Another anime for those who love cars and racing out there... here goes Initial D...
Initial D (頭文字D, Inisharu Dī?) is a manga by Shuichi Shigeno which has been serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine since 1995. It has been adapted into a long-running anime series by Pastel, Studio Gallop, OB Planning, Frontline, Gainax and A.C.G.T which premiered in Japan on Fuji TV and Animax, and a live action film by Avex and Media Asia. Both the manga and anime series were licensed for distribution in North America by Tokyopop; the Tokyopop version of the manga is out of print as of August 31, 2009[1] (due to contract denouncement from Kodansha) and there are no plans for resumption yet.
The anime and manga focus on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes and rarely in cities nor urban areas, and the drift racing style is emphasized in particular. Keiichi Tsuchiya helps with editorial supervision. The story is centered on the Japanese prefecture of Gunma, (mostly Shibukawa where Takumi's home is) more specifically on several mountains in the kanto area 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 Japan.
