It's a legend in the world of racing.
The spark of interest in drifting among Japanese car enthusiasts was ignited by the legendary racer Keiichi Tsuchiya, who performed incredible feats on narrow, twisting and slippery tracks.
The wave of fascination with the wonders of controlled drifting gradually spread overseas, but to get popular culture to inhale the smoke of burnt tires, it took not a sportsman, but a creative man.
Motorcycle fan Shuichi Shigeno consulted with King of Drifting Tsuchiya and made a story about a genius racer who transformed from a high school student into a road warrior.
The heart and engine of the story was this: the Toyota AE86 Trueno, on which Shigeno spent the lion's share of the first royalties. And so Initial D: First Stage was born.
What Is Initial D: First Stage About?
Rumors abound among the street racers of Gunma Prefecture about the Toyota Trueno, a snow-white ghost of a car that zooms through the steepest mountain roads and hairpins.
Soon the racing community finds out that behind the wheel of the antiquated yet incredibly fast car is schoolboy Takumi Fujiwara, who delivers tofu to the customers of his father's shop.
What's most surprising is that the newly minted genius has no interest in cars or competition. With great effort, the racers convince the young man to take part in a drift duel. Of course, Fujiwara will not get away with just one race: it will only be a prologue to the anime's most important automobile legend.
Initial D: First Stage Has a Rather Atypical Main Character
For a shonen and spokon, Takumi Fujiwara is not a typical character. Without the mania of achievement, the fixation on overcoming himself, the motive of revenge, and even a banal interest in the field in which he is so good.
The son of the greatest road racer is indifferent to cars, racing and technical knowledge. In fact, he has no hobbies or aspirations: the immersion in motorsports helps Takumi not only to hone his skills, but also to grow up, gradually breaking the shell of indifference.
The protagonist's almost unbreakable calm reduces the degree of conflict or dramatic hook. Where spokon pushes the viewer to the ground to depict the climax of the significance of a particular moment, Initial D goes through an action-packed twist with the imperturbability of a professional racer.
Initial D: First Stage Is a Legendary Anime about Racing
The story of the legendary driver has many interesting details: the coming-of-age drama, typical shonen motivational speeches, situational gags, really strong heroines, a change of studios and thus a change of visual style.
Initial D has gone down in history as the anime that gave the world drifting – with a dynamic soundtrack that has outlived the genre that gave birth to it, and not just a fetishization of cars, but a sincere love of them.