Not just a racing anime.

Only read this when you finished the anime of course because its going to contain spoilers.

I just finished Overtake! but first things first: The last time I cried was because of a game called Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain. (FAT SPOILES THAT ARE MARKED AS CORSSED OUT) ~~It was first during a scene where you have to mercy kill your own people followed by a scene where you bury them with a speech that was very touching.~~ Those were two powerful scenes back to back where the Game was playing around with human emotions and connections we build as humans. This anime did it aswell. With the story of a Cameraman Kyouka Madoka who couldn't take photos for a reason that was way more heartbreaking than it was initially made out to be (which is a smart move on the writing part). And then, the Episode I'm leading up to happend.

With the little girl and the old man, I at least, quickly made a connection with them through just one line and a Photograph, freezing a very wholesome moment in time (and it of course didnt help that the girl was very cutely portrayed, being very shy but also very curious like real children are). What happend after was...well...incredibly tragic and the warning they gave us at the start when the flashback happend was actually quite the effectively blunt foreshadowing. It tried to prepare us for what was to come but...welp what happend exceeded my expectations for better or worse. With one Gigantic tragic event, what was previously wholesome, got drowned in the past which molded everything into this incredible scene that happend when Kyouka visited the old man again. The Photo that froze an incredibly wholesome moment in time and the same line our beloved old man spoke, both the Camera man and us viewers got thrown back in time for a brief moment. As a result Kyouka was of course crying but that quickly infected me aswell and only after the Epidsode ended I realized how incredible it was. One sentance and one Photo being enough to make me cry after one and a half years. I've seen my fair share of shit up to this point, in movies, series, artwork, from life experiences both from me or from someone else but this topped it with just one photo and "Keep taking lots of pictures, Photographer.", I'm impressed...very impressed and I will never forget this scene.

But Overtake! is not about just this scene and Kyouka. It 3 other people who would fight their own demons in their own way and the build up and the payoff at the last Episode were giving me goosebumps, goosebumps id usually only get from anime. Not even Initial D gave me these goosebumps, that anime was just pure hype but this anime aswell. While Initial D for example had way more racing animations over time, evolving and giving us eye candy in very short succession, I rarely doubted that the main character would loose. In the final Episode of Overtake!, I wasn't sure. Eventhough it would make sense for the plot, I still wasnt sure because both the main character Haruka, and their oponents Satsuki and Toshiki, learned and overcame their demons and faced off after developing as characters.

In the end, "Overtake!" isn't just a Racing anime like Initial D. It objectively doesn't even have as nearly good racing animations and scenes as Intial D, but it doesn't need to have that many racing scenes (especially if the few ones that exist are intense enough). Overtake! builds up its own intensity, not just through the race but through the hardships the characters go through. I was honestly way more invested in Kyouka, Haruka, Satsuki, Toshiki in Overtake! than in Takumi from initial D. This anime felt way more human aswell, and I bet that there is some human life experience sprinkled in there, especially with Kyouka, our beloved Cameraman.