Showing the Initial D love

[petronia]

Was reading volumes 27-28 of the manga last night. Dude, does not Ryousuke of all people deserve a decent night's day's sleep as well? But I suppose if he'd gone to the ryokan the upshot would've been no sleep for anybody. :0

I can't believe they sent Keisuke to deliver a beatdown by himself. Bunch of wusses! I mean okay clearly Kei was the one to get into the schoolyard fights and Ryou was the one to make sure his opponents got into "accidents" in gym class the next day (channelling the Fujis here), but you'd think Kenta would back him up at least.

I never quite know what to say about Shigeno's romantic subplots. On the one hand, he's one of the few shounen/seinen mangaka capable of creating female characters I genuinely like and sympathize with, let alone m/f drama that makes me care. On the other hand, it's always FAILED m/f drama. No 30 kisses material, only Takumi and Natsuki so much as got to first base. ....Haha see there's another similarity between Shigeno and Kuwabara Mizuna: they both like to torture their characters with gratuitous sexual frustration.

Seriously Keisuke is love, though. His lack of calculation is endearing and maddening. Maybe Kyouko will wait? After all she's unlikely to find an even more impressive specimen of boyfriend potentiality in the space of a year, her taste being picky. XD

Someone needs to write fic about Ryousuke traumatizing Keisuke out of his adolescent delinquency. (I just can't figure out how Keisuke managed to grow up not hating his brother. XD Could it be that the Takahashi parental units were intelligent enough never to say "Why can't you behave and get good grades like your brother?" No parental units are that intelligent.)

The dad team = "Purple Shadow". I'd make a joke but there's just no challenge in it anymore, as Yagami Light would say.

If not for this series I might still dislike eurobeat / happy hardcore / italodisco, and then where would we be: [folder]

I actually have about 7 CDs worth of Initial D music but some of it is archived away, none of it is on my work computer, and maybe I just hallucinate that I have the Vocal Battles because T plays them constantly when she drives. /o/ But anyhow, there's opening and ending themes and some of the first season race music (Chrissie and Bing, I command you to memorize which songs go with which race like us True Fans XD). And remixes. I spent fifteen minutes last night equalizing down the vocals on the seven-minute "Around The World" extended mix so I could pay better attention to the instrumental, which is all sort of electro-housey and not half bad when you get down to it. XD

mitethe has some tracks from 4th Stage up. Also, squidlet has a link to an IniD live-ac movie making-of clip here. Some of the casting choices are more questionable than others; the thought of Jordan Chan portraying Sudou Kyouichi with bandanna intact fills me with way too much amusement.

Comments

[beckerbell.livejournal.com]

I just can't figure out how Keisuke managed to grow up not hating his brother.

I never really thought about this, but now that I stop to think about it... good lord, how true. Though, I wonder what kind of kid Ryousuke must have been. I understand why they get along now, Ryousuke does a lot to encourage Keisuke, is confident in his own skills, but he's also easily capable of pointing out that he thinks Keisuke could be even better. Perhaps Ryousuke was never the typically obnoxious older brother that made the kid brother feel inferior? Sort of like Fuji, only with the self-awareness to encourage Keisuke in a way other than teasing the poor kid mercilessly? (Yet I have trouble believing that. Ryousuke seems often amused by the effect he often has on people. I can't believe that he wasn't fully aware of how sending Takumi roses would look.)

Also, I am always deathly afraid to drive with any Initial D music playing. I'm afraid that I'd get caught up in the music and floor it and wrap myself around a tree. ~__~

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Keisuke says in the manga that his aniki was the only person who understood what he was going through, even when his parents had utterly given up on him (there seem to have been a couple years of leading motorcycle gangs, there. XD). Apparently Ryousuke showed him the error of his ways by driving him up Akagi and down really really fast, so that for a few minutes Keisuke marinated in the terror that he'd pushed the deliquency too far and Ryousuke intended for them to commit double suicide to avoid bringing shame to the Takahashi family. Given which I, uh, question if he could've been one whit less distressing an older sibling than Fuji Shuusuke. XD

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

for a few minutes Keisuke marinated in the terror that he'd pushed the deliquency too far and Ryousuke intended for them to commit double suicide to avoid bringing shame to the Takahashi family.

there are really no words for how much I adore Keisuke. XD

wot no no-one sleep? XD

[metempsychosis.livejournal.com]

Oh my god I just watched the making-of clip and had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep myself from squealing in girlish glee

--♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥--> <--!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--

ps o sabina, with this inid music, you are spoiling us. and by 'us', I mean 'i am going to burn this all off RIGHT NOW and life will be perfect'. Well, as perfect as it can be until I can get my hands on stages beyond the second.

...I never wrote that girlteam shoujo ai, did I? hm.

Re: wot no no-one sleep? XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Truly, it is t3h squee. (But you do not have 3rd and 4th stage? :O Is downloading/watching of fansubs impracticable?)

Re: wot no no-one sleep? XD

[metempsychosis.livejournal.com]

So good. so good so good so... you know, I think I'll watch it again. (anthony WONG! in the tank top! smoking! *DIES*) Jae Young has been mocking me in IM. XD

(don't have any HD space in computer at home to download fansubs onto, and while i've sexxy university bandwidth there's no use of p2p sharing allowed. plus no computer. so I wait for the next time i get somewhere that has (bootleg hk) dvds, and then I'll buy.)

[corneredangel.livejournal.com]

Trying to drive to IniD music = *VERY* not good. A two-lanes-in-either-direction street is NOT enough for a u-turn off like seventy mph without slowing down as much as a mile...

...or, like the thought that thankfully planted itself in my brain: three a.m. and being *able* to go a hundred doesn't actually mean I *have* to...

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The Voice of Experience speaks. XD

(Have been speeding. To Initial D music. In the snow. But it's not as good as the time T and I were in a hurry to get somewhere, ran to her car, started it piled in buckled up in five seconds flat - and the "Gundam awakening" music started from the CD she left in the player.)

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Probably silly question but...

Weren't the vocal battle (or whatever) the ones with Seki Tomokazu & Koyasu Takehito? And if so, would you have a list of the titles on hand? I could probably (maybe) find a few of them lost on my hard disk...

[petronia.livejournal.com]

There were two CDs with all the characters from First Stage, and one that had just Seki and Koyasu, yes. XD Respectively:

http://www.geocities.com/initial_d_battle/vocalbattle.html
http://www.geocities.com/initial_d_battle/vocalbattle2.html
http://www.geocities.com/initial_d_battle/redsunspecial.html

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Here's the ones I have... (* = I could find the title in the links you sent me).

Kiseki no Hana *
Omoitsuki (Suggestion?)*
Don't stop the music *
Tooi Sora e *
Black Out *
Kono Michi Ni *
Kimi ga Iru *
Kagayaite Ikou

[jantalaimon.livejournal.com]

*whimpers*

OMG SO SCARED. XD

[astrael-nyx.livejournal.com]

*dissolves into fits of giggles* I will not be able to sleep tonight because I will be imaginging Jordan Chan in all his bandana glory as Kyouichi and end up laughing every hour or so. The casting choice of Jay Chow as Takumi still amuses me immensely.

Thanks for the link to the making-of clip; it made my night.

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

But I suppose if he'd gone to the ryokan the upshot would've been no sleep for anybody. :0

...Um. Surely you're not thinking what I'm thinking? (All-night threesome?)

I can't believe they sent Keisuke to deliver a beatdown by himself. Bunch of wusses! I mean okay clearly Kei was the one to get into the schoolyard fights and Ryou was the one to make sure his opponents got into "accidents" in gym class the next day (channelling the Fujis here), but you'd think Kenta would back him up at least.

Oh, but Ryousuke specifically tells the rest of them to get in the cars first, doesn't he? I mean, he's not staging an apocalyptic fight but a quick getaway, so Keisuke's job is just to delay the Guys with Big Sticks while Ryousuke, um. Cheers from the sidelines?

And hey, Keisuke must've been so proud -- getting to say "Stay here and don't move," to Ryousuke. Aniki, little Kei is all grown up! (And ahahaha, in the Taiwanese version, when whassisname tells Keisuke not to let Ryousuke get hurt, Keisuke's response is "Leave it to me." Canon is so good to me. *_*)

(I just can't figure out how Keisuke managed to grow up not hating his brother. XD Could it be that the Takahashi parental units were intelligent enough never to say "Why can't you behave and get good grades like your brother?" No parental units are that intelligent.)

From all we've been shown, the Takahashi parents might as well not exist for Keisuke -- they exist for Ryousuke, obv., if he's pushing himself to take over the family hospital despite his own lack of interest, but there's no such proof of their influence over Keisuke, is there? All we know is their /lack/ of influence, and how Ryousuke is more equipped to keep him in line.

I'm familiar with a similar example in real life, an older brother who was exceptionally gifted on all fronts and a younger one who was accomplished as well but prouder of being his brother's brother than of being himself; it came about because the family in question wasn't a happy one, the children weren't close to their parents, and the older brother was the one who looked after the younger, made sure he did his homework, dressed him down when he did something stupid, praised him when he did well. They still rode bikes and played hide and seek and sneaked around places they weren't supposed to be together, but the relationship was always balanced in the older's favor; the reins were always in his hands. I guess that's my tentative theory for the Takahashi brothers?

Of course, one could also suppose that Keisuke, being the younger, was spoiled and coddled by doting parents and thus not prone to envy, and that Ryousuke has him whipped solely through natural charisma. XDXD (Actually the charisma counts for a lot in any case. No doubting that there's plenty of that, at least.)

Thank you for the music! Will d/l when I get home. <333333 (Also, I've put up vol. 29. ^^")

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

(Relatively) sane Initial D fans exist! XD XD *forcibly deletes a thousand more*

According to the JFiccers Keisuke and Takumi don't get much sleep at the ryokan anyway so Ryousuke might as well have joined them. *grin*
As for the frustrating (human) romance, insaneneko and I figure sensei probably got ditched a lot during his formative years and eventually became the original Lonely Driver.

I don't know how Ryousuke has brainwashed Keisuke into not hating him either considering how much fun he gets out of teasing him. Reminds me of one of the manga scenes where Ryousuke is *fufu*ing away and Fumihiro is all, "there he goes again looking all happy torturing Keisuke". Poor Keisuke (god I love the boy in all his blockheaded glory). XD

[marici.livejournal.com]

I hear you had a birthday: Happy Birthday! Six years of reading and I'm still delighted when I see you've posted something. I wish you the best for the next year!