Initial d is a seinen , sports anime from Studio Gallop and Studio Comet and came out in 1998 , it follows Takumi Fujiwara , a high-schooler who helps out his dad by doing tofu deliveries in his Toyota AE86. He regularly passes through Mount Akina at night during his deliveries and in the process becomes a great driver who knows the mountain pass like the back of his hand , on one such night he is spotted by a highly coveted street racer . This meeting flings him into the world of street racing but is he up for the challenge.
If any of you are unaware , at the time initial d came out , it was a cultural phenomenon , not only was it a well celebrated anime but it popularised drifting to such an extent that the Japanese government had to improve their laws against street racing due to the sudden increase in the number of people who wanted to learn the art of drifting and got themselves injured in the process. It has left a huge impact on the animation industry as a whole and even today has maintained its reputation.
Now , that everyone knows how revolutionary of a show initial d is , let's talk about , why it became such a phenomenon. As you can see in the title , the thing that I want to talk about is the "art of engagement" which means grasping the attention of your audience within an instant of them starting the first season of the anime and in my opinion , initial d was one of the best at executing this. As soon as the first episode starts we are treated to the glorious sight of Takumi drifting around in his AE86 complimented beautifully with the adrenaline pumping soundtrack and slick direction , and right here , just a few seconds in the episode , the viewer is hooked , and now that the anime has made the viewer engaged , it can slow down and start building it's characters . To end the episode on a high note , it once again treats the viewers with the meeting between Takumi and a street racer Keisuke. This creates a great contrast between the intense , adrenaline rushing scenes of breathtaking drifting and the relatively slower scenes of character development . I mentioned in my last blog that a show needs to engage the viewer in the initial few episodes but initial d does that in just the first episode. It packs everything that it can in the episode and leaves a lasting impression on the viewer.
The show then builds into this underdog story of Takumi competing against the best street racers and giving them a run for their money with just an AE86 , his great understanding of the mountain pass allows him to use certain tricks that give him the upper hand. But don't take this to be a shounen style underdog story , remember that it also has a seinen tag and the show justifies this tag as it explores the complexities of Takumi's character , I am not going to spoil anything , but just know that it's not all jolly and well throughout the show. This underdog story is continued for a couple of seasons but then the show starts getting stale as Takumi's tricks start to become boring. By the end of the second season , a lot of people started getting bored by the series and even the amazing soundtrack was not enough anymore.
So , Studios Comet and Gallop pulled another trick out of the bag , they converted the third season into a 2 hour long movie. Now , that might sound absurd but think about it for a second. As a viewer , if you have stuck to a show for two seasons and are now starting to get bored , you are not sure that you are up for another 26 episode season or not , just then , instead of a season , a 2 hour movie is released . Atleast some of you will now think about watching the movie out of loyalty for the show and to just get the third season out of the way , I mean , after all it's only 2 hours instead of like 12. So , once again the show somehow managed to keep its audience together even though it had started to become stale. The big question now is , how to make this audience watch the fourth season , they accomplished this by dropping a huge bombshell at the end of the movie and ending it on a series changing cliffhanger.
This cliffhanger is then smoothly transitioned over into the fourth season and once again managed to keep the viewers engaged for atleast the first half of the fourth season. But then the dreaded time came when the show had nothing left to do. This is the point when Takumi started looking like more of a fluke than an intelligent racer and with no more tricks left in the bag , the show's viewership plummeted. Only the most loyal viewers stuck around till the fifth and sixth season but until then the show had already left a long lasting impression.
It was amazing to see a show which was expected to die off in the second season being able to keep everyone engaged for four and a half seasons with effective use of soundtrack , directions and marketing. And this is why I feel that initial d is an incredible example of the "art of engagement" executed perfectly. If anyone of you have not seen the anime yet , I highly recommend you to do so. Let me know down in the comments if you have any other thoughts regarding the show or if you have any shows that you want me to check out.
Thank you everyone for reading , follow me on twitter @allaboutanimee for any updates regarding the blog , share the blog if possible and have a nice day.
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