Keisuke Takahashi vs Kozo Hoshino

"I hadn't planned on gettin' so flashy, but if my opponent is gonna take things this far, I can't back down now! This is a different world, beyond reason. And I won't let anyone criticize!"

- Kozo "God Foot" Hoshino The battle between Keisuke Takahashi and Kozo Hoshino is the fortieth battle of Initial D.

Prior to the Battle
After Dr. Toshiya Joshima's battle against Takumi Fujiwara (in the manga timeline), Kozo Hoshino tells Fumihiro of his plans in making the battle start uphill, then U turning on the very top and racing downhill to the bottom. He then introduces himself with Keisuke Takahashi before the battle. Then while Ryosuke gives Keisuke his strategy for the battle, Hoshino tells his team members that he wants to start in lead and finish it quickly unlike Joshima's method of having many rounds. Ryosuke then tells Keisuke that he needs to be exactly 7 seconds behind Hoshino at the turnaround on the top, any more or less time can result in blowing the race. After this, Fumihiro starts the countdown for the battle.

During the Battle
The battle starts with Hoshino going all out, and yelling out words such as "Doriya" as he enters into corners. Keisuke notes while driving behind that despite having such a heavy car, he is pretty fast. Meanwhile Smiley Sakai and Daiki Ninomiya stationed somewhere on the top section comments on how he still vividly remembers back when Hoshino owned an R32 GT-R and drifted it all the way across corners, despite the fact that GT-R's ATTESA E-TS system makes it impossible to initiate a drift in an AWD car as it gives power to the front wheels the moment you try to throttle it in a slide. But Hoshino was able to pull it off, even surprising Mr Todo who saw it and couldn't explain how he pulled it off, but he knew that for Hoshino, it was a child's play. Hence he earned the nickname "God Foot".

Meanwhile as Hoshino drove in lead, he comments on how he owned an R32 earlier and liked it so much, but then he bought the R33 and it sucked. He replaced it with another R32 and now he bought this R34 GT-R. As Keisuke comments on how Kozo has incredible traction, Purple Shadow members discuss on how they noticed Kozo keeps yelling random gibberish while driving and wonders if it was his method of staying cool. Hearing all this, Joshima knew they were wrong as Kozo shouts to not focus too hard as he can get stressed out easily if he focuses too hard. It was his way of ventilating his mind. Meanwhile as Hoshino raced on, he comments on how the R34 addresses on the weak point of the R32 - its understeer issue. He then says while he's got a lot of money, he won't buy any Ferrari or Mercedes like other rich people and do and till the day he dies, he will ride in a GT-R.

Back at the base Fumihiro talks to Ryosuke on how he never gave Keisuke any advice like this before, and a time such as seven seconds seemed too much for Keisuke. Ryosuke replies with that since he's dealing with such an extraordinary opponent, if Keisuke went on a full on battle with Hoshino, he will lose all his tyre grip. By this time the spectators seeing the FD lagging behind the R34 ahead thinks Purple Shadow has got this race in the bag. However Kozo looking behind realizes that Keisuke is intentionally falling behind to conserve his tyre grip. He says that back in his younger days he used to be even more reckless and he needs to drive more calmly. At this time Daiki wonders if Project D will lose this battle considering how slow Keisuke was going when Smiley reminds him that Project D is trying tactically to conserve their tyres so that they can have the edge in the downhill battle, which Keisuke will have with his lighter FD3S compares to Kozo's heavy R34 GT-R. Keisuke managing his seven second gap as they raced uphill reached in such a position that now he couldn't see the R34 he was tailing all this moment, but he kept on driving uphill thanks to his experience. At this moment, Kozo reaches the top and pulls a 180 with his GT-R on the cone U-turn, and now races downhill. By this time Keisuke suddenly emerges on the scene, with both drivers passing each other, and while kozo races downhill, Keisuke does the U turn and races down back, trying to catch back to the GT-R. Kenta takes the stopwatch time and sends the information below to Project D members who gets the news that he's around 6 seconds behind, almost as expected. Meanwhile when Matsumoto asks Takumi his opinions on Keisuke on this battle, he responds by saying its 'scary' thinking of how a driver who is used with his driving techniques used in uphill battle using it in downhill as well. With Keisuke now going all out downhill, Hoshino hops on top of the open gutters on the road edges to take the shortest cornering path, which is noted in awe by Daiki and Smiley spectating it. Immediately after this they witness the FD replicating the exact same move while cornering and dashing downhill. They comment both the drivers have gone crazy and how they have to trust their skills and cars to drive as fast as possible, especially when they can't see their opponents. Keisuke racing downhill with full speed now suddenly makes gets visual of the GT-R ahead of him and realizes now he is closing the gap between them by having at least 4 seconds in between. Kozo sees the FD closing behind him, but is still confident that he can maintain the lead and win this. Meanwhile Fumihiro doubts if whether this downhill race was a trap as Keisuke hadn't raced downhill since he joined Project D and Hoshino was well experienced in this course, but Ryosuke assures him that uphill and downhill aren't that different and now is his time to test his improvisation skills. By this time however Keisuke going all out catches upto Hoshino by slowly and steadily until they reached near the finish line where he practically closed the gap between him and Hoshino, much to the dismay of Hoshino and shock of Purple Shadow.

As the second run began, Keisuke takes up the lead with Hoshino chasing. Kozo was getting irritated by the fact that Keisuke was going too slow uphill for his liking. Spectators seeing this are surprised on how cars are racing uphill with this much less gap in between them, but they keep their hopes up that Kozo will bring up something to change the tide of the battle. Knowing that the second round has begun, Daiki thinks that Project D has already got the race in the bag as overtaking in these two heavy cars would be nearly impossible in such a course. They knew this was Ryosuke's strategy in winning the battle, but then again, Kozo Hoshino wasn't called as the "God Foot" for nothing. They knew he had a counterattack strategy slipped in his sleeve. Just as they were driving uphill towards a corner, Hoshino tries to fake an overtake on Keisuke by coming parallel to him. KEisuke knowing there's no way he can overtake him there casually keeps driving and they both brake to the corner. Meanwhile Hoshino did that to see how he would react, so that he can make up for the daring move at the top.

By the time they both reached the top with Keisuke leading, Kenta was enthusiastic watching the battle unfold, but then to everyone's shock at the top, Kozo suddenly overtakes Keisuke and comes side by side with Keisuke while they both were approaching the U turn cone. Both Keisuke and Kozo brakes and swerves into the U turn almost at the exact same time, and as both cars appear to turn towards each other, Keisuke pulls a last second decision to turn widely and give way to Kozo for the U turn, giving the latter the lead while that puts Keisuke on the back foot into the downhill. Kenta couldn't process at what just happened as he stared in shock while the rest of the crowd cheered in awe. Project D members discuss on how that was a once in a lifetime move and how Kozo pulled it flawlessly. Kenta argues that what Kozo did wasn't fair, but Takumi knew it was fair as he saw Kozo turning into the cone first. When he heard of this news, Joshima knew this was Hoshino being himself acting in his own instincts after a long time, and to do it his challenger had to be top notch too. When Ryosuke gets the news, he realized that Kozo did have a backup plan after all, but hopes Keisuke can pull it off as under pressure he gets really good. Now racing downhill with the lead, Kozo suddenly decides to drift the his GT-R through the corner. Seeing this, Keisuke decides to join the suit, stunning all the nearby spectators witnessing this sudden drift vs drift battle. Daiki and Smiley are shocked to see Hoshino back with the lead again and now seeing both of them engaged in a drift battle downhill. Smiley explains since his GT-R is now probably suffering from low traction, a little bit of inertia and power is enough to pull of a drift. Also Hoshino knows that Keisuke can pass him with his FD in the downhill section, so he decides to drift to cut out any passing points in this narrow course. When Purple Shadow heard this new, Joshima told them that both of them could be acting like two fools, but in fact, Kozo was doing this in order to corner faster as gripping with worn out tyres could be problematic, and also a method to block out Keisuke from overtaking him in narrow corners. Keisuke decides to drift along with him due to his competitive spirit to fight a drift battle with another drift thanks to his parallel drifting skills with his brother he used to back in the RedSuns days and his practice in Project D with Takumi made him respect the value of drifting. Kozo kept going until he began to understeer in his drift as he took corners. Keisuke waited till he seizes his opportunity near the final corners, coming next to Hoshino outside the corner side by side. Keisuke with his superior grip keeps up the cornering while Hoshino due to his lack of grip encounters a fit of understeer that has him hit the FD on the rear side which makes Keisuke hit the guardrail for a bit, but manages to escape and come out with the lead and racing towards the finish line.

After the Battle
Keisuke arrives triumphantly with his hand raised out of the FD's open window. Project D members cheer below, as Kenta receives the phone call confirmation above that Keisuke had indeed won. While Keisuke feels like he hadn't really won and should go for a third round, Hoshino forfeits as he had used up all of the grip of his tires. He then apologizes to Keisuke for accidentally hitting him at the end due to him losing traction on the drift. He then offers Keisuke some offers on professional racing teams, but Keisuke declines them stating that he's got other important stuffs to complete and to learn more.

Fourth Stage

 * Go Go Money (Friday Night Ver.) - Neo
 * Back On The Rocks - Mega NRG Man
 * So Fragile - Pamsy
 * Looka Bomba - Go 2
 * Rider Of The Sky - Ace

Battle Stage 2

 * Pride - Dave
 * Love For Money 2008 - Money Man
 * Back On The Rocks - Mega NRG Man

Arcade Stage 8 Infinity

 * Super Driver - Daniel

Arcade Stage 8 RivalSide Info
Story arc: Purple Shadow

Driver: Kozo Hoshino

Car: Nissan Skyline GT-R V-spec II Nür (BNR34)

Opponent: Keisuke Takahashi

Team: Project D

Car: Mazda RX-7 Type R (FD3S)

Mission: Use the Shortcut

1-ryu Condition: Use 3 Shortcuts

Cho 1-ryu Condition: Use 5 Shortcuts

Course: Tsukuba

Rule: Inbound

Start: Standing

Weather: Clear

Time of day: Night

Trivia

 * This is the first battle to use a song featured in a previous stage (Back on the Rocks) as well as the only battle featured in a Battle Stage OVA to reuse a song from the original stage it was in (again Back on the Rocks).
 * m.o.v.e, the Japanese group who created many of the opening and ending themes for the series, make a cameo as spectators during battle.
 * In the manga, this battle is after the battle between Takumi and Joshima, however in the anime the order is reversed, with this battle happening first.