release DateLegend 1: Awakening
August 23, 2014
Legend 2: Racer
May 23, 2015
Legend 3: Dream
February 6, 2016
Information about the New Initial D movies

Conclusion

  • Anime is popular because of its diversity, there’re different types of anime, for instance, car racing.
  • While the number of car racing anime is small, there’re some great movies and series.
  • New Initial D is a movie series, that are written by Mayori Sakijima.
  • New Initial D movies are entirely about cars and races, if you ever had a dream of becoming a car racer but couldn’t, well you can live out that dream with New Initial D movies.
  • All the cars aren’t really racing-type cars, but the drivers have amazing techniques.
  • Takumi’s Eight-Six is considered the best car, however, Nazakato’s driving skills are too great that no car stands a chance.

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