Have been rewatching IniD since I got back: I'd forgotten how much I dislike the Second Stage animation. Perhaps not the animation - the races are k-cute as ever - but the slight alterations to faces, the greater definition on them. The fact that Ryousuke appears to have put lightener in his hair, and that the Takahashi brothers appear to have been sadly left behind as everyone else got hit with the attractive!stick (I feel, here, like I'm quoting someone like Janni or Sabina back in the day, before I'd ever watched... huh*). However, Keisuke's 'he ought to have let us take care of him'! <3 The dear boy! I like him more and more. Plus a while back Sabina mentioned something about pre-caraddiction bozoku!Keisuke, which, um, ahahahaha.

Am also liking the structure, the way that - is this only in the anime? - everything is clearly marked out. So long as Itsuki says 'Takumi will win', Takumi wins; the Chekhovian revolver will be placed on the table at the very beginning of the arc and come into use at the end. It's so much more about process than plot. The audience is like a friend of one of the omniscient characters, those characters who say 'this is the key point from which we view the battle' and then, as if by magic, the battle's key action takes place at that point. There's no reason given: it's just known. People do a lot of just-knowing in IniD, whether what's behind it is unten-sense (Bunta) or data (Ryousuke) or... something else entirely.

*(googling to see if I could find any such reference brings me to... Sabina, on the confusion of juggling MoB and IniD. ce plus ça etcetera.)

edit: also, I don't think it detracts from the viewing that, every time I see Wataru, starts up a mental chant of 'punch him in the face punch him in the face punch him in the faaaaace'. The exact same reaction as I get when reading Mill On The Floss. Ahh, those wacky sanctimonious ani characters.

Clearly the alterna-verse ST to IniD would be CRUNK.