Branch's Initial D Archive

Imagine not posting for over a year, that'd be crazy. Anyway.

A couple months back someone made a post on the Initial D subreddit that caused me to read the entire manga in one sitting (again). The question was "why did everyone except Bunta stop smoking in the later stages of the anime". Realistically its likely due to the views on smoking in Japan changing over the years and that being reflected in the media they create, but it raises another question I'd had in the back of my mind for many years: Do the characters in the manga even smoke that much?

Something I think is immediately obvious when you first read the early Initial D manga is that everyone smoked a lot more in First Stage. Many characters can't go a single scene in the anime between lighting up and then putting their cigarette out on the floor, but in the manga they smoke a lot less. I decided to prove this with data, and so I read the manga again for about the hundredth time and put together the data below.

The top three of this are not particularly surprising, I imagine if I produced a similar list for the anime they would either be in the same positions or at least high up. They are, in my opinion, the least interesting part of this. The most interesting part is the people who smoke only on a handful of occasions, or those who aren't here at all.

Take Shingo for example. I remember Shingo as a heavy smoker, in fact he is the character I think of when I think of characters wasting a cigarette after just one puff, but he only smokes once, in his first appearance, and then never again.

The absence of Ryosuke is similarly interesting, because in my mind, like his brother, he smokes quite a bit, but in the manga he is never once seen with a cigarette. Perhaps that better reflects him as a doctor.

Perhaps some day I will do something similar for the anime, I'd be interested to see how different the data is there.

I briefly touched on this in my post about the second Omnibus release from almost a year ago, and have finally gotten my notes in order enough to write about it.

In the Tokyopop and 2019 Kodansha USA versions of the manga, Toru Suetsugu is called Tohru Matsushi.

Now Tohru is a correct spelling, it's simply another way of romanising the elongated vowel ō in his name (Tōru). There are many ways to romanise this (oh, ou, o) and the version used often depends on the translator. This is all fine, but Matsushi?

末次, like a lot of Japanese names, can be read multiple ways, with Suetsugu (Hiragana: すえつぎ) being one of them. Among the readings is also Matsuji (まつじ), which is likely the origin of this.

Atsuro Kawai is also faced with a similar mistake, being branded Junro Kawai. While Atsuro (あつろう) is the correct name in this case, Junro (じゅんろう) is an alternate reading.

On a translation level Tokyopop haven't made much of an error here at all, both Junro Kawai and Tohru Matsushi are correct readings of the Kanji presented, it's just that they are inconsistent with other media.

If the characters had Furigana with their names it's possible that this error wouldn't have been made. Similarly if Tokyopop had seen Fourth Stage (which released in Japan in 2004, the year before this volume released in English) they may have realised that they were using the wrong readings, though as Tokyopop never released Fourth Stage it's possible they never saw it.

I think I suggested it in the last post I did like this, but would people be interested if I made some posts about cool/weird merch that I have collected over the years?

As I mentioned in my post about Sentimental White, Initial D has five chapters that were uncollected in the main volumes (instead being included in guidebooks), and so have been ignored by any export release of the series.

Back in 2023 we released the two chapters that make up Sentimental White, and I am thrilled to announce that we have now released the three chapters of Green Departure.

Green Departure was released 24 years ago in 2001, and was later adapted into 2008's Initial D Extra Stage 2. It follows Mako and Iketani meeting again after their heartbreak in the early part of the series.

You can read all three chapters right now on Mangadex.

Recently, my friend Adam published an interview they did back in 2020 with Stu Levy. For those of you unaware, Stu Levy is the founder (and former CEO) of Tokyopop, who held the Initial D license from 2002-2009.

It's quite an good interview, answering many questions I'd had for many years such as: Why was it like this? Why did they stop there? and (this one most importantly) How did they make so many changes to increase appeal and not get it on TV?

Another three months have passed in a blink of an eye, and what better day to talk about the battle between Takumi and Ryosuke than the 15th of September.

The third volume of the new Initial D omnibus released on the 3rd of September, and I've finally finished going through it for the wiki.

I think Nakazato is an odd choice for the volume after his race. I didn't like these covers originally, but I've definitely come around on them.

Pretty much everything I've said in my previous posts is still true; this translation remains consistently good, though unlike the previous volumes I can't find a single major mistake.

One thing I have noticed with this volume that is also true of the previous ones is that the seam down the centre of the double page spreads are rather noticeable. I wouldn't say this is a major critique though, it is difficult to get these pages to line up, even with redrawing, and the seams are much less egregious than the ones in the 2019 release (no tears in this one).

I mentioned in my review of the first volume that "the depth is visible, the dark parts aren't too dark, and the image hasn't been levelled to hell and back" in this version compared with the 2019 release, however I neglected to demonstrate it. The above image shows the same page (one I find very beautiful) in the 2024 (left) and 2019 (right) releases. The right page is overly dark, something that plagues that older release, whereas the left page is lighter, allowing details (in this case the stars) to be more visible.

This is also the first release of the manga to actually understand what "Toe Control Canceller" actually means. Every previous translation either got this wrong or omitted it, so kudos to the translator.

Has it really been three months already?

The second volume of Kodansha USA's Omnibus release of Initial D just released (June 25th 2024, though it was also released digitally three weeks earlier on June 4th) and I have just gotten my hands on a copy.

Pretty much every compliment I paid to the translation last time is true. As with before, the many oddities and changes present in the Tokyopop and earlier 2019 Kodansha USA release are gone.

I feel its pertinent for me to offer a minor addendum to my review of the first volume, specifically in regard to print quality. Many people have noted that the paper that the first volume is printed on appears incredibly grainy. While it isn't something I paid much mind to, it does appear to be grainier than your average, which is somewhat embarrassing for a "premium" release that costs twice the amount of a normal manga volume. Many people have also complained that their volumes have pages where the ink is visibly lighter than it should be. This doesn't effect every reader, but it is unfortunate that some people are having a worse experience than I am with this release.

The paper grain of this volume does seem better to my eyes, though it may be about the same (I would like to provide a photo of this but my phone's camera doesn't really show the grain very well.

Unfortunately, once again, there is a minor blight on this great release in the form of a translation error. When Shingo is first introduced in chapter 29, he, for whatever reason, calls himself "Shingo Atsushi", instead of Shingo Shoji.

This error does confuse me slightly, as a quick cursory search online would show that this is incorrect. It's possible that the translator misread 庄司 (Shoji) as 厚司 (Atsushi), as they do have a character in common, but I cannot say for sure. I believe this is the only location in this volume where Shingo is referred to using his surname, so we may have to wait for the next release to see if this gets corrected. This does remind me of a similar mistranslation in the Tokyopop release with Toru Suetsugu's name, which I may cover at some point.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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'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.