Initial D - The Real Life Locations...

[misterBaz]

Not sure if there are any Initial D fans on here. I personally love it, having seen every anime episode, every anime film plus the live action film, and having read several of the original manga comic books. Anyways, today another Initial D Manga comic book turned up on my door step. Which prompted me to resurrect an old post I made on a different forum.

Basically, I was aware that the places (i.e. towns/mountains etc) in the anime were based on real towns and mountains...but I hadn't quite appreciated HOW true to life the anime series is! Apparently pretty much everything has been drawn from real life! I found a website that's in Japanese so it's a bit hard to work out, and I can't read the labels, but some of the photo's I recognise from it that I remember from the anime are:

The start/finish line at the top of Mt Akina (The Speed Stars home course)....it's even got that tower in the background!

Akina's real gutter run:

More images of Akinas pass:

You can almost see Takumi Fujiwara kissing the barrier with the tail end of his eight-six

Like I say it's difficult to tell which pics are where but here are some others that I think I'm right about in the Gunma prefecture...

Irohazaka (Where the Emporers race):

Mt Myougi (Where the Night Kids race):

Usui Pass (Where Impact Blue Race):

The seven star leaf

Can't find any of Akagi...but I'm sure they're there too lol

Anyways...if your not interested in Initial D this post is properly boring, I was just amazed at how realistic the anime series is. The roads in Japan are awesome!!!!

Baz

P.S.: All photos were found on http://gallerystage.com/

REMOVED

If you really like it you can get the anime books pretty cheap off amazon market place.

 

[paul_k10_Lx]

where is season 5 of the anime grrrrrrr i want it

 

[James]

I really need to start watching this.... lol

 

[misterBaz]

I really need to start watching this.... lol

Before I had seen it, I was of the opinion "It's cartoons...grown men don't watch cartoons" but then a couple of good friends of mine (one of them being Laurence off here actually) were raving about it, so I thought I'd give it a whirl...gotta say, after like 2 episodes I was hooked!! lol

 

[RTLkyuubi]

Suichi's 33 books are obviously in Japanese, however Tokyopop have converted them into English. Unfortunately in the process they have butchered the books, changing 90% of the names to americanized names, and changing a lot of the dialect to include american slang. It's a book about Japanese people racing in japan!! Why would they have american names and say things like "narly, dude"!! Also they say they have covered everything that Suichi wrote, but they've only released 24 books.

Ive got the 16th book translated by tokyo pop and theres no americanization in it

Ryan.

 

[whipit]

What am i missing?? lol
Oh and nice drift track!

 

[misterBaz]

Ive got the 16th book translated by tokyo pop and theres no americanization in it

Ryan.

Yeah in the later books (after fans went mental) Tokyopop used less american street slang and I think they started using the proper Japanese names (although I don't know for sure as I only have the first 8 books). But in the earlier books nearly all names have changed, I've listed some below:

Takumi Fujiwara - Tak
Seiji Iwaki - Hawk
Kouichiro Iketani - Cole
Itsuki Takeuchi - Iggy
Keisuke Takahashi - K-T
Kenta Nakamura - Kent
Takeshi Nakazato - Zack
Ryosuke Takahashi - Ry
Natsuki Mogi - Natalie Mogi
Mako Sato and Sayuki - Maya and Simone

There are plenty more. It wouldn't be so annoying if it was just decided that the English speaking audience wouldn't get their heads round the big japanese names...but apparently it was due to a deal with Sega over the proposed computer game. Sega said that the characters names couldn't be over 4 characters due to the games limitiations, and you can see in the names I listed, they've all been shortened o 4 characters or less, except the girls...who were never intended to be in the game. Tokypop versions of the book are quite heavily edited aswell, especially with some of the sex scenes. I also read that some of the bigwigs that were funding Tokyopop wanted to change Takumi Fujiwara's name to 'Geoffrey' and they wanted him to be delivering pizza's instead of Tofu!!

I have no idea why I've gone on about the books like this...I think I've had too much to drink lol

What am i missing?? lol
Oh and nice drift track!

A long running Japanese anime series about street drifters who race the mountains of the Gunma prefecture, just north of Tokyo. I think it is so popular due to the fact that the dialogue is very realistic the cars are highly detailed and it's all about street drifting. Keiichi Tsuchiya (The real drift god) even does the voice of someone in one episode!

 

[nismo_k12]

here's another bit of info for you. On Gran Turismo 4 you can unlock Takumi's AE86...it's called something like Shuichi Shigeno's APex Levin AE86...It's got the racing engine in with the 11K RPM * carbon fibre bonnet etc but doesn't have the tofu graphics on it. You can only find it in the 90's car section and it was built in 2000.

 

[RTLkyuubi]

here's another bit of info for you. On Gran Turismo 4 you can unlock Takumi's AE86...it's called something like Shuichi Shigeno's APex Levin AE86...It's got the racing engine in with the 11K RPM * carbon fibre bonnet etc but doesn't have the tofu graphics on it. You can only find it in the 90's car section and it was built in 2000.

Ive bought that and about 3-4 other ae86's so i can have the levin and tureno in the panda colours and then in red and black :B

 

[squarepants]

intial d is awsome! i love it seen the cartoon series 1-3 and the extra stage with the blue sileighty. just need to buy series 4-5 the movie is ok, but they missed out lots of bits that the cartoon has.

 

[misterBaz]

intial d is awsome!

Agreed! However since finding out that all the drawings were based on real life locations and places...it gave initial D a whole new level of excellentness to me! lol

 

[paul_k10_Lx]

here's another bit of info for you. On Gran Turismo 4 you can unlock Takumi's AE86...it's called something like Shuichi Shigeno's APex Levin AE86...It's got the racing engine in with the 11K RPM * carbon fibre bonnet etc but doesn't have the tofu graphics on it. You can only find it in the 90's car section and it was built in 2000.

u mind find thats cos toyota did a limted run of reprodution cars in 2000 one of which was used in the live action movie

 

[MICRASKYLINE]

Any of you guys have the psp game, not a bad game!!

 

[ribbit]

think i might have to go on a trip once my dad gets my micra converted to RWD

initial D is a great film the corolla is awesome...my mates uncle has one that hes restoring to drift in cos hes getting bored of braking his 400bhp skyline lol

 

[rlees85]

oh you pure sods!! this thread was the thing that made me think "sod it ill go on bittorrent and see wot this initial d thing is all about" next thing i know im really into it, and im havin to wait for episodes to download... danm u guys

 

[SammoHung]

LOL

Now Im intrigued!!!

DRAT!

 

[misterBaz]

oh you pure sods!! this thread was the thing that made me think "sod it ill go on bittorrent and see wot this initial d thing is all about" next thing i know im really into it, and im havin to wait for episodes to download... danm u guys

[Mr.Burns impression]Exxcceeellllennnt[/Mr.Burns Impression]

Insert 'Mumm-Ra' laugh here.