Initial D (頭文字D, Inisharu Dī, Kashiramoji Dī^?) is a manga by Shuichi Shigeno which has been serialized in Kodansha's Young since 1995. It has been adapted into an anime series by Avex and a live action film by Avex and Media Asia.

The anime and manga focus on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes (called Tōge) and never in cities nor urban areas, and the drift racing style is emphasized in particular. Keiichi Tsuchiya helps with editorial supervision. The story is centered around the Japanese prefecture of Gunma, more specifically on several mountains in the prefecture and in and their surrounding cities and towns. Although some of the names of the locations the characters race in have been fictionalized all of the locations in the series are based on actual locations in Gunma Prefecture.

List of Releases

Manga

• Initial D Manga Japanese Release - 33 Volumes (1995 - new volume released every 5 months)
• Initial D Manga Tokyopop Release - 22 Volumes (2002 - new volume released every 2 months)

Anime

Avex has released the anime in several parts called Stages. One noticeable feature is that it uses Eurobeat music as background music in race scenes.

• Initial D First Stage - 26 episodes (1998)
• Initial D Second Stage - 13 episodes (1999)
• Initial D Extra Stage OVA - 2 episodes side-story focusing on Impact Blue(2000)
• Initial D Third Stage - a 2 hour movie (2001)
• Initial D Battle Stage - a 50 minute movie.(2002)
• Initial D Fourth Stage - 24 episodes (2004—2006).

Games

Numerous arcade and other platforms video games have been released.

• Initial D Arcade Stage Version 1 (Arcade)
• Initial D Arcade Stage Version 2 (Arcade)
• Initial D Arcade Stage Version 3 (Arcade)
• Initial D Arcade Stage Version 4 (Arcade)In Development
• Initial D (Saturn)
• Initial D (PS1)
• Initial D Special Stage (PS2)
• Initial D Mountain Vengeance (PC)
• Initial D Street Stage (PSP)
• Initial D Gaiden (Game Boy)
• Initial D Another Stage (GBA)
• Initial D Collectible Card Game (Collectible Card Game)

American licensing and alterations

The manga and anime have also been licensed by TOKYOPOP for an English release. Many fans questioned TOKYOPOP's intent when it changed some characters' names and gave others Americanized nicknames. For instance, the main character, Takumi, became Tak (this is a nickname many Japanese-American change their names to), and his best friend Itsuki became Iggy. Some characters, such as Takumi's father, Bunta, retained their original names. These name changes were to reflect the name changes that Sega implemented into the western releases of the Initial D Arcade Stage video games {see below} due to name lengths. Viewers are able to view the episodes with the original Japanese 5.1 track should they wish. In addition, TOKYOPOP cut out a character's enjo kōsai relationship with another character and edited sex scenes in the manga. In addition, "street slang" has been interlaced in translations (a drift is described as "slammin'", for example), and there have been accusations that Tokyopop has put out incorrect spec sheets on the characters' cars in the manga. The company also changed the music from the series' staple eurobeat tracks to originally developed tracks of rap and hip-hop via an in-house DJ called DJ Milky. ^[1] (Complete Initial D Eurobeat Song Selection.) The massive editing has been attributed to rumors that TOKYOPOP was hoping to cash in on the growing Import Scene brought about by The Fast and the Furious with edits that would conform to American broadcasting standards (Americanization) on TV.

Large numbers of fans have reacted negatively to the changes (particularly the renaming of the characters), preferring the original version of the series^[2]. Fans have accused both TOKYOPOP and Avex of "selling out" and betraying classic anime fans in favor of money feeling that the changes in story line were done in bad faith for the purpose of "dumbing down" the series for a broader casual audience.^[3]

As a result of these alterations and the ensuing dissent by fans, a number of fans have opted to obtain illegal fansubs in boycott of the TOKYOPOP releases. Normally the use of fansubs is considered acceptable by most fans only if there is no licensing of a series by an American company or announced American release or translation plans. Tokyopop and its employees have responded to fans' concerns several times with regard to these changes. On the Tokyopop forums staff members explained that censorship moves were made with plans to reach a broader audience and hopefully air on American television. ^[4] However, this idea of Americanizing the series might have backfired on Tokyopop, as the show was reportedly rejected by Cartoon Network in 2003. The anime airs on Adult Swim in Australia.

FUNimation announced that it would be distributing the DVDs of the series (since TOKYOPOP's original distributor went bankrupt). ^[5]

The manga was also subject to the same name editing as the anime; the street slang was toned down and TOKYOPOP has been leaning toward the Japanese names in later volumes.

Synopsis

Set in the late 1990s in Japan's Gunma Prefecture, the series follows the adventures of Takumi Fujiwara, an eighteen year old who helps his father run a tofu shop by making deliveries every morning to a hotel on Akina with his father's Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX. It is revealed that Takumi has been driving on Mt. Akina every morning to deliver tofu to the summit 5 years before he even had his license. As a result his skills are highly honed and he is also skilled at driving in adverse weather conditions. In mountain pass racing, power is not the only key to winning. Balance, skill, and courage are what is needed to win. Mountain pass racing (also known as "touge") is divided into two areas, downhill and Hillclimb (Uphill). The hillclimb relies more on the car's power and the driver's acceleration control. The downhill depends primarily on the driver's braking and steering techniques, and requires less raw power from the car..

First Stage

The story begins when street racers of the Red Suns, a team from Mt. Akagi, come to challenge Mt. Akina's local Speed Stars team to a "friendly" race. After seeing how skilled the Red Suns are, the Speed Stars treat it as a race for pride, determined not to be humiliated on their home turf. However, the Speed Stars are left in a bind when their team leader and primary downhill driver Iketani has an accident during a practice run.

Iketani learns that Keisuke Takahashi of the Red Suns had apparently already been defeated by a mysterious panda (black and white) AE86 in a chance encounter on the mountain, and traces the car back to a local tofu shop. He discovers that the shop's owner, Bunta Fujiwara, was a street racer of great repute in his younger days. Iketani appeals to the older man to take his place in the race against the Red Suns. Iketani is confident that Bunta will come to save the day. But when the race day comes, Takumi appears with his father's Toyota Trueno AE86 instead. Although at first reluctant to let Takumi race, Ikatani relents after it is revealed that he is actually the "Ghost of Akina," the one who outran Keisuke while on one of his delivery runs. Takumi proceeds to defeat Keisuke Takahashi and his Mazda RX-7 FD3S, causing considerable astonishment in the local racing community and putting an end to the Red Suns winning streak.

Originally apathetic about the notion of racing, having only raced Keisuke on the condition his father would let him have the car with a full tank of fuel for a day to use on a date, Takumi begins to grow more interested as he receives other challenges. He begins to understand the concept of a street racer's pride when everyone advises him to duck a challenge from a driver of Mt. Myogi's Night Kids team who drives an extremely powerful, technologically advanced Nissan Skyline R32. The competition against another member of the Night Kids, Shingo Shoji, becomes personal for Takumi after Shingo attempts to wreck Iketani and later forces his friend and co-worker Itsuki to crash when he mistook Itsuki's car for Takumi's. After this came a duel with a female driver/navigator duo team hailing from Mt. Usui known as Impact Blue and their Nissan Sileighty.

Each of the races presents seemingly impossible odds to overcome. The opposing cars are almost always much more powerful than Takumi's AE86, and the race against Shingo is a "Ductape deathmatch," in which both drivers' right hands are taped to the steering wheel, a format which severely limits ability to steer and highly favors Shingo's Honda Civic EG-6. The race against Impact Blue is the first for Takumi outside of Mt. Akina, in the completely unfamiliar environs Mt Usui, the SilEighty team's home course.

While Takumi races others over the course of the summer, Keisuke's brother Ryosuke Takahashi, who is the leader of the Akagi Red Suns, formulates what he refers to as his "perfect plan" to defeat Takumi, relying on computer simulations that he has formulated. As summer draws to a close, Ryosuke challenges Takumi to a race and is defeated when he is overtaken by Takumi on the last turn before Akina's finish line. Ryosuke tells Takumi not to " be satisfied with Akina's small stage" and to seek out bigger challenges.

Second Stage

A group of street racers called Team Emperor, led by the professionally trained driver Kyouichi Sudou and all Lancer Evo drivers, appears in the Gunma Prefecture. They move through Gunma challenging and defeating the best team on each mountain they arrive at. However, Kyouichi's real goal is to have a rematch with Ryousuke Takahashi, whom he does not know has recently been defeated by Takumi. When he discovers this, Team Emperor challenges the Akina Speed Stars to a race in the hopes that Takumi will compete in his 86. Takumi becomes the first person in Gunma to defeat a member of the Emperor team on the downhill when he beats the Evo team's second best driver, Seiji Iwaki.

Kyouichi then challenges Takumi to a match to “teach him some things” and as a sort of cover event for his race with Ryosuke. Although initially uninterested, Takumi eventually decides to go to Akagi. During this race the engine of Takumi's 86 is blown and effectively destroyed. Kyouichi, who does later lose to Ryousuke, lectures Takumi on the disadvantages of using such an old car in a modern street race. Yet the loss was not due to the 86's lack of power, as Ryosuke explains, it was due to the fact that Takumi had not driven on Akagi before and didn't know the entrance speeds or anything else about course that he could use to his advantage, basically leaving him driving blind in front of a power mongered [Lancer Evolution 3] with the Misfiring System (anti-lag). If Takumi only knew the course even a little the race would have probably ended differently.

Bunta, knowing that the engine in the 86 was about to give out, had already bought a new engine - a high-revving, race breed variation of the standard Toyota 4A-GE 20 valve twin cam engine, which is used for Group A Division 2 Touring Class races in the Japanese Touring Car Championship. He installs the engine without a new tachometer to teach Takumi the importance of learning mechanical knowledge and understanding why the car behaves as it does. Takumi encounters a fellow 86 driver by the name of Wataru, who after reacting with great surprise to Takumi's lack of mechanical knowledge explains that the engine is an extremely strong powerplant and requires several new, gauges including a high-revolution tachometer, to be useful.

Once Takumi has made these modifications, he challenges Wataru to a race on his home course of Shomaru. The race becomes one of endurance, lasting several rounds, until Takumi capitalizes on a change in the course's environment brought on by their many high speed passes and passes Wataru on a stretch that was previously too narrow for him to do so.

Extra Stage

Capitalizing on the popularity of the all-female street racing team known as Impact Blue which appeared in First Stage, this OVA focuses on Impact Blue's dynamic duo of Mako and Sayuki rather than Takumi and the usual main cast.

As Extra Stage begins, Mako is battling emotional wounds from her breakup with Iketani when Sayuki's childhood friend Shingo (of the Myogi Night Kids) and his teammate Nakazato arrive to warn them about Team Emperor, which defeated the Night Kids on their home course just as they have so many other street racing teams from around the region. Mako's driving has been adversely affected by her preoccupations, and she worries about her ability to measure up to Emperor's challenge in her current emotional state. But when a pair of Emperor drivers arrive to scout out the street racers of Mt. Usui and dismiss Impact Blue because of their gender, Mako and Sayuki challenge them to a race. On the downhill run against the Emperor Lancer Evo, Mako is able to transcend her heartache and reach a new level in her driving, easily defeating the Team Emperor driver.

Though Mako decides she doesn't need a man in her life for a while, she gradually develops a relationship with a friend of Shingo's named Ren after Shingo and Sayuki discreetly play matchmaker. Ren is a street racer himself, but he intends to give up racing because he believes he has reached the the highest level he personally can, and with no chance of progressing further he has lost interest and intends to move on. Mako feels differently, knowing there are many drivers better than her whose level she wishes to attain. As Mako and Ren grow closer, Ren reveals that he wishes Mako would quit racing also for her safety's sake, because if she was his girlfriend he would be consumed with worry for her each time she raced.

However, after Mako takes him on a drive in Usui, he finally understands why she will not give up racing.

Third Stage

Ryousuke approaches Takumi with an offer. Ryousuke has been putting together a racing team featuring the best racers of the Gunma prefecture, and would like Takumi to join.

Takumi doesn't want to decide whether or not to accept the proposal until he settles his score with Emperor driver Kyouichi Sudou. He arrives at Kyouichi's home course of Irohazaka, and after driving the course once, challenges Kyouichi to a race. He prevents Kyouichi from passing him, and finalizes his victory on the last turn on Irohazaka before the goal. After defeating Kyouichi, a local driver by the name of Kai Kogashiwa who had previously been planning on defeating Kyouichi, rises to challenge Takumi instead. He turns out to be the son of Ken Kogashiwa, who was once Bunta's rival and ultimately lost to him in the final race that counted between the two of them. Kai takes Takumi by surprise by taking the "one guaranteed line" his father told him about before the race. He passes Takumi by cutting a hairpin corner short and jumping the ledge. However Kai mistimed his strategy and this allows Takumi time to recover and catch on. He emulates this line in order to keep up with Kai. As the race approaches its finish, Takumi utilizes the environment of the course, making use of the gutters to end up side-by-side with Kai, and later, forces a lucky pass on Kai before the finish line.

The Christmas holiday approaches and Natsuki surprises Takumi at his house, and celebrates Christmas with him and Bunta. On Christmas Eve, Miki, a former student at the same high school Takumi attended who Takumi once punched over Miki's bragging about his supposed sexual exploits with Natsuki (seen in a flashback from 1st Stage), arrives at Natsuki's workplace and threatens to make a scene if she does not get in his car. He takes her up Mount Akina with the intention of having sex with her, but after she reveals her feelings for someone else, he flies into a rage and attempts to rape her. She escapes his car briefly and calls Takumi. When Miki hears Takumi's name, and realizes that Takumi is the one Natsuki has feelings for and that he will be coming to save her, he forces her back in the car and speeds down the mountain pass. Takumi quickly catches up with them and turns around to tail Miki. As Miki tries to get away he enters a turn too fast in the snow and loses control of his car, crashing into the guardrail. Takumi then takes Natsuki home. As spring comes, Takumi tells Ryousuke that he wants to request another battle with him, this time on Mt. Akagi, before making his decision regarding the team. It is unclear who actually wins the race, but during the race Keisuke reveals to the other members of the Red Suns that the race is not really about who wins or loses. As they approach the finish, side by side, Takumi decides that it is his desire to remain with Ryousuke and join the team.

Battle Stage

Initial D Battle Stage (special) summarizes the major street races from the two TV series. Rather than simply using clips from the TV series, the new special entirely re-animated all of the original CG car and background footage with new computer graphics rendering. The special also features entirely new Super Eurobeat music and guest commentary from legendary "drift racer" Keiichi Tsuchiya.

Fourth Stage

This series focuses on the exploits of the new team founded by Ryosuke, Project D, which is comprised of Ryosuke (leader and strategist), Takumi Fujiwara (downhill specialist), Keisuke (uphill specialist) and a staff consisting primarily of members of the Akagi Red Suns. The team travels the region, challenging other teams and posting the results of the battles on their website. Each race is intended by Ryosuke to develop a specific area of his drivers' skills.

Takumi matures slowly into a more confident and knowledgeable street racer, while Keisuke improves on his technical driving skills. Takumi instinctively develops many new techniques through his own ingenuity after some prompting by Ryosuke, such as passing with his headlights off so that his opponent is unable to see him coming and block him, and using weight shifting to execute maneuvers similar to the gutter-hook technique on Akina.

Project D's opponents get progressively tougher. Their first adversaries are members of local racing teams, but then they progress to facing students at a professional racing school and then actual professional racers, first when the school enlists one of their graduates to avenge their defeat and then when a street racing team they had previously faced calls upon a rally driver to race Takumi in an ultra-lightweight car.

As Project D's quest to conquer the area's street racing scene goes on, new relationships and old enemies complicate things for the team's members. Keisuke struggles with his attraction to Kyoko, a female street racer and fellow FD driver who he met by chance shortly before they ended up facing each other in a battle, as he fears having a girlfriend would take away too much time from his driving and cause him to lose his focus. Meanwhile, Takumi's old rival and fellow 86 driver Wataru watches Project D's exploits with interest, looking for a way to bring about their defeat.

The team encounters yet another different kind of challenge as a new set of opponents turn to deceit and intimidation rather than skill for victory. They damage Keisuke's FD, and he borrows Kyoko's to defeat them.

Eventually Project D face off with the senior members of the Purple Shadow Team. One, known as "God Foot", is a driver known for his magnificent footwork (able to make his Skyline, a very heavy and wide car, accelerate without lag naturally instead of through the use of a misfiring system) and possessed of an uncanny ability to maintain his concentration. He screams loudly while driving to release tension and prevent himself from making an error due to stress. With his amazing combination of skills, he's able to make his 4WD Nissan Skyline GT-R drift, a feat normally nearly impossible due to the fact that a stock BNR34 has an anti-slip system correcting the car's column if it were to begin to lose control. His counterpart, "God Hand," is a driver known for driving skillfully with one hand using a Honda S2000, reminiscent of the "Ductape deathmatch" forced upon Takumi when he raced Shingo in First Stage. With his one-handed technique,he can limit countersteer and perform an ideal drift, conserving his tires while still gaining speed on corners. The overall theory for the one handed driving is that in doing so one is able to choose easily between the infinite driving lines possible in a race. "God Hand" spent all of his recent years trying to find out the limits of the technique, and in his studies after the race he teaches Takumi the theory of one handed driving. Though he doubted that Takumi would start driving with one hand, he did believe he would master using the infinite lines to his advantage in future races.

Characters

Main article: Initial D characters and teams

Initial D contains a myriad of characters, many of whom appear in a very small number of episodes, usually to race one of the main characters or as a teammate of another racer. The most frequently recurring characters are the protagonist Takumi Fujiwara, his love interest Natsuki Mogi, his father Bunta, the members of the Akina Speed Stars, and the members of the Akagi Redsuns (later Project D).

Games

Main article: Initial D Arcade Stage

There are several games that are based on the anime. The most famous is probably Initial D Arcade Stage published by Sega, which is for arcade.

Initial D Arcade Stage casts the player as a racer starting out in mountain racing. The player races on several courses of progressing difficulty, although they can be played in any order, with a car of choice, and battles characters from the anime. With teams for each mountain, and cars with homecourses, the player races through :

1. Myogi (Beginner),
2. Usui (Medium),
3. Akagi (Hard), *Appears in Ver. 2
4. Akina (Hard),
5. Irohazaka (Expert), *Appears in Ver. 2.
6. [Snow Condition]Akina (Expert), *Only snow stage in the game, appeared in Ver. 3
7. Happogahara (Expert),
8. Shomaru (Expert), *Appears in Ver. 3
9. Tsuchisaka (Expert), *Appears in Ver. 3

Almost every stage offers wet/dry, day/night and either uphill/downhill or inbound/outbound options. The only exceptions are Akina Snow and Happogahara, which are both always at night, and naturally there is no wet/dry option in the snow.

The arcade machines runs on a system where information is saved on a card. The player may keep tuning his or her car with points earned based performance, which are tracked by the card. The game features a player vs. player interface, so that two players may choose to battle each other for points and reputation.

Currently, the game is in its Third Version, though there are consistent rumors of a Fourth Version. Sega also released Special Stage for home use on the PlayStation 2. The Arcade version has some characters and cars from at least one stage farther in its numerical equivalent in the anime. As such, the 1st stage game features Happogahara, which does not show up as a course until much later in the anime, presumably fourth stage.

Sega also recently released a PSP version of Initial D called Initial D: Street Stage on February 23, 2006. The game is loosely based on Ver. 3.

Despite the game's realism praised by its fans, many cars in the game are excessively faster than even a modified AE86 in real life, so the stats of the higher-performance cars (such as the Nissan Skyline GT-R, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Mazda RX-7) are watered down heavily to create fair races (in reality, most of the high-end cars can reach speeds of up to 260 km/h). This makes the game unrealistic to a point, and creates a situation where making the game more realistic would make it unlikely for the game's flagship car to win much.

The Toyota Trueno AE86 from the series also appears as a special car in various Japanese racing games including Shutokou Battle (1999) and multiple Battle Gear and Gran Turismo games, badged as the AE86 Shuichi Shigeno version in the latter. The car features the same exterior modifications as the car of the anime (the Fujiwara tofu store sign on the side excepted), as well as an upgraded engine, also similar to the one from the anime series.

Movie

Main article: Initial D (film)

A live-action movie based on Initial D was released on the 23rd of June, 2005 in Asia. The movie was jointly produced by Japan's Avex Inc. and the Hong Kong Media Asia group. It was directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, whose credits include the 2002 Hong Kong Blockbuster Infernal Affairs and 1999's The Legend of Speed, a previous street racing melodrama. The movie featured Taiwanese star Jay Chou as Takumi Fujiwara and Edison Chen as Ryosuke Takahashi.

See also

• Initial D Arcade Stage
• Initial D Car Modifications and Character Relations
• Initial D Terminologies and Techniques
• Initial D Manga Volume and Anime Episode Guide
• Initial D Eurobeat Song Selection
• Initial D Real-Life Locations and Popularity
• Lonely driver
• Initial D characters and teams
• Super Eurobeat
• Initial D: Street Stage

References

1. ^ Open letter from Tokyopop. Retrieved 3 June 2006
2. ^ Tokyopop's Initial D Name Changes. Retrieved 3 June 2006
3. ^ 2003 Multiple fans accuse Tokyopop of "dumbing down" the anime and manga. Retrieved 3 June 2006
4. ^ http://messageboard.tokyopop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2285 Tokyopop forum. Retrieved 3 June 2006
5. ^ 2006 press release. Retrieved 5 September 2006

External links

• Initial D The Movie Info Page
• Avex webpage for Initial D
• Official live-action webpage
• North America Premier of the Live Action Initial D
• Real-Life Locations Gallery Stage (Japanese only)
• Initial D Arcade Stage Version 3.0
• Initial D profile at AnimeReference