Starting its life as a manga, "Initial D First Stage" debuted as an anime in 1998, captivating a new generation of young car enthusiasts with the insane world that is Japanese touge racing. Armed with Keiichi "Drift King" Tsuchiya as the consulting supervisor of the drifting animation, masterful artists vividly recreated the excitement of street racing as JDM punks traveled from one Gunma prefecture mountain pass to the next, challenging one another to breathtaking night races as they vie for glory as the fastest driver of the land. While the characters and the storyline are pure fiction, the anime brought forth unmatched levels of driving realism and even the featured mountains roads were based on actual locations in Japan.
As the enthralling story arc continued to build all the way up to "Initial D Stage 4," the studio abruptly discontinued production of the anime. That was February, 2006, and since then, many of the young fans had slowly grown up. In fact, some of us have even started a family and are raising little car enthusiasts of their own.
After a six year hiatus, the "Initial D" anime is finally back with Stage 5! This long-awaited return picks up exactly where the end of Stage 4 left off-- protagonists Takumi Fujiwara and his panda Toyota AE86 and teammate Keisuke Takahashi and his RE Amemiya FD Mazda RX-7 continue on their quest to complete "Project D" and become the greatest touge drivers of Japan.
Wondering where you can start watching it? We'll make it easy. Here are the first two episodes of Stage 5, which aired on November 9. Hold on to that e-brake and enjoy the ride!
