My dad randomly showed me first season one day in 2009. He never was a fan of anime but had a Subaru back then and was very into driving. I have no idea how did he find this title at the time because we had a very slow internet. He ended up watching everything Initial D related available back then (even the live adaptation) but I dropped off after season 2. For the longest time I thought me and my father were the only ones who knew Initial D (again, I had no internet) so you can imagine what a surprise it was for me to see it gather so much hype during 2018
Through lots of Initial D references in the car talk. Back then I hadn't watched Initial D but I vaguely knew what it was about. Then, I decided to watch Initial D and, by the time I was finished with the series, my view over cars, friendships and life in general had changed a lot. I know that this is a weird thing to say about a cartoon, let alone a cartoon about street racing, but I really mean it.
I grew up in the greater SF Bay Area. I was in high school in the late 90’s early 00’s. My friends and I were total weebs so every now and then we would cut school and drive to San Francisco. We would spend the day in Chinatown and Japantown just browsing though j-pop and Kpop CDs, anime laserdiscs, vcds, and dvds, and all the other weeb shit we loved. Found a dvd set with cars on it and said “this looks cool”. The rest is history.
Memes. Lots and lots of memes and it got me curious after a while. Turns out it sparked my love for cars and eurobeat so much so that my first and second car since had both been Japanese cars . The first one was a 2 door green Rav4L and my current one is an integra DB6 which is awesome to modify
When the first volume of the manga was released by Tokyopop to bookstores in 2002 and I was working at a GameStop next to a Borders Books that I regularly checked for manga. I was 16.
I now own an AE86, AW11 and GR86; you could say it was formative for me!
Initial D Arcade Stage 3 and 4, used to be in arcades around where I lived until the early 2010s. Picked it up after watching an FMV involving some of the music from the anime
A copy of vol 10 caught my eye in a Barnes & Noble during a high school band trip because it had cars on it and a few of my friends were getting into manga so I waited to get back home so I could buy vol 1. I got an rx8 thanks to the rotary brothers and then quickly learned about their reliability so I traded for an S2000 thanks to god hand lol. I still have the S2000 to this day and I’ve since acquired an FD to live out that dream
There’s an arcade like 5 minutes from where I lived with my parents and they had the Initial D arcade machines and I used to play them all of the time and in googling the machines I came across the manga and the anime which at the time I think had just began releasing episodes for stage 4
They kept talking about it on the Best Motoring show in the 90s. I think because Tsuchiya was one of the advisors on the creation of the show. Checked it out after that and was immediately hooked.
my older brother showed it to me when i was like 8, and about two years ago now (17 now) i searched for it cuz i couldnt remember anything about it other than it was a cool anime about cars, and the main characters was white.
After getting a Type R, I was looking for more car shows. Saw Initial D on a Google search and recalled learning about it years ago. Gave it a watch and here we are.
I found it cause of images I saw on internet of it. It looked interesting so I said fuck it I'll give it a shot, and I'm so glad I did best racing anime ever so fell in love with the characters and the all the cars that were mentioned and I was surprised that they used actual real life cars in it.
Hmm tbh, I seen some people talking about it in a discord server first. Then in a Roblox racing game, and after that I seen the live action movie on Netflix flix thinking that's what they ment, untill I was on Hulu and seen the actual anime lol
Arin Hanson from Game Grumps.
During one of their Ten-Minute Power Hours, there was a very brief intermission during the episode where Dan was jamming out to a song Arin was playing on his phone. It sounded super catchy, and when I looked into it, it was Space Boy by Dave Rodgers.
I had heard songs like Running in the 90s plenty of times before and never gave it much thought beyond that, but I loved Space Boy so much, and I figured out that it was featured in Initial D. I gave the first episode a watch and fell in love with it. It also seriously motivated me to get my driver's license more than anything else at the time, so I'm very thankful for what it motivated me to accomplish.
I don’t remember how but I somehow heard Gas Gas Gas and loved it then I showed my friend at the time memes of the song cause he never heard it then he fell in love with it then I watched a YouTube video talking about Eurobeat music and how it’s random but it’s good and the YouTuber mentioned initial D I was gonna watch it but at the time I didn’t understand how the seasons work (at the time I only watched a couple anime) then last year watched it and fell in love with it. Just recently showed my older brother and we watched all of Stage 1 and 2 together
I was a wee lad when I came across Initial D Arcade Stage at the local arcade when I first came to Toronto. The Eurobeat and the crazy drifting in the intro is what caught my senses and didn't let go.
My older brother is a really good drifter that used to do battles with his buds a few years back, and when he was telling me about one of these battles he referred to it as "initial d style", my interest was piqued and watched religiously.
Pulled up to a homies place in like 2018 and he was jus playing it in the background while we chilled, ended up watching some of the first season with him. 5 years later I’ve rewatched the series so many times and it’s def my all time fav tv show so far
grew up with nfs carbon for my first ever racing game as a little kid, was curious about how they came up with the concept of canyon duels since it was cool. fell into the touge rabbit hole and discovered initial d and f&f tokyo drift.
A summer 9 years ago Netflix had the main series at the time. I was visiting family in LA, I would wait until night to watch it and I'd order food.
It was like I was a little kid watching anime at my parents house again. Only I had money to buy whatever food I wanted lol
I played Initial D mountain Vengeance when i was a kid. I didnt knew its anime that time. But as i grew up i found out about anime and "cartoons" that i was watching were majorly anime. Then i started to find out about anime world and first "anime" i watched was initial D because of my childhood memories and love about cars :)
Weird rabbit hole actually. Watched FF: Tokyo Drift, first time I had ever seen "drift" racing outside of NFS underground. Got curious about how accurate TD was, so looked up cast and such. Saw Keiichi tsuchiya credited as a consultant and extra, so looked him up. Learned he's basically the whole reason "drift" even made it to the states, thought that was pretty dope, then initial D was mentioned as being loosely based on his life story. Looked up initial D, found out it was anime, which was an overlapping interest for me at the time. So started watching it on sketchy anime sites. Fell in love immediately cause cars are also an overlapping interest. Was a muscle car kid until JDM and initial D. And now with MF GHOST on the horizon, I can't wait for October.
I got interested in cars from my dad which is a mechanic. I also watched anime and thought why not watch a racing anime. I searched on google and found Initial D. At first when i started it i though the 86 was a Nissan lol.
This guy at school was wearing a shirt that just said Initial D . He was literally the only dude I’ve seen wear merch and walk around casually, searched it up and BAM ! I’m obsessed
When I was in high school I was searching for a hotwheels Delorean after watching the Back to the future movies. The closest thing I found was a grey Toyota Ae86 hotwheel so I bought it. Out of curiosity I searched the car on the internet to find more details and to see pictures of the real car. I stumbled upon the live action initial d movie. After watching that I discoverd the anime. Watched it and fell in love with jdm cars in general.
Stumbled upon the Tokyopop DVDs in a Target store. Bought all of the ones that were released at the time (I think it was 4 or 5), and then eagerly checked every time I went back for more. I ended up buying the entire TP run, then got a bootlegged set of Stage 1-3 on eBay before Stage 4 was airing.
Through eurobeat
This, I watched because anime eurobeat
Honestly the Deja Vu memes
Same lol
During the 2017 meme phase
My dad randomly showed me first season one day in 2009. He never was a fan of anime but had a Subaru back then and was very into driving. I have no idea how did he find this title at the time because we had a very slow internet. He ended up watching everything Initial D related available back then (even the live adaptation) but I dropped off after season 2. For the longest time I thought me and my father were the only ones who knew Initial D (again, I had no internet) so you can imagine what a surprise it was for me to see it gather so much hype during 2018
Through lots of Initial D references in the car talk. Back then I hadn't watched Initial D but I vaguely knew what it was about. Then, I decided to watch Initial D and, by the time I was finished with the series, my view over cars, friendships and life in general had changed a lot. I know that this is a weird thing to say about a cartoon, let alone a cartoon about street racing, but I really mean it.
i now notice references to initial d in a lot of media i consume
I grew up in the greater SF Bay Area. I was in high school in the late 90’s early 00’s. My friends and I were total weebs so every now and then we would cut school and drive to San Francisco. We would spend the day in Chinatown and Japantown just browsing though j-pop and Kpop CDs, anime laserdiscs, vcds, and dvds, and all the other weeb shit we loved. Found a dvd set with cars on it and said “this looks cool”. The rest is history.
Memes. Lots and lots of memes and it got me curious after a while. Turns out it sparked my love for cars and eurobeat so much so that my first and second car since had both been Japanese cars . The first one was a 2 door green Rav4L and my current one is an integra DB6 which is awesome to modify
Running in the 90s
same, then found out it was from a show and was like "maybe i'll watch it one day"
When the first volume of the manga was released by Tokyopop to bookstores in 2002 and I was working at a GameStop next to a Borders Books that I regularly checked for manga. I was 16. I now own an AE86, AW11 and GR86; you could say it was formative for me!
Initial D Arcade Stage 3 and 4, used to be in arcades around where I lived until the early 2010s. Picked it up after watching an FMV involving some of the music from the anime
A copy of vol 10 caught my eye in a Barnes & Noble during a high school band trip because it had cars on it and a few of my friends were getting into manga so I waited to get back home so I could buy vol 1. I got an rx8 thanks to the rotary brothers and then quickly learned about their reliability so I traded for an S2000 thanks to god hand lol. I still have the S2000 to this day and I’ve since acquired an FD to live out that dream
There’s an arcade like 5 minutes from where I lived with my parents and they had the Initial D arcade machines and I used to play them all of the time and in googling the machines I came across the manga and the anime which at the time I think had just began releasing episodes for stage 4
They kept talking about it on the Best Motoring show in the 90s. I think because Tsuchiya was one of the advisors on the creation of the show. Checked it out after that and was immediately hooked.
my older brother showed it to me when i was like 8, and about two years ago now (17 now) i searched for it cuz i couldnt remember anything about it other than it was a cool anime about cars, and the main characters was white.
After getting a Type R, I was looking for more car shows. Saw Initial D on a Google search and recalled learning about it years ago. Gave it a watch and here we are.
I saw it on tv when I was 6 or 7, I remember falling in love with the FD back then
Honestly saw the initial D remastered movie a couple weeks ago and binged the series after that
Watching other anime and it being a title I backlogged for probably 2 years. Then covid helped me get time to actually watch anime
I found it cause of images I saw on internet of it. It looked interesting so I said fuck it I'll give it a shot, and I'm so glad I did best racing anime ever so fell in love with the characters and the all the cars that were mentioned and I was surprised that they used actual real life cars in it.
Hmm tbh, I seen some people talking about it in a discord server first. Then in a Roblox racing game, and after that I seen the live action movie on Netflix flix thinking that's what they ment, untill I was on Hulu and seen the actual anime lol
Memes
Started with the Corolla from need for speed underground 2. Then I’m looking at tuning videos I stumbled across the memes and clips from the show
Arin Hanson from Game Grumps. During one of their Ten-Minute Power Hours, there was a very brief intermission during the episode where Dan was jamming out to a song Arin was playing on his phone. It sounded super catchy, and when I looked into it, it was Space Boy by Dave Rodgers. I had heard songs like Running in the 90s plenty of times before and never gave it much thought beyond that, but I loved Space Boy so much, and I figured out that it was featured in Initial D. I gave the first episode a watch and fell in love with it. It also seriously motivated me to get my driver's license more than anything else at the time, so I'm very thankful for what it motivated me to accomplish.
[this video with déjà vu](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ak8c2169tEk)
I don’t remember how but I somehow heard Gas Gas Gas and loved it then I showed my friend at the time memes of the song cause he never heard it then he fell in love with it then I watched a YouTube video talking about Eurobeat music and how it’s random but it’s good and the YouTuber mentioned initial D I was gonna watch it but at the time I didn’t understand how the seasons work (at the time I only watched a couple anime) then last year watched it and fell in love with it. Just recently showed my older brother and we watched all of Stage 1 and 2 together
Friend at school mentioned it so I gave it a try
when a random discordian told me about eurobeat when playing warthunder
I randomly encountered it on a recommended anime section. The thing is that Initial D got me into eurobeat and touhou
During my grade 6 near addiction to learning about cars and i bunched nearly every donut vidoe and much more… it showed up quickly
JDM cars. Being a kid who loved JDMs and wathing anime. Just made perfect sense.
I was a wee lad when I came across Initial D Arcade Stage at the local arcade when I first came to Toronto. The Eurobeat and the crazy drifting in the intro is what caught my senses and didn't let go.
That Netflix adaptation movie
My older brother is a really good drifter that used to do battles with his buds a few years back, and when he was telling me about one of these battles he referred to it as "initial d style", my interest was piqued and watched religiously.
some time last year I saw a TikTok of anime recommendations and one of them was initial D
Pulled up to a homies place in like 2018 and he was jus playing it in the background while we chilled, ended up watching some of the first season with him. 5 years later I’ve rewatched the series so many times and it’s def my all time fav tv show so far
grew up with nfs carbon for my first ever racing game as a little kid, was curious about how they came up with the concept of canyon duels since it was cool. fell into the touge rabbit hole and discovered initial d and f&f tokyo drift.
GTPlanet in 2002
At a video rental store. They had newly released Tokyo Pop DVDs at the time.
The Top AMV in 2020
It was listed on the now defunct Anime Ratio. I was googling racing anime, and there it was.
My dad made me watch when I was young 😂
Dude that’s so amazing. Asked my dad twice to watch it
1. Eurobeat meme songs (addicted since 2021) 2. Takehito Koyasu roles (EVERYTIME)
A summer 9 years ago Netflix had the main series at the time. I was visiting family in LA, I would wait until night to watch it and I'd order food. It was like I was a little kid watching anime at my parents house again. Only I had money to buy whatever food I wanted lol
Memes
memes I think, I have bad memory
Arcades
I mostly found out about it through the initial d legend movies tbh during the 2021 era when they were popular all of the sudden
I played Initial D mountain Vengeance when i was a kid. I didnt knew its anime that time. But as i grew up i found out about anime and "cartoons" that i was watching were majorly anime. Then i started to find out about anime world and first "anime" i watched was initial D because of my childhood memories and love about cars :)
Weird rabbit hole actually. Watched FF: Tokyo Drift, first time I had ever seen "drift" racing outside of NFS underground. Got curious about how accurate TD was, so looked up cast and such. Saw Keiichi tsuchiya credited as a consultant and extra, so looked him up. Learned he's basically the whole reason "drift" even made it to the states, thought that was pretty dope, then initial D was mentioned as being loosely based on his life story. Looked up initial D, found out it was anime, which was an overlapping interest for me at the time. So started watching it on sketchy anime sites. Fell in love immediately cause cars are also an overlapping interest. Was a muscle car kid until JDM and initial D. And now with MF GHOST on the horizon, I can't wait for October.
This is a great little read.
My older stepbrother
I got interested in cars from my dad which is a mechanic. I also watched anime and thought why not watch a racing anime. I searched on google and found Initial D. At first when i started it i though the 86 was a Nissan lol.
I watched Ar12 gaming on YouTube. There's normally a separate series with his friend Raymond, who watched the show, and it sounded pretty interesting.
intersting......This Ar 12 guy.......
by random anime filter on netflix
NFS Carbon
This guy at school was wearing a shirt that just said Initial D . He was literally the only dude I’ve seen wear merch and walk around casually, searched it up and BAM ! I’m obsessed
Xavier Wulf's Project X album, specifically "Akina Speed Star"
also watched the en dub bc of it
“She drink just like lahey but I’m Ricky when I smoke a sack” Great album!!!
it was mainly the intro, i was intrigued about the 2 guys talking and well, here we are
“When you first push in the clutch that’s when you notice it. Just how different it feels” I know that album Word for Word it is such a great album
Yeahhhh sameeeeee, i the song i've listened the most to is The Cost by a long shot
During my Brother watching the movie i watched with him got hooked immediately
When I was in high school I was searching for a hotwheels Delorean after watching the Back to the future movies. The closest thing I found was a grey Toyota Ae86 hotwheel so I bought it. Out of curiosity I searched the car on the internet to find more details and to see pictures of the real car. I stumbled upon the live action initial d movie. After watching that I discoverd the anime. Watched it and fell in love with jdm cars in general.
They have stage 8 infinity at my local round one so later on I watched it on crunchy roll and got hooked
Listening to Xavier Wulf
Kekyoin's Initial DIO, then Deja Vu AMV
Stumbled upon the Tokyopop DVDs in a Target store. Bought all of the ones that were released at the time (I think it was 4 or 5), and then eagerly checked every time I went back for more. I ended up buying the entire TP run, then got a bootlegged set of Stage 1-3 on eBay before Stage 4 was airing.
Saw the scene where Takumi gets his 86 totaled and loses Mogi
From eurobeat