Review of Initial D: Third Stage (2001) by Adrian N — 16 Nov 2010

This sequel was released in 2001. It takes place after the events of Second Stage and unlike the first 2 installments which were TV series, Third Stage is instead a full length movie. The story in this movie is pretty good.

Besides Takumi Fujiwara, characters like Bunta Fujiwara, Takeuchi Itsuki, Mogi Natsuki, Kouichirou Iketani and the Takahashi Brothers are back and most of them are still likeable as ever. There are a few races in this movie.

And as always, they are fun to watch. The art and animation in Third Stage has been improved over in Second Stage. The character designs are a little better looking, the CG for the races still look awesome and the environments look great.

The music contains the same old eurobeat music that was used in the previous installments, though there are newer tracks here that weren't in the old entries. And as usual, they are a blast to hear.

M.O.V.E. comes back again to do the opening theme for this movie and it's a pretty good song. It may not be as good as the songs used in the first opening and ending theme in First Stage and the opening theme in Second Stage, but it is better then their song used in the second opening theme in First Stage.

In the end, Initial D: Third Stage is a great sequel to the Initial D series. You need to have past experience with the previous installments of the series in order to watch this so that you can get a better feel for the characters and the plot of both First Stage & Second Stage combined.