"A car driven by a street racer who is at the level where he can maneuver it as easily as his hands and feet has an aura about it. Ryosuke Takahashi's driving has a strong aura. His brother Keisuke's aura is still weak. But that Eight-Six was emitting a strong aura. If he represents Akina, then the winner is still up in the air."
— Takeshi Nakazato
Takumi Fujiwara is an average eighteen-year-old in living in 1990s Gunma Prefecture, with an average part-time job as a gas station attendant and a not-so-average hand in his family's tofu business. Ever since he was thirteen — five years before he was even qualified for a driver's license — he has been helping out his father Bunta by delivering tofu on the latter's Toyota Sprinter Trueno (AE86) to a hotel at the summit of Mt. Akina every morning at 4:00 AM, but with a challenge: he must negotiate the slopes and curves without spilling a drop of water from a cup placed on the dashboard. Otherwise, the tofu would be ruined.
Naturally, his secretly-instilled skills didn't go unnoticed by the Japanese street racing underground. When the local racing team, the Speed Stars, get a challenge from the infamous RedSuns led by Takahashi brothers Keisuke and Ryosuke — the former whom Takumi met the night before — the team had to take him in as replacement for their currently-injured main driver.
Before he knows it, Takumi is quickly, and unwillingly, plunged into a high-speed world of white-knuckle contests on the most dangerous mountain passes (touge) in Japan. Assisted by the Speed Stars, his slightly obnoxious friend Itsuki Takeuchi, his good-hearted yet somewhat shady girlfriend Natsuki Mogi, and the sage-like words of Bunta, himself a retired ace drifter, Takumi will need all the help he can get to outwit and outmaneuver the most talented underground drifters in Gunma and the Kantō region as a whole, making his way to the top of the heap.
Initial D is a long-running manga series (1995-2013) created by Shuichi Shigeno, with a series of Animated Adaptations called "Stages." The focus is on the Japanese drift-racing underground, and as such, has acted as an anime Gateway Series for western car enthusiasts, and vice-versa. The anime is also famous for its blatant use of CG during its racing scenes, making for a fountain of references in several other anime.
In North America, both the manga and anime were originally licensed by Tokyopop, whose alterations of the source material became controversial among the fans. When Tokypop USA imploded in 2011, Funimation picked up the rights to the anime; they carry the first four Stages, as well as the first Extra Stage OVA set. They also created a more accurate English dub, just as they had with One Piece. You can stream those episodes on their website, dubbed or subbed, for free here
- if you happen to live in the United States or Canada.
Early parts of the manga were remade into a three part anime film series called New Initial D The Movie with an all new cast of voice actors. The first movie Legend 1: Awakening was released in August 23rd, 2014, the second movie Legend 2: Racer was released on May 23rd, 2015 and third movie Legend 3: Dream was released in February 6th, 2016.
A live-action movie based on Initial D was released in 2005 with actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan being casted. Plans for a sequel are in Development Hell, in part because of budget concerns, debates on using actual vehicles instead of CGIs and some of the directors attached doing other TV/film projects.
There are also numerous video game adaptations of the material, notably the Initial D Arcade Stage series, which brought the competitive arcade racing scene to life.
In 2017, Shuichi Shigeno began working on a new racing manga called MF Ghost, the first chapter of which being released on September 4th, 2017. Set in the same universe, it is a Sequel to Initial D, with Ryosuke Takahashi being the founder of the MFG League and describing it as the next step in Project D, while Takumi is the main character's teacher.
Compare and contrast with Wangan Midnight and REDLINE. See also The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift which glenned some inspiration from this series (ironically the movie came out the following year after the live action film did). Not to be confused with the Will of D.
Tropes pertaining to the Initial D anime/manga with multiple examples include:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The anime adaptation is well known for employing this technique, as it usually turns up in parodies through blatant Art Shift. The effect is most notable in First Stage, as CGI technology was less developed and more expensive in the late '90s and early 2000s.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Bunta Fujiwara's Subaru Impreza WRX STi is supposed to be painted "Cool Gray Metallic", just like Shigeno's own Impreza. It appears as such in the manga, the first 3 versions of Arcade Stage, and the Sony PlayStation 2 port Special Stage. When the car made its anime debut in Fourth Stage, the Impreza was painted in "Sonic Blue Mica", and said color became the default paint job for the vehicle in subsequent appearances. The same trope also affects Kozo "God Foot" Hoshino's Skyline GT-R R34, which was originally blue in manga but appeared in Millenium Jade Metallic color (complete with V-Spec II Nur trim as opposed to the regular V-Spec II) in Fourth Stage and Arcade Stage games
- Adapted Out:
- The anime left out several elements from the manga, such as the identity of the one behind the letter to Takumi warning him of Natsuki's "practices", the race between Seiji and Keisuke in Second Stage, and every one of Keisuke's races in the first half of Fourth Stage. The battles were later shown in the first and second Battle Stage specials.
- The live-action movie is very guilty of this, with Keisuke, Iketani, and Kenji all removed from the story.
- All Love Is Unrequited:
- Iketani and Mako Sato have very apparent mutual crushes on one another, but due to a series of mixed messages, mistakes, and bad luck from both parties, they are convinced the other hates them. Extra Stage 2 put the final nail in the coffin to any hope of romance between them: although they managed to finally clear up all misunderstandings, Mako reveals she received an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a professional racer in Tokyo. Ultimately, Iketani decides against confessing his true feelings for her, as he fears he'd only end up being an hindrance to Mako's career..
- In Second Stage, Itsuki goes through his First Love after meeting Kazumi, who hails from Saitama and moved to Gunma to work with her aunt, forming a friendship with her after clearing up a misunderstanding. It doesn't take long for her to get wrongly framed for a wrongdoing by a senior worker, prompting her to request to spend the night with Itsuki to avoid facing her aunt's wrath. Naturally, this leads to her family freaking out over her absence, and demanding her to return home to Saitama, forcing her to part ways with Itsuki, who can't muster the courage to confess his love for her. The two meet again in Fourth Stage, when Itsuki and company travel to Saitama to root for Takumi's race against Northern Saitama Alliance, given how Kazumi's brother Wataru is part of said Alliance. The two begin going out after said race, and it looks like they will actually get together this time, especially as it's revealed that Kazumi is trying to avoid her ex-boyfriend, an older man who can't get over their break-up. Unfortunately, just as she is about to confess to Itsuki that she wishes to be with him, to avoid her ex, Wataru arrives in the scene after tracking her down, with Kazumi's ex on the passenger seat. Kazumi's ex successfully convinces her to return to his arms, leaving poor Itsuki paralyzed in denial and disbelief.
- Fourth Stage also features Kyoko Iwase, who falls head-over-heels for Keisuke, having admired him long before Project D was even founded. Keisuke, however, maintains from the beginning that he doesn't have time for girls, as he believes that love will only slow him down and distract him from racing. Like with Itsuki, toward the end of the Stage, things seem like they will work out for Kyoko, as Keisuke invites her to spend a day together going out, visiting a large mall, and eating together. However, it was actually an attempt from Keisuke to soften the blow on Kyoko when he makes it clear - although in a kinder way - that he doesn't want to be in a relationship with her, since he really wouldn't be able to make time for her, as he requires maximum concentration to excel in his races. It doesn't work.
- Takumi with Natsuki is one of the few relationships in the entire series to work flawlessy, or at least until Takumi learns Natsuki is engaged in compensated dating. This essentially broke them up in all but name, in spite of Natsuki's attempts to fix the situation. The issue is rendered moot when they graduate from high school at the end of Third Stage, however, as she goes to study university in Tokyo while Takumi joins Project D. It is hinted that Takumi forgave Natsuki in the end of Third Stage.
- Anachronism Stew:
- The series began in 1995 and takes place in the then-present day (stated in the manga as 199X to allow vehicles up to 1999, which many of them are on the cusp of). As the series continued, despite two or three years passing at most, cars from the early to mid-2000s start showing up, not just as background fluff that the untrained eye wouldn't notice, but as actual racing machines, such as the 350Z and the Evo VII.note Technology improves at a similar pace, with the racers' timekeepers going from handheld radios to smartphones and laptops.
- The most egregious example by far is the cameo of the 2012 Toyota 86 in the ending of the anime.
- With the New Initial D movie, this is even more obvious as more modern cars and technology appear in the background, including 5th Generation HiAcesnote replacing the older HiAces as support vans for the RedSuns, and Ryosuke's computer having a flatscreen monitor while they all still use 199X era cars.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Circuit and professional racers generally look down upon mountain racers as amateurs trying to imitate them and refuse to acknowledge that touge requires its own special racing techniques.
- Art Evolution: The CGI gets better with each new Stage. The characters themselves evolve, looking more realistic on-screen, especially with characters such as Itsuki (he originally had constant googley-eyes and a squiggly line for a nose).
- Art Shift: In the manga, drivers' faces get closer to a more down-to-earth look during a race; even the out-of-driver's-seat drawings tend to be more realistic than the usual manga.
- Artistic License – Cars:
- Contrary to what this series claims, drifting through corners is not practical. In real life, the only characters who would actually be seen as competent in proper races are Nakazato and the Grim Reaper, who favor grip-style cornering over the series' iconic drifting. Nakazato is correct when he says that drifting is Cool, but Inefficient; in real life motorsport, drifting is primarily done as a showmanship technique because it not only wears down tires rapidly but isn't really more effective at cornering than simply just gripping one's way around it. Only exception to this rule is Rallying where lower grip surfaces, such as ice and gravel, are a common sight and drifting through them is often faster. But even in rally, many top-tier rally drivers, such as Tommi Mäkinen and Sébastien Loeb have preferred a grippy driving style.
- In Fifth Stage, Takumi races against an Eunos Roadsternote NB with a large spoiler. It's stated that the car has an unstable balance at high speeds, and that the spoiler is there to nullify that weakness. Indeed, Takumi defeats it by cornering the driver into grazing the spoiler against a wall, damaging it and causing the car to spin out of control. In reality, the Roadster has a perfect 50/50 balance, and the weakness was invented specifically for this race - especially because Takumi already raced a Roadster NA in the beginning of Fourth Stage that lacked a spoiler, where the weakness was never mentioned.
- Badass Driver:
- The series is full of these - Ryosuke, Mako Sato, Shingo, Tomoyuki, God Arm, God Foot, Kai, Shinji, The Grim Reaper, and many more. However, Takumi and Keisuke deserve special mention.
- Takumi has such complete control over his car that he can get within a centimeter of the railing while drifting, and drift his car uphill while managing to not spill the water in a paper cup 3/4 full. The reason he developed these skills? His father made him drive up and down Mount Akina every day for five years, and the trip was so boring he tried to do it as quick as possible. By Fifth Stage, his skill is so tremendous that he has developed a technique that not even Ryosuke can understand how it works. He simply dubs it the "Fujiwara Zone".
- Keisuke is implied to be as good as Takumi by the end of the series; at one point Keisuke responds to an opponent accusing him of trying to cause a crash by running side by side by rattling off the dimensions of their car and saying that he had judged they had about 5 centimeters to spare. Takumi comments multiple times that he's glad Keisuke is on his side post-Fourth Stage, as he is downright afraid of Keisuke's skills and determination.
- However, despite that, Bunta◊ at one point demonstrates that he's the real king of the touge in an incomparable class of his own, by easily passing Takumi (post-Project D training, no less) while test driving the Impreza in Fourth Stage. And, because it deserves mentioning, Bunta at one point lights a cigarette while in a full-speed four-wheel drift.
- The series is full of these - Ryosuke, Mako Sato, Shingo, Tomoyuki, God Arm, God Foot, Kai, Shinji, The Grim Reaper, and many more. However, Takumi and Keisuke deserve special mention.
- Batman Gambit: In their race down Mt. Akina, Ryosuke knows he likely can't beat Takumi on a course he's so familiar with, but he also knows that the newbie is probably not used to the psychological pressure of a real opponent yet. He attacks by mimicking Takumi's movements to keep their cars dangerously close together, hoping the pressure will cause him to slip up. It works, and he's able to take the lead, albeit temporarily.
- Battle Aura: Post-Second Stage, with the exception of Third Stage. Foreshadowed by Takeshi Nakazato on the second battle between Takumi and Keisuke, as seen on the page quote.
- Back for the Finale: Nearly every named driver introduced in the story (with the exception of the Northern Saitama Alliance and the Purple Shadow duo) come back to watch the Project D vs. Sidewinder battle in the series' Grand Finale.
- Berserk Button:
- Don't be a misogynist in front of Mako Sato and Sayuki, both Action Girls in the contrasting spectrum - the latter will chew you out verbally, the former will leave you in the dust with her Sileighty, and they'll be very feminine and classy while doing it.
- Badmouth his friends or abuse his girlfriend, and Takumi will give you hell for it. Be it punching your lights out, or pressuring you until you crash in an impromptu downhill race. Make sure you don't bump his car, either.
- Bland-Name Product:
- The car brand "Trueno" (in the front of the Fujiwara's AE86) is spelled as "Toreno" in First Stage, until Toyota allowed the use of the actual product name.
- There's also "Nisino", "Missan"; even "Dunlop" in Fourth Stage becomes "Danrep".
- In Fifth Stage, "Trust" and "HKS", two famous Japanese tuning companies, become "Trest" and "NKS".
- In Final Stage, an AE86 with a surprisingly true-to-life rally livery◊ is manufactured by "Toyoda" and tuned by "TRE" ("TRD", short for "Toyota Racing Development") and "Advam" ("Advan", a high performance tire/wheel company), which is odd due to the free use of Toyota for well over a decade, including other scenes from previous Stages with AE86s.
- Book Ends:
- The beginning and end of the manga shows Takumi Fujiwara racing alone in the Gunma prefecture on Mount Akina. Likewise, the beginning of First Stage shows Takumi in his AE86 drive past Yuuichi's Toyota Chaser, while in the end of the Final Stage, a new Toyota 86 note drives past him while delivering tofu in his father's Impreza.
- On a larger scale, the plot itself has Book Ends. Both First Stage and Final Stage feature a young man who has been driving the local mountain pass every night for many years for reasons unrelated to racing. This young man is asked by the local racers to help defeat an invading team headed by Ryousuke Takahashi that has been going around conquering all the courses in the area. He does not see the appeal at first, as he does not realize how fast he truly is. However, he hesitantly accepts, and drives the course as he would normally. During the course of the battle, he gets fired up due to being challenged for the first time. Ryosuke then expresses interest in recruiting him for Project D.
- Brick Joke: In the first episode, Takumi spends his entire ride up the mountain with Iketaki screaming in terror; it's implied that he's terrified of Iketaki's amateurish and dangerous driving style. When they're at the top, both Iketani and Itsuki make fun of him for it. Five episodes later, after it's revealed Takumi is one of the best drivers in the cast, Iketani asks him for a ride-along on the downhill. Not only does he react the same way Takumi did in episode 1, he actually passes out by the third turn.
- Calling Your Attacks: From Fourth Stage, courtesy of the gray Silvia S15 driver: "EXTREME SUPER ULTRA LATE BRAKING!!!" It fails. Humorously so.
- Car Porn: Every car is given a tremendous amount of detail, and narration of its traits, strengths and weaknesses.
- Character Development: Takumi goes from an apathetic and clueless tofu delivery guy, who relies on raw instinct, to a hardened, analytical street racer who knows when and how to use tactics. Natsuki realizes that Enjo Kosai isn't the best way to go for her and does her best to get out. Shingo stops being a Jerkass who fights dirty to win. Itsuki goes through his First Love in Second Stage and Fourth Stage, whilst improving his car and skills. Keisuke learns how to better manage his impulsivity and keep his emotions under control, while finally managing to get out of his brother's shadow. And lastly, Ryosuke gets over his suppressed-yet-present anguish over Kaori's suicide years ago, becoming less cold and apathetic, and happier and more emotional in the process.
- Cool Old Guy: Bunta Fujiwara, Dr. Toshiya "God Hand" Joshima and Kozo "God Foot" Hoshino. All three are the oldest known top-tier racers in the series, and nobody has explicitly beaten Bunta.
- Combat Commentator: Takeshi Nakazato covers most of First Stage and Second Stage along with Ryosuke. The latter continues commentary through Fifth Stage, though Daisuke Ninomiya and "Smiley" Sakai commentate in Fourth Stage after their defeat by Project D. In Fifth Stage, Team Sidewinder's Hojo Go and Eiji Kubo replace Ninomiya and Smiley. In the final race, nearly all of Project D's old opponents as well as everyone from Gunma - including the Night Kids, Impact Blue and the Speed Stars - come back to watch and commentate on the race.
- Cult Soundtrack: The high-energy Eurobeat soundtrack they used for the anime has become so famous that the entire genre has practically become
synonymous with Initial D. - Cultural Translation:
- The first English dub from Tokyopop had all kinds of special effects added to it, and threw out the Eurobeat soundtrack in favor of rap. This didn't sit very well with purists of the series, and for good reason. The justification behind this was Tokyopop was only going to change the music for the TV broadcast in order to introduce up and coming new artists, but the original music would be retained in the subtitled version (or something like that).They did avoid flipping the transparancies for the manga reading left-to-right, which would've yielded the "bonus" of all the cars being driven on the left side of the road and moving on the right side (well, mostly), likely because it would also have resulted in the gas pedal being on the left.
- Darker and Edgier: General tone-wise, while the anime and manga can have some dark elements around it, the Legend anime film series is a darker retelling of the first parts, while retaining general humor as well. The films also feature more-serious rock music instead of more-upbeat Eurobeat music.
- Defeat Means Friendship: While there's several racers who take their losses badly - shout-out to the Tsuchisaka Lan Evo Team, who hired a bosozoku gang to kill the Project D team after losing to them - there's more than a handful of racers who either took their losses gracefully, or softened up and became better people over it.
- Dramatic Irony: Bunta makes it a point during Second Stage several times that the Trueno's original engine is close to the end of its life, a fact that he decidedly does not tell Takumi because he plans for the engine to go out on purpose, so Takumi can better appreciate the planned engine swap. As Takumi goes on to race against Kyoichi unaware that the Trueno's 4AGE engine is about to blow, the race is interspersed with shots of the Trueno's engine, and Bunta's commentary on the soon-to-be-gone engine and the engine swap.
- The Dreaded: The Grim Reaper. Known for his black GT-R R32, he prowls the mountain passes of Kanagawa every night, challenging any racer he finds. He earned his nickname thanks to his highly-aggressive driving tactics, using his GT-R's heavy weight and all-wheel drive system to bump, hit, and shunt racers off the course and presumably to their deaths. However, while he is highly feared in Kanagawa, the setting for most of Fifth Stage, he is commonly regarded as just a myth in other prefectures.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Many races early on are conducted in the conventional "point A to point B" format, but starting in Fourth Stage, races adapted the "cat and mouse" format where the two drivers go back and forth across the route until the current leader wins by pulling away or the current chaser wins by overtaking the leader. (One race in First Stage uses this as well, but it's sandwiched between a number of races that use the former format. Second Stage does cat-and-mouse for its finale, before going back to two last point-to-point races in Third Stage.) This allows for later arcs to better justify why a single race takes two entire episodes when most of the courses can be done in about 5 minutes going one way.
- Enemy Mine: When Team Emperor begins its effortless conquest of Gunma in Second Stage, stealing and gutting the stickers of crews they defeat, several crews from Gunma put their rivalries aside and root for each other to defeat Emperor. This is especially notable in the final race between Emperor and the RedSuns, the last team remaining for the former to challenge. Everyone from Gunma, even bitter rivals of the RedSuns, are desperately rooting for them to win.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- In First Stage, Shingo is introduced to viewers while he goads and pretty much directly forces Iketani into an impromptu mountain race match by repeatedly aggressively rear-ending Iketani's S13, while he was in the middle of practicing. He then proceeds to win the match by ramming Iketani in the middle of a corner, causing him to spin out of control and nearly crash. Then as if that wasn't enough, Shingo proceeds to mock Iketani for driving an FRnote car due to their low stability in corners compared to FFnote cars, like his Civic EG6.
- Establishing Series Moment: The first minute or so of the anime does an excellent job of establishing what to expect. It starts with some nighttime shots of a mountain pass and the sound of tires squealing in the distance. What sounds like a typical pop song begins to play. Then the AE86 makes its appearance in all its CG glory, with the speedometer reading almost 130 kph, and the BGM abruptly shifts to the iconic synth tones of Eurobeat. From there, the 86 goes through several tight, high-speed drifts, while another driver remarks on how normal this is.
- Fanservice: Some fans complained this was the whole point of Extra Stage.
- Feuding Families: Between the Fujiwaras and the Kogashiwas, though it seems to mostly come from the latter.
- Foreshadowing: After spinning out and losing the race in Third Stage, Koshigawa Kai asks Takumi "Why don't we race again someday?". They meet again in Fifth Stage, where Kai once again loses after spinning out.
- Gratuitous English: "COOOOOOOOOOOOL!", "Thank you!", and "Don't miss it!", just to name a few examples.
- Graceful Loser:
- Quite a few racers are pretty accepting of their defeats. Of note is Kyoichi Sudo, who ties with Takumi, but considers a draw on his home course a victory for the visitor.
- Even Shingo takes his defeat against Takumi well, despite his car scraping against the guardrail and hitting a bump so severe he spins out and hits the guardrail a second time in a failed attempt to ram Takumi off the mountain pass.
- Hell Is That Noise: While riding in the back of Takumi's car during the rainy battle in First Stage, Itsuki quickly comes to feel this way about speed warning chime in the 86. Not because it's annoying, but rather because it emphasizes just how terrifyingly fast Takumi is driving.
- Hollywood Darkness: After First Stage, even at night with sparse lighting in the mountains, the interior shots of the drivers are almost always well lit, with nary a shadow passing over the interior. From Fourth Stage on, there is a noticeable blue tint in race scenes where there should have been darkness. Justified, of course, because otherwise, audiences wouldn't be able to see anything going on during a race.
- Insistent Terminology: Amongst racers, you don't say "turns" or "curves", you say "corners", as Itsuki bluntly explains to Takumi early on in the series. And you don't "race" against opponents, you battle them.
- Irony: The song "Night of Fire" plays in the middle of a race in the rain. The song itself even has samples of rain noises in it.
- It's Always Spring:
- Averted; Every stage takes place during a different season. First Stage and Second Stage are set in summer; Third Stage is set in fall and winter; Fourth Stage is set in spring, and beginning of summer; Fifth Stage and Final Stage are set in summer.
- An interesting thing to note is that, from Third Stage onward, every season has caused a hazard that served as an obstacle in a street race. Third Stage's autumn causes piles of leaves on the road, which is a prime danger for spinning out; its winter makes racing extremely dangerous. Fourth Stage's spring invites waves of torrential rain that severely decrease grip and visibility. Fourth Stage and Fifth Stage's summer causes dehydration and discomfort, which impairs concentration during a race.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Keisuke Takahashi. At one point in Fourth Stage, he spots his prospective opponent broken down by the side of the road. He pulls over, berates and insults her for not realizing something was wrong sooner, says he wouldn't want to race someone so "sloppy", and drives off... then returns a little while later with a full parts van to fix the car for her.
- Kill the Lights: Takumi will sometimes turn off his headlights in the middle of a race (which are always held at night) when overtaking his opponents. This serves to both prevent his opponents from blocking his approach and to freak them the hell out.
- Last Episode Theme Reprise: Downplayed with the usage of m.o.v.e's "Rage your Dream" (the Ending theme from First Stage), as the background end credits theme for Final Stage.
- Leitmotif: Heavily used in First Stage, where every racer has a recognizably different theme that plays when they're racing seriously, usually relevant to their personality. For example, Awesomeness by Analysis driver Ryosuke has a theme featuring the sound of keyboard-buttons and dot-matrix printouts combined with an electronic voice, while ruthless Jerkass Shingo has a theme that opens with an Evil Laugh. In later Stages, this is mostly dropped in favor of a more generic Eurobeat soundtrack, but is still present here and there, notably with Hoshino of the Purple Shadow in Fourth Stage, whose theme is a remix of Takeshi's from First Stage, due to the same type of car he drives (a Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 to Takeshi's Nissan Skyline GT-R R32). This is also notable with The Grim Reaper, whose Nightmare Fuel-inducing driving style and Dark Is Evil aesthetics match well with a theme featuring an Ominous Pipe Organ.
- Left the Background Music On: Happens frequently, particularly during the first couple of Stages. A scene-cut will leave the music playing on somebody's car stereo or radio, or the other way around.
- Limit Break: In Final Stage, when turning on his car's lights after doing his signature blind attack, Takumi realizes he's been accidentally revving his engine past 12,000 rpm, whereas said engine is capable of only 11,000 rpm. As a result, the engine explodes while in the last corner. However, the extra revs let Takumi squeak just ahead of Shinji, and he used his previous experience of handling mid-race engine failures in Second Stage to guide his broken-down car to victory.
- Limited Wardrobe. In First Stage. Averted afterwards, especially as the next few Stages take place in colder seasons.
- Medium Blending: With the live-action automotive series Best Motoring. An early episode has the Speed Stars watching a segment from Keiichi Tsuchiya's Drift Bible, referring to the advertisement for the original Japanese release of it in the last pages of the first volume of the manga. Second Stage also includes clips from the series.
- Meaningful Name: The "D" in Project D, as revealed by Ryosuke in the epilogue of Final Stage: "Dream", particularly his dream of training up-and-coming-street racers into proper professionals. This also means the series' name has an actual meaning rather than being a Word Salad Title: Initial Dream, befitting Takumi at first being an apathetic tofu deliveryman with no real ambition, but finding his first real dream after delving into the street racing scene.
- Meet Cute: Right after meeting and identifying Takumi, Mika gives him a full-swing slap to the face because a fake Takumi had taken advantage of Mika's friend Tomoko. They begin dating after Mika realizes she slapped the wrong person and she apologizes to the real Takumi.
- Mirror Match: What Takumi's battle with Shinji in Final Stage essentially boils down to. Shinji drives an AE86 Trueno, and has been driving the pass every night for many years, to the point of mastery. Like Takumi, he doesn't see the appeal in racing at first, and like Takumi, he has to be persuaded to participate by the local racers. In short, Takumi is up against himself from the start of the series.
- No Ending: In Final Stage, while there is a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, it does not give resolution to several plot arcs, which are deliberately Left Hanging. Among the ambiguous outcomes are what happens to Shinji, the Speed Stars, and whether Takumi and Mika make the Relationship Upgrade or not. Fortunately, the sequel, MF Ghost, helps answering some questions about what happened after Initial D, but there are still too many questions left unanswered.
- Only Six Faces:
- Fifth Stage really took this direction, as all characters begin looking more and more like Takumi, including Mika◊.
- In most of their appearances, such as the original manga, Mako and Sayuki looked nearly identical, with the latter having a somewhat more rounded jawline (as well as certain other parts). Final Stage made them look less like twins, but also switched their head shapes around.
- Fifth Stage really took this direction, as all characters begin looking more and more like Takumi, including Mika
- On The Next Episode Of Catchphrase: "Don't Miss It!", although it doesn't happen in episode two of First Stage (it appears in all subsequent episodes). Next Episode previews disappeared from Fourth Stage on, but Previous Episode recaps came back in Fifth Stage and Final Stage.
- Opposing Sports Team:
- Deliberately invoked by Ryosuke for Project D; he intends to "play the part of a hated villain" to make their opponents more competitive. This also has caused multiple racing teams in Fourth Stage to be surprised and confused by Project D's team being so organized, but more importantly, so polite, as their webpage and issued challenges often makes their opponents expect them to be loud-mouthed brats with no real skill.
- The politeness of the Project D team is so unexpected, that it even led God Foot, one of the two most skilled drivers of Purple Shadow, the most skilled team dueled in Fourth Stage, to willingly handicap himself in his race against Keisuke, by proposing another course that favours Keisuke's FD.How? It's a good thing for Keisuke that God Foot did that, too, because even with the handicap, he puts up a very tough fight.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Takumi, Itsuki and Natsuki in the first three stages. Mika Uehara in Fifth Stage.
- Police Are Useless: The police don't even appear in the series until Fifth Stage. And even then, they're present only as background traffic vehicles while the main characters are driving legally in a city or highway. Justified, if barely, as the police can't be everywhere at once, and focusing their attention on the tightly-packed cities and other populated areas is both easier and wiser than on the long, sparse and desolate mountain passes, with little traffic that could be endangered in the middle of the night - especially as most street racers worth their salt would check to see if the roads are clear before racing.
- Previously on…: Every episode after the first of every TV season except Fourth Stage spent between 90 seconds and 3 minutes after the opening to recap the end of the previous episode.
- Rule of Cool: Viewers can expect semi-accurate car designs, but don't expect semi-accurate physics, despite the realistic logic behind the races. (Yes, inertial drift is a real thing)
- Schematized Prop: Nearly all of the races have characters describe to great detail all the traits and characteristics of cars Takumi - and later Keisuke - are facing off against, usually diving deep into Car Porn territory. It's also often visually used to showcase the inworks of cars while racing, usually those of the main characters. Played for Drama in Second Stage and Final Stage, as both of these were used to show Takumi's AE86's engine being strained to the breaking point, moments before it exploded.
- Secret Legacy: Just like Bunta used to be a highly-skilled professional racer in the past, Takumi is quickly taking after him and his skills, culminating in him becoming a professional WRC racer prior to retirement, as seen in MF Ghost. The same case is true for retired professional racer Ken Kogashiwa and his son Kai, both of them being rivals of the Fujiwaras. Likewise, Shinji's exceptional driving skills mirror how his deceased father used to be a rally racer.
- Smoking Is Cool: In the First and Second Stages of the anime, Bunta and virtually every racer except Takumi and Mako smoked. Almost every episode featured a shot of someone smoking, occasionally coupled with a shot of them throwing the cigarette on the ground and stomping on it. From Third Stage onwards, smoking was shown much less; it was mostly just Bunta at that point.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: A good chunk of the eurobeat tracks are songs about love, heartbreak, or sex, even though most of the scenes they play in don't have chemistry involved. In other words, Takumi has an exciting race through the mountain pass while a song about how "love is in danger, it is gonna die" plays in the background.
- Stealth Pun: An auditory one in the Funimation dub of episode 24 in First Stage "Akagi's White Comet"; during the sequence when Bunta lights up a cigarette in the middle of a drift, you can hear a few bars of the song "Look Away, Dixieland". It's funny because he's not looking at the road.
- Those Two Guys: They're from Tokyo, driving an S15, though they get walloped by Takumi driving Itsuki's Eight-Five.
- Training from Hell:
- Every day since he was thirteen, Bunta sends Takumi on a tofu delivery run up Mount Akina to a hotel near a lake at 4 in the morning (regardless of the weather), and without spilling a single drop of water in the cup holder; the idea being that if the water spills, the box of tofu he's delivering in the trunk will get damaged. This is physically impossible in Real Life, but Takumi does it anyways.
- After Project D is established, Ryosuke forces his brother to do runs up and down Mount Akagi, while trying to exactly match the time assigned to him — without a timer.
- Trickster Mentor
- Bunta planned for the stock engine in the AE86 to be used to its limit, so that Takumi will be forced to accept the engine swap his father had prepared for the Trueno.
- By the time Project D is founded, Ryosuke plays the same role, even while Bunta's mentoring becomes even trickier.
- Victor Steals Insignia: Seiji Iwaki does this to teams defeated by Emperor in Second Stage. He demands their stickers, then cuts them in half and places them upside down on his Lancer Evo's spoiler. He claims he does so in reminiscence of fighter pilots who'd tally their kills on their planes' chassis.
- Victory by Endurance: Starting from Fourth Stage, the winner is no longer considered after just one run. Instead, the winner is conceived based on "cat and mouse" rules, where the cat wins by passing the mouse or the mouse wins by losing the cat. While some battles ended quickly based on technique, few notable battle take up more than just one or two runs. Notable examples are Takumi vs Wataru, and Takumi vs Joshima.note
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Takeshi and Shingo, who right until the end try to stay spaced apart from each other to avoid giving off the impression of being good friends.
- Wax On, Wax Off: Bunta's tofu delivery runs for his son are training for his road racing ability. This is not known to Takumi until a few episodes/chapters into the series, at which point he had been performing deliveries for five years.
- What a Piece of Junk: Woe to the racer who underestimates the AE86.
