Up Up Down Down

The comic is an homage to Initial D much like Peter Jackson’s King Kong was an homage to King Kong. Maybe you don’t like homage or thinly veiled bestiality. But in my mind there are two types of people in this world, those who love drifto, and those that don’t know it exists.

Initial D is about Fujiwara Takumi, a 17 year-old tofu shop delivery boy who drives an ’86 Toyota Sprinter Trueno. Takumi doesn’t care about cars or street racing, just finishing his delivery to the top of Mt. Akina as quickly as possible. The other people that frequent Akina, however, dedicate their lives to illegal mountain racing, as do many other street racers who form teams that proclaim themselves to be the best on various mountains in the region. Eventually Takumi in-advertantly defeats a famous street racer on Mt. Akina, which begins Takumi’s reluctant journey into the street racing world.

The format is this: Takumi shows up to a race and his opponent scoffs at the car; everyone thinks it’s a joke. Then the eurobeat music begins and Takumi pressures his opponent with perfect drift technique. The opponent can’t believe what’s happening. Takumi wins.

For some reason I never got tired of this formula. Each race presents a different obstacle for Takumi. Each driver that challenges Takumi feels they are superior to him in some way.

We all have something we feel we excel at on a small stage. Something at which we consider ourselves better than most people. Every time Takumi wins his opponent seldom feels defeated, and instead is grateful they could finally experience a new challenge.

This drive to overcome has as much to do with Initial D as drifting. Drifting is merely the shit hot medium that Initial D uses to remind us to “rage our dreams.”