Initial D “Final Stage”

by Michael Satterfield

Kodansha the publisher of the popular Initial D comic series has released the final chapter of the adventures of Takumi Fujiwara. Most Americans know Initial D from the cartoon or even live-action versions that have been made more accessible with the advent of Netflix and Hulu, I have had the whole DVD series for quite some time and even own the live-action version...  The series was written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno and has been serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine from 1995 to August of 2013.

While it sounds funny, this series had a major impact on the car culture in the US, starting in the late '90s as more of a small community of dedicated car nerds to more mainstream as Japanese automotive culture became more popular. If you have not been introduced to the world of Manga it is a cross between a comic book and a 1940's dime novel. Most have many different stories from several different artists.

What made Initial D so cool was that everything was based on something, in reality, the cars were real, RX7's, MR2's, and the star an old Toyota AE86 Corolla. As a car guy, it was always cool to watch the cars that we wanted in our garage (RX7 FD) recreated in perfect detail.

Initial D will be missed.