Initial D

Initial D (Japanese: 頭文字（イニシャル） D, Hepburn: Inisharu Dī) is a Japanese street racing manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. It was serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Magazine from 1995 to 2013, with the chapters collected into 48 tankōbon volumes. The story focuses on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes and rarely in cities or urban areas, and with the drifting racing style emphasized in particular. Professional race car driver and pioneer of drifting Keiichi Tsuchiya helped with editorial supervision. 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.

Initial D was adapted into an anime franchise which includes six main installments (five series and one feature film) labeled as Stages: First Stage (animated by Studio Comet and Studio Gallop) ran in 1998; Second Stage (animated by Pastel) ran from 1999 to 2000; Third Stage (feature film animated by Studio Deen) premiered in 2001; Fourth Stage (animated by A.C.G.T) ran from 2004 to 2006; Fifth Stage (animated by SynergySP) ran from 2012 to 2013; and Final Stage (animated by SynergySP) ran in 2014. An anime film trilogy retelling the beginning of the manga, New Initial D the Movie, animated by Sanzigen and Liden Films, was released from 2014 to 2016. A live action film by Avex and Media Asia was released in 2005. Several video games based on the series have also been released.

Both the manga and anime series were initially licensed for English-language distribution in North America by Tokyopop; the anime series later acquired by Funimation (later Crunchyroll), while the manga was re-licensed by Kodansha USA.

By April 2021, Initial D had over 55 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history.