Double Apex resident JDM expert and owner of (too) many Hondas, Kyle Kock dives into the world of the hit animated petrolhead show with the help of the video (below) in this piece Chasing Real-life Initial D.

Many automotive enthusiasts who follow Japanese car culture are familiar with the Initial D franchise. For the uninitiated, it started out as a comic strip (manga, in Japanese) and eventually an anime series. Additionally, there are a few live-action films also. It follows the exploits of Takumi Fujiwara, a teenager who races all comers on Japan’s mountain passes or ‘touge’ in Japanese.

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Art imitating life

While the Initial D story is of course fictional, the truth is that many Japanese drifters honed their skills in the mountains above the towns and cities of Japan at a grassroots level. Albo, a YouTuber whose content primarily comprises JDM car culture, recently spent some time with a bunch of street racers from the Sagami area who specialise in touge drifting.

He meets up with a crew in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. Here they discuss heading out to a nearby mountain pass, cunningly bleeped out to avoid future intervention by the authorities. They also mention the potential of another touge nearby if the first doesn’t meet their requirements. It’s not the sort of spectator street racing scene from the movies – as there are no crowds lining the road.

Chasing Real-life Initial D

There’s of course lots of JDM sweetness to enjoy. These include a Honda S2000, Nissan Skyline R32, Nissan Silvia of S13 and S15 vintage, Lexus IS250 and two Toyota Mark IIs. The black R32 also reminds me of Takeshi Nakazato’s Skyline from Initial D, but you can skip the build-up and get straight to the driving action here.

In part 2, you can see some tandem drifting from the ‘gallery’. These are sections where spectators behind the barriers watch the racing up close. Also, watch as the crew rushes to the aid of a comrade who hit the barrier a little further downhill.