"Initial D" collaborates with "Ogiyahagi's Car History"

It has been announced that Shuichi Shigeno's popular manga "Initial D" will collaborate with the talk show "Ogiyahagi's Car History NO CAR, NO LIFE!" (BS Nippon TV, Saturday 9pm), hosted by the comedy duo "Ogiyahagi." The collaborative project, titled "Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the serialization! A collaboration with Initial D! Owners, come bring your cars!!," will air on August 23rd. Owners captivated by Initial D, which is themed around mountain road racing, will introduce their beloved cars, which are their own recreations of the machines that appear in the original work. Keiichi Tsuchiya, the "Drift King," who also supervised the anime adaptation of the work, will appear as a commentator and delve deeper into their passions.

"Initial D" is a manga that follows Takumi Fujiwara, who used to help out with deliveries for his family's tofu shop, as he becomes a street racer in an AE86. It was serialized in "Young Magazine" (Kodansha) from 1995 to 2013. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the serialization, and a commemorative event will be held at Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka on September 13th and 14th. Even now that the serialization has ended, the popular series has many loyal fans, and the program's assistant, automotive journalist Yuko Imai, said, "I pretended to be stupid and asked a certain big content company to collaborate," explaining that it was a no-brainer plan, but to her surprise, they agreed, making this dream collaboration a reality.

The program will feature four lovingly tuned cars by their owners, who are huge fans of the original work. The show will also feature the protagonist Takumi Fujiwara's beloved Toyota Sprinter Trueno (commonly known as the Hachiroku), Keisuke Takahashi's Mazda Anfini RX-7, the older brother of the Takahashi brothers, Ryosuke's Mazda Savanna RX-7, and a replica of Takeshi Nakazato's Nissan Skyline GT-R.

The owner of the Mazda Savanna RX-7 is a former cosplayer and one-piece girl who previously had no knowledge of cars. She was recommended to read "Initial D" by an anime friend and became obsessed with it, which drew her into the world of cars. In fact, this car has a deep connection to the live-action movie, a surprising fact she discovered after purchasing it.