Initial D is definitely one of those pieces of car culture that assisted in getting a lot of people into racing. For many car-kids in North America, Initial D was one of those arcade games that you’d see and immediately just know: I MUST PLAY. If you dig deeper, you find out it was an anime, but it wasn’t really something found on TV - at least not for me due to being born a bit later. In the age of streaming you can find out what that arcade game was all about, and you’d quickly realize why the story struck the hearts of many. The underdog tofu delivery boy battles drivers to become the best, and his progression in driving skill shows a good mix of confidence and humility - very relatable, as a driver myself. If you can see past the plot armour and cheeziness of the show, its pretty fun to watch, and makes you want to binge(and cringe) every stage.

Knowing about Initial D’s real life inspiration, Mount Haruna, and D’z Racing Cafe Garage through Noriyaro’s feature video, I knew I wanted to make the trip to those spots. Of course I have to thank my awesome girlfriend for being cool with allocating trip time to lots of car centred activites during our visit to Japan. In planning our trip, I visited a travel agency near Toronto that sold us our Japan Rail (JR) passes. The travel advisor, a Japanese man, found my interests in going to the Gunma Prefecture odd, since its not a common tourist destination, which also explains why you cannot actually get to Mt Haruna directly by JR. You have to take local transit, or rent a car. Knowing I wanted to drive the famous Mt Haruna, or known in Initial D as “Mt Akina”, we chose the rental option.

At the time of our trip, I was only 22 years old meaning I couldn’t find a car rental as easily due to the minimum age for most rental companies being 25. Unfortunately, the rental companies that offered interesting vehicles like Nissan Silvias, Nissan Skylines, Toyota 86s, or Lancer Evolutions all adopted the age 25 rule, so I was forced to take a kei car. This doesn’t really count as settling to me, since I was happy to take in this aspect of japanese culture, north americans are far too arrogant to be seen driving something so practical, so they aren’t as big of a thing here. Japanese citizens are charged more depending on the size of their car, so they have some incentive to pick a kei car. Despite north americans not having the same legislation, the kei car is not a hot commodity, thus only a couple models are sold here.

Views From the Roox

We left Takasaki (as close to Gunma as our JR pass could get us) in our Nissan Dayz Roox, and headed straight to the Gunma Prefecture, home to Fujiwara Tofu shop’s delivery driver, Takumi Fujiwara. D’z Cafe is actually a 10 minute drive from the base of the mountain, AKA the finish line of Mt Akina, from the anime. We arrived to the cafe, and only spent a short while inside, browsing their displays and eating the shop’s chicken curry.

Unfortunately the display area was fenced off, and the sim was just for show. They were playing Initial D, and had a Takumi cardboard cut out, so I can't say I'm mad

What really attracted my attention lied outside the cafe. The shop has a variety of cars on display, which of course included the cars from the show, but they also had a lot of their own builds. Of Course you gotta have the main cars from the show, Takumi’s panda Toyota AE86 hatch, and his teammate Keisuke’s yellow Mazda RX7. But the shop also had some really rad builds of their own that included a fleet of RX7’s and Nissan Silvias, in perfect harmony with the rest of Japanese drift culture. They even have a replica of Han’s RX7, from The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift.

Another thing that surprised me was the crowd outside. Just incredible - the popularity of car culture in Japan, and the fanbase of the Initial D series, even years after it’s end. We were lucky to have been at the cafe the same time as a local car meet, and to my pleasure, they stayed long enough for me to shoot. Most of these cars are a rarity in Toronto, so it was surreal to take in each one. To add to the beauty of each car, I remember their drivers motioning pointing at me and their car and motioning their hands with their invisible cameras, indicating they wanted me to take photos of their ride. I loved it, I was so stoked, and I can tell everyone was having an awesome time. Please enjoy the awesome cars I got to see in the lot.

The FD RX7 is often regarded as the most beautiful of the 90's Japanese tuner cars, and rightly so. It seems sacrilege to deface it with bumper kit resembling a Dodge Viper, but I personally think its really cool - makes a rare car even more rare.
You already know your boy has to post up with the legend.
One of my favourite photos I've ever taken, a young Initial D fan, who "made his decision". Patted myself of the shoulder for the timing on this shot.
"Cars" eyes are a thing in Japan. Dude RIPS this "lan-evo", thing is pretty beat up.
The 22B STI had a sticker of Bunta's face on the rear quarter window. Nice.
Japan car culture, especially in drift, preferences style over outright speed. This Varis-bumper'd STI is to suit.
An S13 Silvia and another Fujiwara Tofu Shop AE86
The Nissan Silvia was my favourite car for a long time. Stoke was HIGH

I hope you guys enjoyed the album. I will be releasing another photo album attached to a story about the Mount Akina drive.

Stay TUNED ;)