Initial D

Takumi Fujiwara is a high school student working part-time at a gas station in Gunma Prefecture alongside his friend Itsuki Takeuchi and their supervisor, Koichiro Iketani, leader of the local Akina Speed Stars racing team. Unbeknownst to them, Takumi has spent years honing his driving skills while making early morning tofu deliveries for his father Bunta in their aging Toyota Sprinter Trueno (AE86).

The racing scene in Gunma is disrupted when the Red Suns, a formidable team from Mount Akagi led by Ryosuke Takahashi, challenge the Speed Stars to a downhill race on Mount Akina. After witnessing the Red Suns' superior performance, the Speed Stars grow demoralized. Later that night, Keisuke Takahashi, the team's second-in-command driving a high-powered Mazda RX-7, is unexpectedly defeated by a mysterious Sprinter Trueno. Investigations point to Bunta as the driver, but when Iketani crashes during practice and begs for his help, Bunta declines before secretly arranging for Takumi to race in his place. Utilizing an unorthodox "gutter run" technique—placing the car's wheels in the road's drainage channels to maintain speed through hairpin corners—Takumi soundly defeats Keisuke.

By July 2013, collected tankōbon volumes of the Initial D manga series had sold 48 million copies. By April 2021, Initial D had over 55 million copies in circulation.

Initial D received praise. The Anime Review rated it A−, with the reviewer calling it "simply the best show I've seen in a long time." Bamboo Dong of Anime News Network rated it B−, stating it "is the first time in a long while since I've been so fired up about a series, so I recommend to everyone to at least check this out." Some fans of Initial D reacted negatively to the Tokyopop's extensive editing and changes made in the English-language version of the manga.