As Himself: Keiichi Tsuchiya played as his fictional counterpart who calls Bunta Fujiwara in the Episode 23 of Initial D First Stage.
Colbert Bump: This series is responsible for Eurobeat having any sort of decent popularity at all outside of Japan or its native Europe.
Channel Hop: The first two seasons aired on Fuji TV and would later air in reruns on MBS; Fourth Stage aired on SkyPerfecTV! and the last two seasons aired on Animax.
Defictionalization: Many car enthusiasts in the world have tried replicating Takumi's AE86 or other iconic cars appearing in Initial D.
The translators working on the English version of the manga originally wanted a straight translation, but Tokyopop executives demanded various changes because they were "aiming for a younger audience than Japan". This resulted in the translators writing an open letter to the fans in which they joked about releasing the manga shrink-wrapped with White-Out and a felt-tip pen.
Additionally, they wanted even more significant changes including, but not limited to: removing the kanji from the show's logo and the car, changing "tofu" delivery to "pizza" delivery, and having Takumi renamed "Jeffery" because it was "easier to pronounce". In the end, the translators elected to give everyone the "nicknames" used in the English versions of Initial D Arcade Stage - "Takumi" became "Tak", for instance.
At present, the Tokyopop DVD releases are the only way to watch the original dub of the first two seasons, as those seasons were eventually redubbed by Funimation in 2009.
Tokyopop made an english dub of the Third Stage movie, but it was only screened once at the Big Apple Anime Fest on 2003 and it was never release on home video due to Tokyopop losing the Initial D license and Funimation redubbing the movie for their home video release. (According to some rumors, it also aired on Cartoon Network Australia during the 2003 Christmas season, but this has never been proved).
With the expiration of Tokyopop's licenses to all the manga series it received from Kodansha (the publisher for the Japanese version of the manga), the manga volumes of this series after Volume 33 fell victim to this trope until 2019 when Kodansha USA picked up the license. However, Funimation picked up the licensing rights from First Stage to Fourth Stage; unfortunately, most of the OVAs aside from the first Extra Stage have also not been picked upnote The second Extra Stage and the two Battle Stages.
The fact that Battle Stage 2 wasn't picked up is a little disappointing because people will question what happened in those two hill-climb races in Fourth Stage that were Adapted Out, especially when the race between Keisuke Takahashi and "Smiley" Sakai is a pretty important one.
In Fourth Stage and the Arcade Stage games, Tomoyuki was voiced by Kazuhiro Nakata. Due to Nakata retiring sometime around 2011, he was replaced by Daichi Endo in Fifth Stage and Arcade Stage 8.
The Legend movies use a different cast from the TV series and OVAs, the English dubs of those movies however avert this since Sentai Filmworks managed to get most of the Funimation dub cast to reprise their roles.
Real Song Theme Tune: Like it's video game counterpart Arcade Stage, the Animated Adaptation makes heavy use of licensed Eurobeat tracks from Avex Trax's "Super Eurobeat" library..
The Red Stapler: The AE86, although already famous in motorsports circles, was virtually unknown outside of Japan before Initial D's release: in the countries where it was exported, such as the United States, it was looked down upon as an "old, underpowered Corolla". After Initial D's release, it has become a massively appreciated, sought-after classic, with prices for it going up ten times as a result. And whereas it only usually appeared in games by Japanese developers, such as Tokyo Xtreme Racer and Gran Turismo, it has now appeared in Western-developed titles such as Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, the Need for Speed franchise note The car did appear in Underground 2 as a red USDM Corolla GT-S; it appears in follow-up titles either in its signature white-and-black paintjob or as the JDMAE86 and the Forza franchise.
The Legend movies wound up being licensed by Sentai Filmworks instead of Funimation.
What Could Have Been: Tokyopop had big plans for Initial D, which according to reports, was being eyed as their "marquee title". Indeed, other reports claimed the publisher was intending to market it as "Speed Racer" for a new generation. They licensed it with the intention of turning it into a multi-media franchise. Besides a TV broadcast of the Anime, it would have included various merchandise such as die-cast cars, video games, and "comics". North America did get all three, but besides there being no franchise to speak of, the comics were, of course, the original Manga (which came first, and has ended in summer 2013), which had been changed to be more like the Anime, all because Tokyopop was going for "a younger audience than Japan" motif. The "initial" DVD release had even been delayed because Tokyopop was trying to get the show on television. Somehow, Tokyopop managed to get a Collectible Card Game licensed and released.
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