whoa~ after watching this series for like, the hundredth time, i decided to write a post on this. my mom always say that i’ve watched this so often that she feels like throwing away all my CDs. what????? i spent more than a hundred ringgit for it!
some scenes from stage 1:
summary of the story:
fujiwara takumi, a 17-year old high school student has been helping his father to deliver tofu by car for five years. every morning at 4am, takumi drives the car through mount akina to deliver his goods. having driven on that tricky course for five years, often in adverse weather conditions, takumi has gotten used to the akina course and knows it by heart. using his father’s toyota trueno AE86, takumi often practises “drifting” on the road, letting his car skid, the tyres grabbing the drains. over the years he has perfected his skills on mount akina and thus the legendary “ghost of akina” is born.
in the first race of the series which covers about 6 episodes, takumi’s racing instincts were awaken by the race between him and keisuke takahashi, the driver of mazda RX7 FD3S from team “akagi redsuns”. the redsuns (which is my favourite team, by the way) has not lost a single race up to then, and when keisuke lost to takumi, the redsuns’ winning streak has ended, prompting ryosuke (keisuke’s elder brother) to declare, “we shall have revenge with my FC soon”. oh, ryosuke-sama…
second race of the series is the battle between akina’s 86 with nakazato takeshi of the myogi “night kids”, who drives a nissan skyline GT-R32, a monster car which, according to nakazato, is “the fastest car both on the street and on the circuit”. fuh~ needless to say, takumi won the race, and nakazato’s car is damaged in the process (due to his own poor skills, i might add) what is interesting in this race is ryosuke’s FC followed them (AE86 and GT-R32) all the way, with ryosuke analizing takumi’s movements and keisuke (sitting in the passenger seat) getting goosebumps over takumi’s skills. “this guy lacks a few nuts in his head”, so he said. haha! i love keisuke!
third race, between takumi’s 86 and shoji shingo from the night kids (don’t they ever learnt their lesson?) shingo is highly dissatisfied with nakazato’s leadership in the team, so he decided to defeat the 86 and take over as the head of night kids (team politics!). driving a honda civic (automatic), shingo proposed that they used the “duct tape death match” rule in the race, which is extremely unfair to takumi, since he drives a manual car and therefore needed both his hands to steer (according to the duct tape death match rule, drivers need to have their right hand fastened to the steering wheel). takumi, who was initially uninterested in the race, got the wind up after shingo hurts his (takumi’s) friend in a car accident. he accepted the challenge, and won.
fast forward to the next race, takumi goes to mount usui to race against the famous “impact blue” team which consists of two women, mako and sayuki. driving a blue nissan sil-eighty, they’re extremely familiar with the course, putting takumi at an disadvantage because takumi has never raced on any course other than akina, before. takumi followed them closely, copying their speed and drifts to keep up with them, up until mako loses control over her car and spins, thus letting takumi take over and wins.
meanwhile, takahashi keisuke has challenged nakazato to a race on myogi, and it is here that takumi races against kenta nakamura (akagi redsuns) in heavy rain. being over-confident of his ability to drive in rain, kenta eventually loses to takumi, who has more experience because of his job (delivering tofu in bad weather).
in the final race of the series (the BEST race ever), ryosuke sent a bouquet of roses to takumi and challenges him to a race on mount akina. takumi was stressed by ryosuke’s superstar status, by the fact that takahashi ryosuke has never lost any race before, ever. nicknamed as the “white comet of akagi” and the “king of all streets”, ryosuke, who drives a white mazda RX-7 FC3S, formulates a plan to defeat takumi once and for all. takumi’s chances of winning were slim in the race with ryosuke following him closely to put pressure on him, and it is by chance that takumi wins in the end, when ryosuke’s tyres gave up and he slips out of the ideal line, giving takumi space to overtake.
the series ended with ryosuke telling takumi “not to be satisfied with akina’s small stage”, and it is in stage 2 when we will see all those (most beloved) characters again.
