INITIAL D
Anime based on the Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. The story focuses on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, with the drift racing style emphasized in particular. The story is centered on the prefecture of Gunma, more specifically on several mountains in the Kantō region and in their surrounding cities and towns. Although some of the names of the locations the characters race in have been fictionalized, all of the locations in the series are based on actual locations in Japan.
Both the manga and anime series were initially licensed for English-language distribution in North America by Tokyopop. Like in the manga, Tokyopop changed elements of the anime to suit Western audiences. As well as changing the names and used western slang, the the anime's music was changed from the series' staple eurobeat tracks to originally developed tracks of rap and hip-hop via Stu Levy (DJ Milky), the Tokyopop CEO and an in-house musician.
