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Now in Japan
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Thursday, 01 December 2005 00:00 |
 To all sports there comes an anime, eventually, and with a
Japanese driver currently competing in the Formula One championship
& a fully-Japanese team looking likely to join the competition next
year, the time is definitely right for an F1-based series. Shame Capeta's not much good...
1 - Remove the Limiter!
10-year-old Capeta dreams of being a Forumla 1 racing driver.
He's a little young for that yet, though, but that doesn't stop him
from finding everyday life decidely boring in comparison to his
dream. Not having his dad around very much (he's usually out
working, doubly hard as Capeta's mother is dead) doesn't help, either -
poor Capeta's left at home to take care of the housework and chores
with little time for fun. When his father
takes a job at a racing kart track and finds out it's a sport suitable
for kids Capeta's age, though, he sees a chance to spend more time with
his son - even if it does look likely to cost him a fortune...
The plan is for Shige-san, Capeta's father, to fix up an old scrapped
cart for Capeta to race in - a nice plan if you have the technical
skills to do the job. It's a reasonable place to start, too -
many professional racing drivers made their start on the go-kart track,
so is a good, realistic way for the series to go.
If you're a petrol-head, you'll love some of the presentation here
- photorealistic shots of the inside of cars & such provide a high
level of automotive
fanservice. That attention to detail doesn't extend to the human
characters, though - the character designs are just ugly all
around. The CG animation used for cars in motion is also on the poor side.
As for the storyline, Capeta's the underdog, naturally, with something
to
prove as well against class bully Nobu & his friends, so
there's a "must get
stronger!" aspect to things too - and I hate that. Just drive the
bloody kart and prove yourself that way, I say. It's fairly clear
there'll be a father-son bonding aspect to things as well, which for me
would probably be the more interesting side of things.
Except I won't be following the series. I'm not a
petrol-head, meaning there isn't really much here for me to latch on to
- as with most sports series, you need to have a genuine interest in
the sport they're dealing with to get the most out of the show (unless
you take the comedy approach, as in Eyeshield 21), and I don't. Capeta's a "pass" for me, but F1 fans will probably get a lot more out of it.
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