Initial D (頭文字D, Inisharu Dī?) is a manga by Shuichi Shigeno which has been serialized in Kodansha’s Young since 1995. It has been adapted into an anime series by Avex and a live-action film by Avex and Media Asia.
The anime and manga focus on the world of illegal japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes (called Tōge) and never in cities nor urban areas, and the drift racing style is emphasized in particular. Keiichi Tsuchiya helps with editorial supervision. The story is centered around the Japanese prefecture of Gunma, more specifically on several mountains in the prefecture and in and 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 Gunma Prefecture.
The music used in the anime is mostly Eurobeat.
