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Hello all!


After watching the anime I feel that there were some close races,and it seemed like the only reason Project D won some of them was just to fit in to the story.

Races like God Foot vs Kisuke should have been God Foot's race, but he only lost because of his car.

It seems a lot of races were due to something happening to the opponent's car, which is kind of sad because nothing ever happened to Project D's cars...

I guess car stability is important is races, but still seemed a bit one sided to me...


Don't get me wrong I'm happy Project D kept winning, but the races seemed to just repeat over and over, I wanted some fresh material!

A common argument I used to see in the Kesikue is better than Takumi discussions was that Takumi won a lot of races through luck, but it definitely played a factor for both of them.

Example God Hand and God Foot, both drivers should have lost, Takumi if God Hand hadn't thrown up. And Kesiuke the race was only supposed to be a hill climb, God Foot made it a climb and descent to make it fair. If just the hill climb then Kesikue would have lost.

Takumi should have lost against the pro racing driver in the civic if not for wild life, if Kesikue had not had someone lend him a car then he'd have lost against the Evo.

Pretty sure it was implied that Ryosuke had arranged for another car, so even if Kyoko wasn't there to lend her car to him there was another car that was on the way for Keisuke.

They did say that. But Ryosuke said that because of Keisuke racing against the RX7 previously he already had a good handle on the cars capabilities.
As opposed to driving an unspecified model of car he might have never seen before.

There's a lot of "could've happened" scenarios through out the series.

What if Nakazato stayed inside, instead of trying to move outside a little bit for more speed? We all know Akina's high speed section begins after that corner and that would've favored Nakazato.

What if Shingo would've went for a pass instead of trying to crash into Takumi? With how fast he was catching up to Takumi, he would have no problem getting that inside line and blocking off Takumi for the remainder of the course.

What if Mako payed more attention to her speed? Chances are she would've kept on pulling away from Takumi.

What if Seiji stayed behind Takumi until the very end and went for the easy pass?

What if Kai waited and used the very last jump to pass Takumi, instead of giving him the opportunity to use the jump as well?

Most of the 4th Stage ones make it pretty obvious that they were complete luck. The animal crossing the road, The Capp/86 race if it was dry, Wataru switching his wipers at the wrong time, and the ones mentioned already in this topic.

Kai lost because he spun out in the leaves, so he probably would have lost anyway.

Well it's possible that if Kai waited to perform the jump, Takumi would still be in shock. He would forget the trick his dad told him, and that would allow Kai to choose his line so he wouldn't be forced to take the inside where the leaves are.

That's true, but I think if you're counting a race as "a battle that determines who is the better driver", then I don't think you can count those in the list of battles that project D or Takumi should have lost but didn't.

For example, a lot of people consider Takumi vs. God Hand to have been a battle Takumi unfairly won because God Hand had to throw up and there was no way of knowing that would happen for either one of them. That would be a fair point, but it was God Hand himself who chose to run the race into 7+ rounds according to GodFoot, so it's technically his fault for not knowing his own limits.

I think that the guy in the Cappuccino would've won if Takumi didn't do the disappearing trick.

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All of the battles in the 4th stage made me think about how sometimes winning may not even be a matter of technical skill. The main idea from Project D's races is that winning shouldn't be romanticized as something that has a direct relationship to your skills.

Perhaps winning is something more complex than just skills. Luck seems to be an equal and often times random factor in the process of winning.

Sometimes a person can be technically or statistically better but if luck doesn't favor that person, then they'll lose. This situation happens in plenty of professional games in real life.

If I were to think of a really close battle in the entire Initial D series which Project D should have lost, I think Takumi vs God Hand and Takumi vs Omiya would be it. And for obvious reasons, Takumi vs Shinji. Although that last battle is unsettling in many different ways. Taking corners without using your brakes is something that is practically impossible without absolute course knowledge and control of your car. In God Hand and Omiya, Takumi basically lost in terms of concentration and braking skills, respectively. Although throughout Kanagawa, Takumi's won his battles with a greater focus on his overall skill set rather than his braking skill.

Keisuke's battles are the more realistic racing battles of the pair. I think Takumi's battles were more fantasy and superhuman than Keisuke's. For Keisuke's battles, I felt he was a good contender for all of his battles with 50:50 odds for Keisuke to win.

There is one race that I think is a lost for Project D.

In stage 4, where in they raced a pro, I think Takumi Lost but something jumped on the road that made him open up the road a bit.

For me this is one of the most irritating /exciting race in the season

You're talking about the race against Tomo and the Todojuku EK9. Yes; if I AM WEASEL didn't decide to cross the road, it's Tomo's absolute victory.

What more of Okuyama took the lead? He would've outpowered the 86 and wouldn't give it a chance to pass even on Nanamagari's wide hairpins.

And like everyone said, Against Omiya... he definitely should've lost that one.

For me, it was the race between Takumi and God Hand.

He should of lost instead of winning like that.

Also it would of made the series more cool, like "Takumi is still evolving and there truly is better racers in the world still"

Anyways, for me, I always act like he lost that race.

It's nice to see sometimes in shows that the main characters are not Gods...

Not only would it have MAYBE led to more character and plot development of the fallout of a Project D loss (I've always felt it would have been great to see how Project D would rectify it, perhaps have Keisuke face Ghost Hand in the rubber match?), but it would bring also closure to Bunta's comment about how eventually he'll lose.

Omiya is the guy in the cappuccino?

No. Cappuccino was Sakamoto. Omiya drives an NB Miata/Roadster.