#initial-d

The Adventures of Tofu Boy And The Street Hooligans

Our protagonist Takumi, henceforth referred to as Tofu Boy in this review, doesn't like cars. He doesn't have a car and doesn't want a car, knows nothing about specs or trim levels or modifications and has never willingly picked up a car magazine. To Tofu Boy, a car is merely a motor and a set of wheels with enough space in the back to hold a massive cooler of tofu, and the bane of his existence because since the age of thirteen he has been forced to get in his dad's car at at ass o'clock AM and drive like fifty miles delivering tofu to his dad's customers.

Yes. His dad put his thirteen-year-old son behind the wheel of his...I think it's basically a sport-trim Japanese domestic version of a Toyota Corolla? at like 4 am every morning and sent him off alone. Unsupervised. Across a treacherous mountain pass riddled with switchbacks. With no one to tell him not to, and no one to egg him on past his limits, Tofu Boy mastered the art of getting up the mountain without spilling the tofu, and down the mountain as fast as possible so he could GO THE FUCK BACK TO BED. Because he's TIRED. And he HATES DRIVING. Because it's his JOB and JOBS SUCK.

Our story picks up when Tofu Boy is now 18 and finally has his driver's license. He's allowed to take the car out when other people are on the road, for purposes other than tofu delivery. Some local street racers discover his insane mountain descent skills, and they swiftly make him their god.

One of the themes of the anime is that it's not technology or high quality equipment or book learning or passion or enthusiasm that makes a master, it's years of drudgery until you are so sick of doing the thing that you invent ways to make the thing even harder just to alleviate the boredom of doing the thing that you can't escape even in your dreams.

In real life USAmerica, a family was driving down the road in a minivan and happened to turn on their windshield sprayer just as a BMW came up behind them. The driver of the BMW chased them down and shot them.