Type S: Chiaki's Journey (or simply Chiaki's Journey) is a Animesque racing mini-series created by the car company Acura, partnered with the marketing agency MullenLowe Los Angeles, to promote their 2022 series of Type-S performance cars. Animation services were performed by The Line Animation.
The series follows a young driving protege named Chiaki (Romi Dames), who's itching to bring her rival Erich Kang (Steve Blum) down a peg. However, seeing Chiaki's impulsiveness as a detriment, her mechanic uncle Noboru (Daisuke Tsuji) offers to hone her skills through a brand new NSX Type S. With enough practice, she's determined to finally one-up Kang in a decisive race at The Official Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The series debuted on Thursday, January 20, 2022, at that year's Virtual Sundance Film Festival. Then, it became a recurring ad or on-demand viewing at a variety of movie venues and online platforms (such as Crunchyroll or IMDB). Acura's YouTube page has all four episodes in a playlist
. A second batch of shorts focusing on Chiaki's goal of climbing Pike's Peak would drop in April 2023, also collected in a playlist.
This show provides examples of:
- Animesque: The series is fashioned to appear as a throwback to 1980s-90s racing anime, such as Initial D, with liberal uses of Japanese writing and CG car animation. Even if one knew it was an ad, they would probably figure it was another visually elaborate one that comes out of Japan occasionally (Acura is a sub-brand of the Japanese auto company Honda, after all). However, it was produced by London-based studio The Line Animation.
- Action-Hogging Opening: The intro shows off Chiaki's new NSX Type S model zooming past her yellow TLX Type S opponents, with tight turns thrown in for added intensity.
- Badass Driver: The series makes it abundantly clear that Chiaki's a very skilled driver, It Runs in the Family.
- Cool Car: Being a car commercial, it's expected. Each season focuses on a different car Chiaki uses during races — The NSX Type S for Season 1, and the Integra Type S for Season 2.
- Driving Stick: As part of the advertising campaign for the model and the manual gearbox it comes with, the Integra Type S Chiaki drives in Season 2 is a stick. This proves useful when she races up Pike's Peak in the fourth episode.
- The End... Or Is It?: The series ends with a mysterious stranger, sporting a yellow TLX Type S, pulling up to Chiaki and Noboru as they're celebrating. He claims he wants to challenge as well, with a "The End?" ending card. As Season 2's focus shifts to both a new car and a new challenge, this isn't followed upon.
- Extremely Short Intro Sequence: The intro appropriately speeds by, clocking in at 10 seconds.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Upon passing the finish line, Chiaki exclaims "yatta!"note Furthermore, Japanese writing is used on posters and the title sequence.
- In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: The title screen contains the phrase "An Acura Series," in case you forgot who's backing this animation to promote their product.
