Final Stage represented the end of an anime franchise that had run intermittently since 1998. The Initial D manga had concluded in Kodansha's Weekly Young Magazine on July 29, 2013, after eighteen years of serialization across 719 chapters collected into 48 tankōbon volumes. Final Stage adapted the manga's closing arc, providing the animated conclusion that fans had waited to see since the story's beginning.
The series was animated by SynergySP, which had also produced Initial D Fifth Stage (2012–2013), providing continuity in the visual style for the franchise's final two installments.
Final Stage ran for four episodes, which were released on Animax's video on demand service, Animax Plus, from May 16 to June 22, 2014. Unlike the main numbered television stages, which had aired as ongoing broadcast series, Final Stage debuted directly on a streaming platform, a distribution approach that reflected changes in Japanese media consumption by the mid-2010s.
Final Stage adapted the concluding chapters of Shigeno's manga, including the resolution of Project D's campaign. Project D — the expeditionary racing team founded by Ryosuke and Keisuke Takahashi — had toured Japan challenging regional champions across multiple prefectures. The campaign culminates in a race against Shinji Inui of Team Sidewinder. In the story's climactic moment, Takumi Fujiwara blows his AE86's engine mid-race but coasts backward across the finish line to secure victory. He subsequently retires the AE86 from competition and begins restoring it gradually.
Following the campaign, Ryosuke Takahashi disbands Project D and reveals the significance of its name, shifting his focus to mentoring new drivers. Keisuke Takahashi pursues professional motorsport, while Takumi returns to tofu deliveries in his father's Subaru. The story notes that years later, Takumi transitions to rally racing and eventually becomes a world champion — events depicted in Shigeno's sequel series MF Ghost.
A compilation release, Initial D Battle Stage 3, covering material from both Fifth Stage and Final Stage, was released on March 5, 2021. Unlike Initial D Battle Stage (2002) and Initial D Battle Stage 2 (2007), which featured reanimated scenes and new content, Battle Stage 3 did not include any new scenes or original character dialogue.
Final Stage completed a 16-year anime franchise that had played a significant role in the global popularity of Japanese drift culture and touge racing. The Initial D manga had over 55 million copies in circulation by April 2021. Shigeno continued in the same universe with MF Ghost (2017–2025), depicting the next generation of racing on the same Gunma mountain roads, and Subaru and Subaru, which launched in 2025.
Initial D's cultural influence extended into the New Initial D the Movie trilogy (2014–2016), a retelling of the manga's opening arc animated by Sanzigen and Liden Films, which ran concurrently with Final Stage's release.