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Kodansha USA (2024) Omnibus Release Volume 01

My god you would not believe how happy I am with this.

So, March 18th 2024 (mine took an entire month to show up, the pros of being British are astounding), Kodansha USA released their shiny new translation of Initial D in Omnibus form. So, how is it?

It's genuinely fantastic, I cannot overstate how pleased I am with this release. It's a dream come true! I can finally read Initial D and not have to second guess it. I can finally recommend the manga without a list of 90 "but"s attached to it.

The volume opens with all of the original water coloured opening pages, which I have never seen released together (the art book has half, for example). It's lovely seeing them like this, as they're grayscale in pretty much every other release.

Every issue I had had with the two previous translations (the 2019/Tokyopop one, and the scanlation) is fixed with this translation, very clearly done by someone who is at least somewhat familiar with the series, and who knows a thing or two about cars (or who isn't afraid to do their research at least).

Iketani is finally able to talk about rollercoasters without being changed for unknown reasons. Any changes that have been made aren't entirely unexplainable, this release features extensive translators notes, something I'm sure a normal fan wouldn't care about (but I do!).

I can think of one change that might irk some people; Natsuki calls Papa "Daddy". This translation isn't necessarily wrong, in fact I would argue it makes the subject at hand much more obvious, as the connotations of calling him "daddy" are clearer to an English speaking audience than with "papa". It did catch me off guard the first time reading though.

There is one singular translation error that I was able to spot, Ryosuke's biography mentions him having a soft spot for his "niece". The original line reads cousin, so I assume this must have been unintentional.

Even this digital release is significantly better than the previously released one, the depth is visible, the dark parts aren't too dark, and the image hasn't been levelled to hell and back. Its a sight to behold.

I am so very pleased with this release, and cannot wait for the second one to release, which will be in June or July I believe. I would highly recommend any fans of the series to pick up this release, as it is genuinely brilliant.

#Initial D #Manga #Kodansha USA

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Kodansha USA (2024) Omnibus Release Preview

This is the first in, what I presume will be, a long series of posts about the (as of posting) upcoming English omnibus release of Initial D. For those unaware, in just over a week (19th of March) Kodansha USA will be releasing the first in a series of 2-in-1 copies of the Initial D manga.

With such a short amount of time until the release, Kodansha USA have posted a preview of the new release onto their website, consisting of the first chapter of the manga. If you would like to see for yourself, it can be found here.

I am officially, very, very excited for this release. Looking at this preview alone, it is exactly what I had hoped for. It appears to be completely up to modern standards, with a fresh (and accurate!) translation of the text. This release is the only one I have seen (and possibly the only one ever?) to maintain the original coloured opening pages, which is a wonderful thing to see.

This release also seems to be translating the Bonus pages from the original volumes, the first time that will ever be done for an official English release, as Tokyopop and Kodansha USA (in their earlier digital release) didn't include them.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy when it drops. If you're also interested in picking up a copy you can easily find it on most online bookstores, with Crunchyroll and Kinokuniya USA offering alternate covers in the USA (based on the original omnibus and the Volume 1 cover respectively).

#Initial D #Manga #Kodansha USA

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Hello fellow Initial D fans!

There was recently a survey in Japan that took the average age of fans of certain media, including Initial D. According to the data, the average fan of Initial D is male, and around 40 years old.

I've created my own survey to try and find out the same data, and I'd appreciate it if everyone could fill it out. Shares are appreciated for a larger sample size.

Link to the survey here.

#initial d

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Mountain Vengeance - Mako Sato

This post is probably the quickest post I've made after the reveal of something (read: I figured this out last night lol) but I think it's funny enough to deserve a post so soon (read: I really want people to know this).

I'm sure at this point most people are aware of what Initial D Mountain Vengeance is, but for those of you who aren't here's a basic rundown. In the early 2000s, Tokyopop commissioned a PC game to be made based on the Initial D license. The game was made by Canopy Games and released by ValuSoft, and it is famously dreadful. From it's poor gameplay to it's limited soundtrack (as well as it's use of all of Tokyopop's changes), its one of the only pieces of Initial D media that is universally agreed to suck completely. If you're interested in seeing the game in action, there was a great video made by Vectrex several years ago about the game that is quite good. You can watch that here.

Outside of all of the more obvious issues with the game, one thing has always irked me about the game, and that is this file:

This file is used to represent Mako, when you are racing as, or against, her. I've always thought this image was odd, as it doesn't really look too much like her. For example, this is how Mako looked in Extra Stage (which this games image of Sayuki is from):

Definitely different right? Even down to hair colour. I decided to take a look into it, try and possibly find who this is. The clues are as follows: This appears to be an image from Second Stage, and there are only about two women in Second Stage who this could be, and it definitely isn't Natsuki. I've always had a hunch that this was Kazumi, and I went through a couple of episodes of Second Stage trying to find her, and lo and behold, in Second Stage - Act 13, what did I find?

The exact same frame used in the game, though obviously uncropped. So somewhere during the making of this game, someone managed to get an image of the wrong character (which is made worse by the fact that the number of notable female characters in the series is four) and it went entirely unnoticed all the way to release (and seemingly for the next 20 years after, as I'm unaware of anyone else reaching the same conclusion. Good thing no one played this game or someone might have realised lmao). I have to wonder if this image was supplied to the developers by Tokyopop or if they had to gather it themselves, its unclear who exactly is to blame.

#Initial D #Tokyopop #Games #Mountain Vengeance

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Nagashima Spa Land

Ok, so, this'll be the first post in (what I hope will be) quite a few smaller posts covering little translation oddities or localisation changes. I find these quite interesting, and its interesting to see what errors/changes were made in different versions and how or why they came to be.

I'm going to start with a lesser known one from the Tokyopop and 2019 Kodansha releases. In Chapter 16 in Volume 2, before Takumi takes Iketani on the downhill run in the Eight-Six, Iketani says a rather innocuous line about waiting to get on a rollercoaster at Nagashima Spaland, a theme park in Mie Prefecture.

I remember reading this while working on a page for the wiki, and thinking nothing of the reference, however I remember looking into it regarding the note at the bottom, which mentions a roller coaster by the name of "Steel Dragon". Ever interested in fact checking Tokyopop on absolutely anything they say in their release, I check the fact, and it absolutely was true at the time (although Tokyopop did get the name slightly wrong, as it is actually called "Steel Dragon 2000").

While the fact is true, mentioning Steel Dragon 2000 at all clued me in that the citation might have been added by Tokyopop, as that rollercoaster wasn't even announced until 4 years after this chapter was released originally. I thought nothing of it (hardly surprising they would put a citation for something that their target audience of teenage Americans would be unlikely to know) but I thought I'd have a look regardless. Unsurprisingly the citation is a new addition, but what is interesting is that the page doesn't say "Nagashima Spaland" at all.

It says ディズニーランドのスペースマウンテン. Space Mountain at Disneyland. Presumably the one in Tokyo.

Now this one confused me. I'm a British man, and I've never so much as stepped a foot into a country with a Disney park in it, but even I know what Space Mountain is. The USA has not one but two Space Mountains, so I think it would be likely that the target audience would understand this reference. All of this makes me believe that this wasn't done so the audience would get the reference, but to avoid getting told off by Disney. But why go through the effort of making it Nagashima Spaland (other than it being the fourth most popular amusement park in Japan) and having to explain that to their audience? Wouldn't it make more sense to just make it generic? Just "feels like he's waiting for a rollercoaster"? Very bizarre, but an interesting little titbit I think.

#Initial D #Manga #Tokyopop #Kodansha USA #Localisation Changes and Translation Errors

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Ok so this is the first real non-Stuff™ thing I've done on this page, but its been a little bit since I've last posted (I am really good at having too many side projects at once) and I'm sort of drawing a blank as to what to post, so I wanna ask you guys.

I could talk about Initial D non-stop for literal days, but I dont know what people would be interested in hearing me talk about. I've got an abundance of merch, I like talking about the little mistakes in official and unofficial releases, but I don't know how much of that is interesting (or how much of that would be able to be its own post?).

I have some bits in the pipeline that I'll post about when they're done regardless. Is there anything you'd like to see, or to hear, about? If there is let me know, comments are on and the ask page is always open. :)

#initial d #personal

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Initial D Art Book

I've been excited to do this one for a while.

The Initial D Art Book was released by Kodansha in 2001, and features a lot of the art made by Shuichi Shigeno for the series up to the time of release (which would have been around the time of the Northern Saitama Alliance races).

The books 233 pages are split between pages of artwork, block coloured manga pages, art featured on cover pages of the manga chapters, and photos of the courses. Also included is a several page interview with Shigeno himself, and a look at merchandise that had been released up to that point.

It's a very interesting book, and I'm glad to have been able to scan it in full. A previous scan does appear to have existed, but it was likely made in the early 2000s and thus the quality isn't the best. The only surviving remnants of that scan are a handful of cropped pieces that have been archived, as well as a deck of cards that somebody made using the art.

I've uploaded the entire book onto the Internet Archive, which can be read here. I hope you enjoy it.

#Initial D #Books #Merch

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Sentimental White

If you've known me for any period of time, you've likely heard me talk (read: complain at length) about the situation surrounding Initial D's extra chapters.

Now Initial D has 10 extra chapters (I won't bore you with the others but if you are interested, I have written about all of them on the wiki) five of which were never collected into a main tankobon volume.

These five chapters are the two parts of Sentimental White, and the three parts of Green Departure. They would later be adapted into Extra Stage - Act 2 (only a month after its release, apparently, which is rather cool), and Extra Stage 2 respectively.

Both saw releases in the 2014 and 2015 guidebooks "Trajectory Challenge Note" and "Trajectory Sprinting Note", their only releases outside of the pages of Weekly Young Magazine.

As they were never released in the main volumes, all five have gone untranslated into any language other than Japanese since their releases, 23 and 22 years ago respectively.

Until now, that is.

After, quite frankly, a lot of work, we (and by we I mean myself and the other members of the Project D scanlation team) have finally been able to get all of Sentimental White translated and presentable.

Sentimental White follows Mako Sato as she meets a guy, and the two try to start a relationship. If you've seen Extra Stage - Act 2, its pretty much the same, but it's nice to see it in its original manga form.

You can read both chapters right now on Mangadex.

I'm very happy to finally have this out, and I can't wait for Green Departure to be finished so I can show that too.

#Initial D #Manga #Scanlations

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Kodansha USA’s 2019 Digital Release

So with the recent announcement at Anime Expo 2023 that Kodansha USA are going to be publishing Initial D physically in America for the first time in 15 years, I thought I’d rant talk about their earlier digital release for a bit.

Back in 2019, around the same time I was just getting into the series, Kodansha announced they would be releasing all of Initial D digitally through Amazon’s ComiXology service. The series was released onto the platform in two chunks, with the first 38 volumes releasing April 17th, and volumes 39-48 on June 20th.

The release can be rather easily split into two chunks, the first 33 volumes (which I’ll talk at length about shortly) and the latter 15. This release was the first time volumes 34-48 had been released officially in English, and they had a decent treatment. These volumes were completely standard for a modern manga release, and are generally pretty solid to read. Not too much else to say about them.

The first 33 however, did not receive the same treatment. Instead of a brand new translation, they reused the old Tokyopop translation of the series, something I hear they also did for their other ex-Tokyopop series, such as GTO. This was admittedly rather disappointing, especially given how the rest of the series was done. It’s also the least of this releases problems.

The quality of the scan used is notably lower quality than the new volumes with lines being more pixelated than a normal release, dark colours are too dark, light colours are too light, the release has several points where placeholder text is still visible (this has never been fixed either), the typesetting is frequently poor and misaligned, some double pages feature actual tears down the middle. Its overall just an embarrassing job. 

I assume they didn’t wish to put too much money and effort in, after all its been years since Initial D finished, so they reused the old translation and hastily slapped it together. From a fan perspective its a little baffling (people have been ragging on the Tokyopop version, as well as just Tokyopop as a company, for my entirely lifetime) but from a business perspective I suppose it does make some sense to want to save some money on a digital only release (though it does still suck tremendously, but its not going to matter for much longer).

Despite all of this, it’s the version I recommend to people (for now at least). The quality may be bad, but its still higher than the previous scanlations. It may have tonnes of translation errors (an almost irredeemable amount) but the scanlations are similarly riddled with baffling translation mistakes (some of the bigger ones I may cover on here if they’re notable enough, Ichikoro springs to mind). The only main thing other than that is the nicknames, but I think I adjust to them fairly quickly, if you can just swap the names in your head then it’s a poor but readable release, not to mention that they stop doing nicknames after Emperor, with Sudo being the last to receive a nickname in the manga.

With the new Omnibus 2-in-1 releases on the horizon, and them having been confirmed to have a completely new translation and typeset, I’m looking forward to seeing the replacement for this release. Hopefully this will just fade away and remain solely as a weird little footnote.

#Initial D #Manga #Digital Releases #Tokyopop #Kodansha USA

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Initial D Sound Files (Retro Kana #03)

This is definitely the newest part of my collection as far as release dates go.

This is Initial D Sound Files, a French double-LP that was released on February 10th earlier this year as part of Kana Music’s Retro Kana series. It’s a rerelease of the first two Initial D Sound Files albums, both released in 1998 and covering First Stage. Each of the albums get their own vinyl, with the track order being the same as the original CD releases, only split over the two sides of the record (rather cutely called “Roads”).

The outside of the gatefold is coloured in the typical High Tech Two-Tone “panda” colour scheme of Takumi’s Eight-Six, even featuring the Fujiwara Tofu Store sticker and the car’s number plate. The gauges with the track listing in them is a nice touch I feel.

The inside features an outline map of Akina, and the track listings again.

The labels on each of the sides features a design that (I only realised while writing this) is based on the front façade of the Fujiwara Tofu Store.

I’m not enough of an audiophile to comment on the intricacies of the audio quality, but it sounded pretty good to me.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the only time any of the sound files have received a physical release outside of Japan. This release is pretty cool even if that isn’t true, and once again proves to me that the French are so much luckier when it comes to Initial D.

I knew I had to buy this release when it was announced on Twitter back in January, and it was probably the easiest buying experience I’ve had with any of my collection. 

Not an ad, but if you’re at all interested in picking one of these up, they’re exclusively sold by the French retail chain FNAC. I’m not sure about the rest of the world but they shipped directly to me here in the UK incredibly quickly, and I don’t believe it cost too much either. The vinyl costs 49,99 € (about £42, or $55), and can be bought here.

#Initial D #Music #French Releases

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Initial D Battle 01-02-03

Ok I'll get this started with a little bit of a local oddity.

Initial D Battle 01-02-03 is a DVD release of Initial D that came out March 31st 2008 here in the UK. It was distributed by VDI Entertainment, a company I am unable to find any information about, and features the Tokyopop version of the series.

It is, for all intents and purposes, literally just the first three Tokyopop sets in a single case. Three discs, each with three episodes on them, covering the first nine episodes of First Stage. Now, on its own, this sounds fine, but it's worsened so much by being the only release of the Initial D anime in the UK. A lot of American's complain they never got a release past Fourth Stage, but try not even getting past Nakazato. Supposedly a second set was planned, before being delay several times and cancelled (though the only source I can find for this is an ancient review).

So that's the first part that makes this odd. Five years after their initial USA release, Tokyopop release only nine episodes of the show in the UK, despite having already fully released the series up to Extra Stage in the USA, and also in Australia.

There is another odd part to this set, odder than there being no other releases (after all, Funimation's release is entirely on Crunchyroll now). The release  advertises on its reverse cover that it contains Extras. I always find these to be the most interesting part of these sets, but weirdly there's no Extras option in the menu. I was expecting the same exact menu as is present on the American releases, but nope, it's just not there. See below for a comparison (USA on the left and UK on the right).

Digging around in the files on a computer you're able to find that the special features are actually present on the disc. The special features are as expected, the same blooper reels and introduction to the trading card game as in the Region 1 release, as well as a bunch of trailers for other anime releases.

What's odd about these trailers is that they're not present on the original Tokyopop sets, and aren't for series' that were dubbed by Tokyopop. For example one of the trailers is for FLCL, a series dubbed by Synch-Point. The trailer in question is below:

This trailer gives away why this release is so weird (as does my upload’s title). If I'm not mistaken, this release isn't based on the American sets, its based on the Australian sets. The end of the above trailer features the logo of Madman Entertainment, who don't operate in the UK. I've been unable to verify this (if you own the Madman release of the Tokyopop version, let me know, I'd be interested to see if this is all correct) but it does seem to be right. Another ad is for Battle Doll Angelic Layer, which did not receive a UK release until 2018, ten years after this set released.

I imagine VDI didn't have the rights to many of these series, and instead of just removing the ads, they hid all of the special features, and forgot to update the packaging.

So that's the Initial D anime's only UK release. Definitely odd, but interesting at the same time. If you’re interested in seeing the other special features on the disc, you can watch them all on my YouTube channel here.

#Initial D #Anime #Tokyopop #UK Releases #DVD